Shanee Ben-Zur

This morning  Social Media Today  published 6 tips for B2B bloggers.  They’re pretty general, but not a bad start for folks who want to kick off a corporate blogging plan. Looking at the tips I was happy to see that NVIDIA (where I work) is right on track.  We have room to grow of course (who doesn’t) but we’ve gotten a handle on the basics and are building off of a solid foundation.  Here are the 6 tips from Social Media Today with some of my own comments. Be sure to check the original post for the author’s descriptions:

I'm serious AND a blogger. Image Courtesy of: RogerImp on Flickr

1. Empower Employees – At NVIDIA we’ve kicked off a series on our blog called “Inner Geek” which highlights NVIDIA employees’ passion for technology and how it factors into their personal lives.   We’ve opened up the series to the whole company and are actively taking submissions from anyone who wants to share an anecdote.  Lots of good feedback so far, internally – I hope to see this series grow.

2. Share Your Policy – We recently established and published our official Social Media Guidelines. It’s really a great feeling to have this, and a must for any large company. People are talking online. Period. These guidelines just help set up a framework so that employees can do that in a constructive way.  If you look at many of the other social media policies, you might think, “Well this is just common sense.”  And, you’re right, but for a lot of folks it helps to have this common sense written down so that there’s no confusion. It also lets employees know that you are monitoring their activity and that what they say can make an impact. Essentially it spurs a heightened sense of awareness for employees before they engage online.

3. Enable Comments – Otherwise, what’s the point?

4. Invite Guest Contributors – We’ve invited journalist and blogger, Steve Wildstrom to the NVIDIA Blog. He initially began contributing to the blog with coverage from CES, but his role has evolved and now he helps pen entries for a series called “The World Isn’t Flat, It’s Parallel” which is about the GPU’s importance and the future of parallel processing.  We’ve also had contributed posts from partners, and will continue the practice. It’s nice sometimes to get out of your own world, and invite a third party’s perspective.  It’s beneficial for your audience and also in relationship-building with the folks who are contributing.

5. Establish an Editorial Calendar – For me, this calendar has been most useful in identifying where gaps are.  Sure, there will be last minute posts that come down the pike, but you really need a baseline of pre-scheduled content to ensure that you’re giving readers a steady stream of posts to consume.  Out of sight, out of mind holds very true for blogs.  It’s also helpful for when there are big content bursts, and you want to ensure authors can see when potentially competing content is going live.

6. Be Interesting – This one is kind of funny, but I guess it’s worth mentioning. It’s also the most difficult to achieve. It reminds me of what my parents used to say when I was in school…while all the other kids’ parents said “Oh, Billy as long as you try your best that’s good enough for us”, my parents said, “Don’t try to get an A, just do it.”    So, just do it.  Be interesting in your blog posts, and really try to think “If I wasn’t on the payroll, would I want to read this?” Some posts will obviously be more interesting than others, but as long as you’re able to deliver some value to a reader, you’re in good shape. And, my own rule of thumb is this: If after reading a post you hear a voice in your head saying,  “Buuuut WAIT, there’s MORE!” or “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!” then you need to reel back the marketing lingo

I know there are tons more tips, so don’t be shy, drop yours in the comments.