How To Write A Blog About Your Community
Before you put pen to paper, or most likely, fingertips to keyboard, there are a few questions to ask yourself before you start blogging for economic development.
What’s your overarching goal: to increase awareness of your neighborhood? convince a business to relocate to the area? raise awareness of the services your organization provides? After mulling a few of these over, you’ll find these questions lead you to discover your target audience and ideal customer persona.
Which allows us to answer this question….
Who Am I Writing To?
Depending on your business, it is important to engage the target audience. Put yourself in their shoes and share what they want to hear. If you’re writing to the proper audience, you’ll leave them wanting to know more about your organization and your community.
As an economic development or community development entity we recommend that your blog posts speak to these audiences:
- Emerging Entrepreneurs
- Business Owners
- Community Stakeholders
- Brokers / Site Selection Consultants
Based on who you are speaking to in any particular blog will dictate the exact tone and content you include. But here are a few things you don’t want to forget no matter what type of blog you have:
- Make your content “skimmable.” People don’t read every word. Make it easy for the reader to get the point by simply reading your titles, subheads and bullets. This way, they can pick and choose the information that’s relevant to their pain points.
- State the facts. When referencing any data or factual information, it’s helpful to provide links so your readers know where you found your information.
- Write for SEO. The last thing you want your blog to sound like is a robot, so don’t go too crazy accommodating for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But in order to increase the likelihood of getting discovered by the most relevant audience, use keywords that make an impact and talk to the necessary search engine robots.
What to Write About?
Remember, you will want to focus on topics that truly embody what your community is all about. Here are a few of our favorite ideas for economic development offices as they begin planning their editorial calendars:
- Profile your businesses
- Highlight upcoming initiatives and events (i.e. a “buy local” contest or upcoming meeting.)
- Profile key industry accomplishments in your area
- Release important data and growth information
How Do I Get The Word Out?
Blogging for economic development written with SEO in mind, will definitely make your blog easier to find on the web. When someone googles the “magic keyword,” your blog is more likely to appear in their search engine, leading to more clicks on your content.
Social sharing is another fantastic way to raise awareness. Share your blog on every social network to gain maximum exposure.
Things to Avoid
- Irregular posting. If you set a goal of posting a blog weekly, do it. Make sure your goal is feasible for your workload.
- Don’t limit your word count. Some blogs will be short, but some will be long. If you are trying to convey a story to your readers, tell the story. Don’t get hung up on a specific word count.
- Don’t be a Negative Nancy. Keep your topics uplifting and encouraging, even if you’re talking about a less than ideal situation. A Debbie Downer won’t keep many people vested in your EDO’s mission and vision.
- A Bland Voice. Your content should read like an actual human being was there. (And by human being, I mean the opposite of the monotone Ben Stein from those old Visine commercials.) The reader wants to visualize your gestures, and facial expressions, all from the words you write. You don’t want your finished product to read academic, stiff or generic.
Ready to create copy that resonates with your readers? Our team can create engaging content and strategic editorial calendars that will help you achieve your growth goals when blogging for economic development. Contact Sandy Sponaugle at 304-876-8321 or email her at sandy@platinumpr.com to get your blog off the ground today.
