DIY Blogging is Choice, Not Last Resort

At a recent event at Columbian Business Network, Charles Schwab VP Shelley Helmerick handed out a little promotional booklet that I believe holds some big lessons for corporate blog writers.  "Everyone wants great service," explains one section, "but not everyone wants it the same way…Sometimes people want to conduct business electronically – without direct personal service…At Schwab, do-it-yourself is a choice, not a last resort."

At corporate blogging training sessions, I explain that, at Say It For You, we agree. In fact, in a recent blog post I mentioned a Farm Credit Services radio ad with the tag line, "When you’ve seen one farmer, you’ve seen one farmer," point being that blog readers have different needs and need different choices for interacting with your company.

Whether it’s financial services, farming, or corporate blogging for business, the same idea holds true. Yes, I originally became an Indianapolis blogger in keeping with the "don’t-do-it-yourself" outsourcing trend I was seeing in writing for business. Still, for business owners with a preference for doing it themselves, it became important for me to offer business blogging assistance and training.

Certainly, just as one Facebook article about wedding planning puts it, "Do-It-Yourself Makes It More Personal!", adding that hand designing everything from the wedding invitations to the bridesmaids’ gifts adds "a more personal touch without breaking the bank".

Brides may be going back to Do It Yourself, but in social media, including the care and feeding of an SEO marketing blog, the dominant trend is towards outsourcing.  The obvious reason is that few business owners have the time to create and post blogs with enough frequency to attract the attention of search engines. Still, that Schwab booklet, I realized, hit upon a point – each client needs a different degree of business blogging help, and each client prefers a different ratio of help vs. DIY.

At one end of the spectrum, the business owner might want certain employees to receive corporate blogging training so that they can then take over the function of business blog writing.
At the opposite extreme a company might turn over to a business blogging service the entire effort of crafting the message and maintaining the consistent posting of corporate blog content.

But, to whatever degree DIY is the driving force behind the corporate blog writing, it needs to be conscious choice, never a last resort!