The Brown Bag Blogging Compromise

Should employees be required to write blog posts? is the question posed by Marcus Sheridon of SalesLion.com.

After all, Sheridan points out, one goal of content marketing is to produce as much content as possible, so the more hands are put to the task, the better. And, since content that answers consumers’ questions is the most valuable, and since those employees are typically the ones dealing with the consumers every day, stands to reason they should be committing that experience to print. Insourcing works, he says, but if it’s not required, they won’t do it – Dah!

Stan Smith of pushingsocial.com isn’t buying. “Blogging is writing,” he says, “and writing for most people has a fear factor right up there with public speaking.  You can coach, bribe, threaten all you want but in the end, you’ll be writing most of your blog posts.”

After eight solid years of providing blog content writing services to hundreds of different businesses and professional practices, I know exactly where Smith is coming from. So does Mikeachim, who points out that the 2009 New York Times statistic about 95% of blogs being abandoned hasn’t really changed.

Sheridan’s answer to the should-employees-be-required-to-blog question is still yes, but he offers three possible methods for using employees to populate a blog with content, suggesting that employees having a choice will increase the chance they’ll participate:.

• The employee writes the post.
• The employee creates a video post.
• The employee is interviewed by someone who then turns the information into a
  blog post.

Stan Smith suggests a compromise plan, as well.  His is a monthly brown-bag lunch session, where everyone contributes ideas for the blogging editorial calendar. The transcript then becomes fodder for the blog. (In fact, for at least some of our clients, we at Say It For You serve as blog editors, rather than as blog writers.)

“In an age where content is the new gold standard of web-related and social media marketing; it’s time to start producing great content or find someone who can,” says Chris Warden of Jeffbullas.com, who’s clearly in the camp that advocates outsourcing of content writing.

Anyone can write, he points out. “The real feat comes not from putting words on paper, but from producing artistically crafted and genuinely interesting pieces of content that evoke a desired emotion from your readers.”