The Ten Commandments for Business Blog Failure

Our Blog Squad hats off to Content Marketing expert Joe PUlizzi for his excellent post, The 10 Commandments for Custom Magazine Failure. Joe was inspired by the book The Ten Commandments for Business Failure, written by former Coca-Cola CEO Donald Keough (good book by the way). Perhaps we should also cite Moses, but you get the picture.

• If you want to waste your time publishing a business blog that really doesn't work for business, then here are 10 tips to follow.

• If you don't understand what's wrong with doing some of these things, please go read the Junta42 blog post for clarification.

• And if you really don't get it, give me a call... we've got a couple of papers for you to read and a business blog training program you should enroll in!

Here's what not to do:

Commandment #1
Keep Thinking Like a Marketer - This is your podium, so go for your best hype. Give readers your best infomercial scripts.

Commandment #2
Talk about Yourself A Lot! - Sell, Sell, Sell - Be sure to keep readers apprised of your daily life and everything you're doing. Blogs are supposed to be personal, after all, aren't they?

Commandment #3
Keep Doing the Same Thing - Don't use audio or video or surveys. Cram your blog with lots of ads and widgets.

Commandment #4
Wait for Better Timing to Expand - Keep thinking about it, and don't take action. Better yet, hire an SEO expert and a Web designer and throw a bunch of money at your traffic problem.

Commandment #5
Don't Leverage Free Online Tools like Google Alerts, Twitter, etc.

Commandment #6
Create Multiple Marketing Objectives - Try to be all things to all people and offer many solutions to many different problems. Be sure to impress readers with how many different programs and services you have to offer.

Commandment #7
Ignore Traditional Media in Your Market - To which we'll add, be sure to ignore social media and social networking site, and don't bother with a newsletter or other content marketing.

Commandment #8
You Don't Need a Content Audit - Don't get feedback from content marketing experts on how well your content is working. Don't worry if you're boring. Somebody out there will like you, surely.

Commandment #9
Let the Customer Figure Out the Action Step - Don't ask them to comment, or for their opinions or input. Don't ask them to participate in anything other than buying something.

Commandment #10
Disregard successful blogs in your field and don't follow best practices of established blogs like Copyblogger, Problogger, Junta 42Blog, BuildaBetterBlog and WritingontheWeb.

I feel a pang of guilt for stealing Joe's great post, but then again, he's so successful he's off to Helsinki, Finland to speak to a group of custom magazine publishers and deliver The Ten Commandments to them. Be sure to go read his great post, especially if you're thinking about creating any kind of special report, white paper, or custom magazine for your business.

Comments

[Toy Fighter]

Thanks for the great overview here. Steal away! As we say for our blog best practices, one of the goals is for our ideas to spread.

Cheers
Joe

[Business Finance]

The secret to and website or bsuiness blog - simply create great content and then readers will spread the word for you.