Corporate Blogging Excuses

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So your expansion stage management teams have made the decision to prioritize corporate blogging as a key component of your firm’s content marketing strategy. Fifty percent of your firm loves the idea. The other 50% of your firm doesn’t want anything to do with it. Based on my experience as the blogging administrator, and speaking with other “blog bosses” at our portfolio companies, here are the top 3 excuses I can guarantee you will begin to hear from a good portion of your company if you set content delivery deadlines… and of course a few rebuttals!

1. I don’t have time.
Yes you do. You in all probability spend more time feeling uneasy and complaining regarding the job of blogging than you actually do creating your post. OpenView’s weekly blogging requirements are somewhat straightforward: minimum of 5 sentences, minimum of 3 keywords used, and a subject that is related to our target personas. Blogs don’t need to be the same length as your college thesis. Keep it short. Most people do not even have the attention span to read a blog post much longer than 500 words anyways.

Spend 15 minutes performing research/brainstorming on a subject, and devote 45 minutes MAX creating your post. Keep it to a few paragraphs, make your title catchy, incorporate a couple of links and make a clear point. One hour. That’s it.

Write your post on Monday when you feel fresh going into the week. Don’t leave it until the end of the week — things come up, and let’s face it — when Friday at 4pm rolls around, the last thing anyone wants is to feel chained to a desk writing a blog post.

2. I don’t have anything interesting to write about this week.
If you are writing about a new topic each week that has practically nothing to do with last week’s post, yes, you will feel frazzled when writing your newest entry because you are not being consistent. Find a theme, and build off it each week. Become an expert on a topic. My recommendation is to build a series… Part I, Part II, Part III… you get the picture. This will supply you with momentum from week to week, and it will keep your readers coming back for more.

My next recommendation to help you uncover interesting ideas is to ignite the creative juices from inside of you — subscribe to the RSS feeds of the top bloggers in your industry whether it is sales, marketing, finance leaders, etc. Each Monday you need to check out the previous week’s topics composed by these influencers. This will give you a few ideas on which you can concentrate for your new entry… don’t re-write their posts of course, but offer your two cents — why do you agree or why do you disagree? My general rule of thumb: write 80% of your blog post from your own content and make sure you cite any thoughts/ideas that are not your own.

3. I don’t want to be judged by my content.
Blogs really don’t need to be personal. Quite frankly, a corporate blog is not specifically the best place to reveal your controversial thoughts, feelings, etc. Save that for Facebook. Yes, your blog will be published on the web and anyone can find your content if they actually wish to — your ex, your college buddies and your next door neighbor — but know that you are a professional, and you have ideas and information to share that a lot of people will find fascinating. Put yourself out there, and rather than thinking about it from the perspective of, ‘people will judge my writing skills or what I’m writing about’ think, ‘people will be truly impressed I am an active writer and I am an expert on a unique topic’.

It’s Monday… have you written your blog yet?!

Devon Warwick is an Analyst at OpenView Venture Partners, and focuses primarily on business development for portfolio companies.

Why You Need Industry Knowledge To Power Your Sales (dohertyassoc.com)
Three Ways to Get a Corporate Blog Off the Ground (socialtimes.com)

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The Top 3 Corporate Blogging Excuses