Is Good Taste Tanking Your Content-Development Strategy? By working with a writer, gaining companywide buy-in and tossing taste aside, you can be confident your blog will propel your business forward.
By Scott Yates Edited by Dan Bova
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Many people in marketing have good taste, and it's a problem -- a crippling one. Good taste may come in handy when designing or developing websites, taglines or strategies for businesses, but that same good taste is often a killer when it comes to content marketing.
As CEO of blog-writing service BlogMutt, I've seen it happen time and again. Marketing departments let taste get in the way of content development, fretting over each blog post and creating delays in gaining leads. Often, a company bones up on blogging best practices, tries to write some great posts and eventually gets frustrated when nothing is right on the first try (which is where good taste rears its ugly head).
So how do you blog efficiently and effectively?
Related: Top CEO Blogging Strategies From A to Z
Here are three tips:
1. Put taste in its place.
Understand that those with the best taste won't win the race. Instead, the winner will show up, and get it done every week.For one client, posts weren't getting published because of internal disagreements about taste, direction and the belief that a committee must approve every post. As a result, the company ranked for just two keywords, and one was branded. It was standing in its own way.
Luckily, the company eliminated the "approval by committee" approach, made peace with the fact that taste is subjective and focused on an objective approach to blogging. As a result, it published more, grew its keyword rank and doubled its organic traffic.
2. Make blogging a priority.
We changed three things that contributed to transforming blogging into a priority for our company. We created an editorial calendar and assigned every member of our team to come up with blog ideas. Then, we shared in the accountability by assigning a different person each week to review and manage every blog post (written by an external writer).
And, as the CEO, I can't just delegate, I have to participate. So I'm responsible for managing blog posts and am assigned to review and post blogs for a week -- just like everyone else.
Related: 4 Steps to Brainstorm 100 Blog Post Ideas in One Hour
3. Treat the blog as a staff member.
As with any member of your team, give your blog the resources it needs and continually evaluate its effectiveness in reaching your companywide goals.Stop and ask, "Why are we blogging?" Typical responses could be awareness, new business, customer education and leads. Are any of those being measured? If not, start. Once you measure success, the disagreements about taste, literary merit and personal biases will be replaced with more thoughtful, analytical approaches to your blog and your business.
Blog posts should be helpful and clearly written. But they also need an original take on a topic. By working with a writer, gaining companywide buy-in and tossing taste aside, you can be confident your blog will propel your business forward -- instead of holding you back.
