Corporate blogging is a COMMITMENT. I know it’s a scary word, commitment. It’s natural to be afraid of commitment. I’ve known many commitment phobes in my life—heck, I married one and believe me he tried to run for the hills on more than one occasion when we were dating. But, if you’re still reading and haven’t trekked it to the hill country, then perhaps corporate blogging is for you.

You can make the corporate blog commitment as long as you have two things figured out: quantity and quality.

I’m sure you’ve weighed quality and quantity in some aspect of your life before, be it friends (quality), beer (quantity) or b2b leads (quality). In blogging, these two share the same level of importance.

Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosefirerising/501356671/

Obviously, you need to have quality content that informs and entertains your readers—this will keep them coming back. But, if when they return, they see that you haven’t posted anything new in weeks or months, well you just lost your readership.

That doesn’t mean you should post a bunch of empty, valueless content just to keep your blog current. What it does mean is make sure that every post brings value to your readers and you establish an expectation for post frequency and stick to it.

At b2b Fishbowl, we try to bring you new posts at least three times a week. Sometimes, we fall a post short (we do get busy here @CanyonComm). Sometimes, we bring you more. But, we always strive to balance quality and quantity.

Tell me about your blog balance. How often do you blog? How do you ensure quality content?

Have you heard about SEO? What about ROI? If you haven’t, I don’t know what rock you’ve been hiding under. Chances are you’ve heard these acronyms a lot lately. And, hopefully you’re thinking about the two together. If not, you should.

Your website ROI depends a great deal on your SEO investment. “If you build it, they will come” does not apply to your website.

If you build it, optimize it and consistently create new content, they will come. That’s what SEO does. By identifying the proper, targeted keyphrases and using them correctly on your website, you’ll improve your search ranking and more prospective customers will come.

But, the question is…what will they do when they get there?

If you invest in SEO copywriting, you’ll have a better chance of getting your prospect to take the next step. Delivering website ROI means that prospects not only get to your site, but also they do what you want them to when they get there—they call you for more information, go to another page for details, download a white paper or even buy your product. But, you have to tell them what you want them to do.

So, invest in the science and art that is SEO copywriting. Your return will be a website that is targeted, informative, persuasive, highly readable and most importantly converts your prospects.

JR Raphael from PCWorld had an amazing column, “The 10 most uncool moments in tech” that showed up on MSNBC.com a couple weeks ago. His column highlights tech companies that try as they might to come across as cool, completely miss the mark.

The column includes video of each of the failed attempts at cool viral and ad campaigns. Check them out for a few chuckles, but you’ll probably find yourself more often shaking your head in disbelief—yes, they really are that bad. Here’s a quick example of just how horrible these marketing moments really are:

Raphael’s commentary, however, is absolutely riveting and will definitely make you laugh.

Beyond the humor, there’s a lesson to be learned. Don’t try to force your brand to be something that it simply is NOT.

Every brand can’t be cool. Every brand can’t be classy. Every brand can’t be a hero. But, every brand can fail if its position is not defined.

Your brand position is the crux of your marketing program. And, if you haven’t defined your brand position and brand persona, for goodness sake get on it! While you’re here at B2B Fishbowl, check out what our very own Matt Hensler has to say about brand personas too.

I’ve been noticeably absent from B2B Fishbowl blog in recent months. Or, maybe no one has noticed and I have an inflated view of my self worth. But, either way, I’m back and blogging.

Side note: a big shout out to Megan and Tiffany who have kept a constant flow of public relations and social media tips for B2B marketers coming your way

But, I digress. Now that I’m not changing diapers and making bottles 24/7, I’m tasked with bringing you some fascinating insight into B2B PR. And, I’m frankly coming up a little short—apparently “baby brain” lingers for a while after pregnancy.

So, I’ve turned to my trusty brainstorming friend, Google’s Wonder Wheel, to help jumpstart my brain and get me back into the blogging state of mind. And, I thought to myself: “Self, perhaps the followers of B2B Fishbowl don’t know about Wonder Wheel. You should enlighten them.”

Here goes. Wonder Wheel is just plain wondrous, particularly for people who are visual. Wonder Wheel shows related search terms to your current search query in wheel display (see stunning visual below).

Clicking on one of the search terms will open a new wheel of relevant search terms and so on. I find it to be particularly useful when I have a blog idea and want to see what else is out there on the topic. It’s a great tool for online research and to get the neurons firing. To use Wonder Wheel follow these simple steps

1. Enter your keyword and perform a search.
2. On the left nav bar, choose “Wonder Wheel” under All Results (if you don’t see it, click on “More Search Tools”).
3. Now, navigate your way around the relevant keywords and phrases and find more and more and more.

Happy Searching!