Corporate Blogging: The Cost to Create a Blog

Once the idea to have a corporate blog is discussed, one of the first questions will usually be about cost. The financial cost to set up the blog isn’t much, but the time and resources that need to be allocated for upkeep can add up. So, how can you manage the process?

A blog, by its nature, needs to be fed with new content on a fairly regular basis. This is what keeps readers and search engine spiders coming back. The most successful blogs have many entries a day, but they didn’t always start out that way and you don’t need to blog that often for it to have an impact. In general, more is better, but you don’t need to post more than once or twice a week to have a viable blog. Ideally, blogs that have one post per week should be updated on the same day every week so that readers know when to come back for new news.

This does not have to be as difficult of a task as it might sound. Keep in mind that blog entries do not have to be long or formal at all. It can be as little as a paragraph or as long as a page. In general, blog entries are around 300 words, although they can make an impact even if they are shorter. It does have to be more than just posting a link to an interesting site, but if you add a couple of sentences of insight about the link, you’re all set.

Once it has been decided how often to post, there are a number of things to take into consideration when figuring out how much time it will take to maintain. Time needs to be set aside for keeping up to date on company and industry news. There also must be resources allocated for writing posts and time for editing. Just keep in mind that the more steps the post has to go through, the more expensive the blog becomes, which is another reason that streamlining the publishing process is key.

After careful consideration and testing, here’s a run down on what seems to be the minimum blogging commitment needed for it to be a sustainable and worthwhile project.

• 200 words per entry

• 1 entry per week

• 8 hours per month

Obviously, anything above this is preferable and will get improved results.

Comments

[Veronica Deschambault]

Thanks for the info Jessica. I'm curious about the testing you referred to in your last paragraph. I would love to hear more about the process for coming up with the guidelines you suggest.

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Hallelujah! Squarespace speaks!

Dennis McDonald

ps - one blog posting per week will not be sufficient to generate interest among a corporate audience.

[The Colonel]

We use Squarespace for our blog. We started at the end of Sept 2006 with our company / business blog.If you wish take a lookhttp://stradaautostore.squarespace.com/welcome/ it gives you an idea of what we do.

We are a small company and have a designated blogger that we identify as The Colonel...we do an entry on a daily basis.

How long does it take? It uses time...to generate neaningful content at least 1 hour per day if not longer.

We consider a blog an addtional communication channel with our customers and prospects to give them additional insight into our business.

[Jessica Ek]

The testing mostly has to do with Google picking up the new blog posts and seeing the site as an active one. I agree that to have the interest of a corporate audience that keeps coming back, posting more than once a week is definitely desirable.

[Remar]

Who else thinks that Russia bears walking the streets, and the vodka flows like water?
And anyone can know that in this country the most beautiful girls?