The tips come courtesy of Rachel McAlpine, Director of Contented, a company focusing on better business writing on the Web and intranet.
I think they’re very useful, but feel free to add your own!
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TIPS FOR BUSINESS BLOGGERS
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We have been developing some new courses, among them one
on strategic blogging. We’d like to share a few tips.
1. Don’t start unless you were born to blog or need to blog. Very few people can keep up the pace month after month, year after year, having something original to say, something worth saying. (However, a competent and persistent blogger can have fun and influence people.)
2. Think first about strategy: what do you hope to achieve with this blog? Focus sharply. Explain your angle or topic in your tagline or description.
3. Follow your organization’s guidelines — or create them!
4. Focus every blog post on a single topic: it’s not a newsletter.
5. Be useful, be fearless or both. Simply being useful is a worthwhile goal.
6. Ask your blogging buddy to check each post, and stop you from being too personal, leaking company secrets
or breaking the law.
7. Use plain English and a conversational style.
8. Link to others and give them credit for ideas.
