The Four F’s of Blogging
I’ve mentioned in my last couple of posts the concept of building your SharePoint environment from the inside (you) out (SharePoint). While this makes perfect sense to me, I was reminded yesterday that not everyone has access to the contextual details that live in my head… so let me give an example.
You’re in the process of building out your SharePoint deployment and you’re running down the list of native functionality. You come across ‘Social Computing – blogs and wikis’ and think “pretty cool – let’s do that”. Here’s the challenge… while the concept of something like an executive blog (personally, I don’t use the ‘b’ word with users; I call it ‘thought leadership’) is pretty powerful – and easy to set up – the commitment to doing it “right” is actually significant. When I talk about blogging (and I use the same guidelines inside and outside the firewall) I often refer to the 4 F’s for success (all are people things; not technology):
· Frequency – You have to make a commitment to this thing. People (you hope!) are watching. I like to use a rule that if I don’t hear from you in 2+ weeks “you’re dead to me” – meaning I’m just going to move on. I don’t think you need to have a rigid schedule (every day or week) but you need to think of your blog like a house plant. Water it every once in a while to keep it healthy. This helps maintain a following.
· Format – Think of a blog post as a short story. It is a few paragraphs (written with proper and full grammer!); it is first person content and tells a quick story or teaches a small lesson. I never like the “check out this link…” (that’s twitter stuff) or “over the next 10 pages I’ll discuss…” Tell me what I want to know in 30 to 60 seconds.
· Focus – Readers will come to expect a certain type of lesson as they begin to associate you with an expertise. Be the X person where X can be SharePoint or Brand Awareness or Recruiting. It’s OK to deviate occasionally for a high impact anecdote but don’t try to be all things to all people. It’s too confusing and dilutes the quality of the content.
· Freshness – Thought leadership is about having an original thought. Tell me what you think. If you read an interesting article, tell me why you found it interesting or what you learned. If you think there is a better way to build the mouse trap then explain. Again, it is OK to deviate occasionally to post a snippet (link, code, etc.) but don’t make your blog a haven for repurposed content.
So, are you still with me?! Interestingly, more often than not, when I lay out the guidelines above quite a few folks start talking about blogging as a Phase II feature. I’m OK with that. Again, as I have mentioned in other posts, it is better to be invisible than inconsistent when it comes to blogging (my humble opinion). Like all things SharePoint, blogging comes with accountability. That’s a good thing! It makes the quality of content go up and it lets your thought leaders, wherever they are, surface.