Blogging for your Brand 2

Tonight General Assembly hosted the second session of “Blogging for your Brand” at their new facility in Ponce City Market. This session was different from the first session back in January for several reasons:

• New GA Facility
• Paid ($10) vs. Free Event
• Second Time Around

So it was different, but very good. The staff and facility at GA Atlanta are both top notch, and everything went as smooth as it could possibly go. What I liked best about tonight’s session of this 2-hour workshop were the group’s new questions and the new perspectives that those questions brought to me and the rest of the group.

For example, one of the questions was directed at me and the business behind Atlanta Tech Blogs: “How do you create a content strategy and branded content for someone you don’t even know?”  Great question, and the answer started with the fact that I get to know their brand first, then their audience, and then I can begin to create a strategy and original content based on their brand.

Another great question was about frequency of blogging. There’s no standard for how often you should blog. David Cummings’ posts arrive between 9pm and 10pm every night, whereas John Saddington has several posts spread throughout the day, and Salesloft adds content to their blog 2-3 times each week. There’s no standard. Your frequency is up to you. The more important idea is consistency: whatever the frequency, be consistent.

Also, an attendee asked about engaging with social media influencers, and whether or not one should engage those influencers using their personal twitter handle or the company’s twitter handle. Again, there’s no rule; however, that decision should stem from the company’s brand and culture, which drive social media engagement methods and boundaries, and ultimately drive the content that the company produces and shares.

One of the longer discussions we had tonight was about branding, and how content itself as well as content strategy must come after branding. Branding determines your content voice, your content audience, your words, and your values. Those things make up content, so you should make branding decisions before you engage in a content marketing strategy.

Thanks to everyone who attended, and to GA Atlanta for hosting. I look forward to leading this workshop again soon. Next Thursday, I’ll be leading a new workshop called “Pitch Camp“, which will be based on Pitch Practice, but focus far more on the mechanics of the pitch rather than having everyone stand up in front  of the room and deliver a pitch in exchange for feedback. I hope you can join me at this event next Thursday from 11am-1pm.