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Simple advice for Introducing your new blog

A business acquaintance of mine who is launching a new corporate blog recently asked me for some thoughts and or advice on writing the intro post. This is what I told her… Always remember that a blog should be more like a conversation. Make that first post conversational - like a single reader is there sitting across from you. Think about your audience. Tell the audience why you’re excited about blogging and list a few of the topics / categories that you intend to discuss with them. Encourage their participation feedback. Tell the audience that you really want to hear from them and open it to anybody who wants to join into the discussion. Introduce your user guidelines. Lately I have been referring to Southwest’s User Guide as a good example. When you do finally write your intro post or following posts, always read the post out loud and make sure it strikes the right tone and does not sound too official or formal. Try not to make grand proclamations like “we’re pleased to launch this blog which is going to be the best… this or that”.

Experienced bloggers recommend researching and becoming familiar with the blogging culture in your industry before launching your blog. Many also recommend skipping the press release (at lease for a week or two) and favor launching quietly. Simply link to It from your website without much fanfare and start joining into the existing industry discussion. Get your sea legs commenting on outside blogs and writing a few actual blog posts.

Find five to ten blogs that you really like to read and link to them from your blog roll. This will let them know that your blog exists because most bloggers have a tendency to monitor for incoming blog links. Again, look for opportunities to participate in those target blogs by monitoring them with an RSS feed or with tabbed browsing. Contribute to theses discussions where you can add value to the conversation. If you know a certain blogger is interested in a topic you have recently written about, it’s ok to send them a friendly letter asking them to check out your post on _________ because you would like to know what they think.

In the future when you write posts, make them kind of open ended or thought provoking - inviting response / agreement or disagreement. Disagreement is ok. It’s an opportunity to engage with the audience. Good blogs thrive on it. Welcome it and you will have a great blog.

So these are some general recomendations. Does anyone have anything to add? Please let me know.

Filed under: Blogging Tips

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