It’s okay to blog about your company–sometimes

While a business blog should focus on its clients, it’s okay to write about your company sometimes. After all, your clients and prospects want to know that they can trust you. I was reminded of this when reading the “identity content” section of Born to Blog: Building Your Blog for Personal and Business Success One Post at a Time.

“Identity content should explain your company’s values and standards,” write authors Mark W. Schaefer and Stanford A. Smith. Getting concrete, they suggest that you “Use identity content to explain policies that guide your decision-making process. Identify the policies that your customers may encounter and explain the reasoning behind them.” For example, an investment manager might explain her preference for active over passive management. Or, an advisor could go into how he builds a financial plan.

The authors made me wonder if I have enough identity content on my blog. The only post that explicitly addresses my process is “How I ghostwrite your financial white paper.”

On the other hand, my many posts about writing give readers a good sense of the values that drive my writing. You, too, may find that sharing your values in your posts lessens the need to blog specifically about your corporate values.

Is this book for you?

I wanted to love this book, but I couldn’t. I had a hard time finding content that made me say, “Yes, I must do that.”

Perhaps this book is best for the person who’s thinking about starting a blog. It will help you decide whether blogging can work for you. It’ll also give you some ideas about where to start. Established bloggers will have a harder time finding value in this book.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from McGraw-Hill in return for agreeing to write about it. If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.