I haven’t been blogging much lately. My schedule has kept my attention elsewhere. I rarely leave comments anymore, but I miss the interaction out there and in here. What do you have going on that I would want to be reading about? I’m planning on carving out some time weekly to read and interact. What about you? Are you randomly reading and commenting, hit or miss? Or are you using a targeted approach? Is it important enough to put on your iCal? I’m curious…

You know the story. A brand new company launches and the first thing they do is shoot for the moon and plant their

“HEY EVERYONE READ OUR BLOG!” flag…instead of comments they got crickets.

I have been guilty of starting things without testing them.  So take it from a guy who can honestly say “this isn’t my first rodeo”.

An employee-only blog presents organizations with the opportunity to soft launch their public facing initiative – offering up the ability to develop strategy, test ideas and practice tactics within a safer internal environment.

Take a look at this infographic:

Here are 5 really great reasons why via Jason at Social Media Explorer:

Audience

Understanding your audience and their information needs is critical to the success of any blog. Treat your employees like any other audience – conducting research into their content needs and channel expectations presents a great learning opportunity that can be transferred to the launch of your public facing blog.

Content

Content is…well…you know. I know you get it – relevant content is one of the cylinders that drive the blogging engine. An internal blog provides a great testing ground for developing content ideas, learning how to use the tools, executing on content creation, etc.

Tools

It’s not rocket science, but there is a learning curve associated with the set up and use of blogging tools such as WordPress. An internal blog let’s your team practice how to create and format blog posts, use plugins, etc. so that when you launch that external blog everyone is up to speed.

Guidelines

Guidelines are an important part of every social media initiative. Using the internal blog to build understanding around guidelines related to posting etiquette, reader expectation and blog comments is a great primer to the development of any future public blog policies.

Best Practices

There are so many things to learn when it comes to blogging best practices. An internal blog presents an opportunity to teach important tips and tactics – this “practice as you go” approach helps embed learning, making the launch of any external blog project much easier and more effective from the onset.

What is your experience with this issue?

Social Media from Luke Frederick on Vimeo.

Sheepish Design websites. Social Media explained.

Here are some looks at the branding for my other blogging project.  In many ways, it’s similar to the concepts of the late Commenting Ninja site.    The goal with this project is experimenting with preferences, voices, and my quirks.

I wanted to build a blog where I go let loose and have fun with others.  You can have even more fun following 330PM on Twitter.

[photo via ziktay ]

What is the #1 thing that you want people to do when they arrive on your blog? This question was asked over at Pro Blogger.

There’s clearly  no wrong or right answer to the question – every blog will have a different approach  – but it’s a great question to ask yourself from time to time.

The answer you give could reveal the following:

How you design your blog – your call to the conversion you’re after should be prominent, above the fold and eye catching
What you blog about – your blog posts should, at the very least, relate to your conversion goals and, at best, should lead people to wanting to take the action you’re after.
Your promotional activities – knowing what you want people to do when they arrive on your blog can inform your decisions on where and how to promote your blog.

So what is the number 1 thing that you want people to DO when they arrive on your blog?

My answer…I want you to connect with different communities, ideas, perspectives.  I don’t necessarily want everyone to leave a comment.