How to Start Blogging as an Organization

Blogging, who even does that anymore, right? Well, we’ll let the numbers speak for themselves:

Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website (via Bussiness2Community).
Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI (via HubSpot).
Almost 50 percent of people voluntarily seek out blogs more than once a day (via Business2Community).

You can’t beat those stats. Ideally, every organization should be blogging because it forces the company to keep its audience updated on new trends and developments in its particular industry. It also sets up consistent communication between organization and audience, boosts SEO and Google rankings, AND creates content to curate on social media.

But unless you’re the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, you can’t just wave a magic wand and create a stellar dress. I mean.. Blog. Blog, I meant blog.

But maybe we can still learn something from this age-old fairy tale.

Employ some mice.

Even Cinderella, the magical (would-be) princess, had help every now and then.

So find some good mice. Figure out who on your staff has strong writing and marketing skills and has the capacity to take on blogging capabilities. If you don’t have someone that meets all three of those criteria, hire someone. Hear me here… DO NOT pass this responsibility to just any Mary, Dick, or Jane in your office.

This is where too many people slip up. After setting out with good intentions, the task is then either passed to an overloaded or unmotivated person and after a few weeks, the consistency dwindles along with the quality and soon the word blog gathers dust and is forgotten. So decided if you can be truly committed to this venture, and once you go all in, go all in and vow to keep it that way.

Establish some presence.

Imagine if Cinderella had looked at Fairy Godmother when she first showed up, screamed and locked her out of the house. Absurd, right? I mean, it’s the Fairy Godmother for goodness sakes! Thankfully for our childhood romantic hearts, the story didn’t turn out that way and Cinderella still had her happy ending.

Here’s what you can learn from the magic lady: Established presence is invaluable. When the Fairy Godmother showed up, Cinderella knew exactly who she was right away. That knowledge led to a life-changing interaction. That’s what your blog should do for you. Through clever and thoughtful blogging, you can introduce brand new people to your non profit, organization, or company without placing any pressure on them to make a big loyalty decision during the first interaction.

Make steady and consistent posting your goal. If you plan to post twice a week, make sure that you have at least one month of content created before you start your blog, giving yourself plenty of room to stay ahead of the schedule and avoid last-minute thrown-together posts.

These steps help you maintain a top-of-mind presence with your audience which leads to brand loyalty and long-term customers or donors. Now when you show up to ask for a donation, try to sell a product or introduce a new service, your audience is familiar enough with you that making a decision to purchase or donate feels much less pressurized and much more natural.

Don’t be boring.

Your blog is competing with state-of-the-art videos, gifs and infographics. So what’s going to make your audience pay attention to your information instead of a Buzzfeed or NewsCred article saying relatively the same thing? Bring a little magic of your own. Make the sparkles pop in your readers’ faces.

How do you do that? First, by being educated. Stay updated on what’s happening in your industry. Tap into current events. Here are some great places to start to stay on top of technology, communications and social media changes:

Next, make your new education work in your favor. Take that new policy change or internal update and talk about how it specifically impacts your organization and your audience. Don’t just tell the facts; make them relatable to your specific reader.

Lastly, filter everything you say through your well-developed and exercised brand voice to talk personably with your audience. The story of Cinderella has been retold and remade and redone more times than we can count, but almost each time, the rendition works. Why? Because each new storyteller, film director, or writer filters the story through his/her own lens of understanding and personal tone to bring a new edge to the masterpiece. You can do that too. Just by having a style of communication that’s unique to your organization, you set yourself apart and help your audience instantly recognize your writing.

Remember, if you’re bored by what you’re creating or producing, then your audience will likely be fast asleep before they finish the first sentence. We might not be able to take people to Disney Land, but maybe we can still sprinkle some magic into the written space and educate people at the same time.