stuff from my actual survival kit - just as important as the stuff in my blogging survival kit

I’m gearing up for a trip of a lifetime – the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu in Peru. Hiking the trail has made me think about preparing myself for anything that could happen. I’ve assembled a small kit containing survival items for the trip and now it is time that I  prepare my blog.

Here’s what’s in my blogging survival kit:

Plan in advance

Use the publish on date functionality to add content while you are unavailable.

Call in reinforcements

Guest content is great it brings in a new perspective, a new subject matter expert and hopefully extends your network of followers by leveraging the guest bloggers connections.

Consult the experts

No matter what subject area you blog about there are experts you can turn to. Some of the experts I refer to:

• Probrogger
• copyblogger
• The Marketing Tech Blog
• SEOmoz
• social media explorer

What motivates you? What motivates your corporate bloggers to blog? You need to dangle the metaphorical or I guess perhaps actual blogging carrot in front of your bloggers. It’s OK to incentivize for setting goals and reaching them. Just make sure that the goals you set are measurable and impactful with an incentive that matches the value of the goals impact on your corporate blogging program.

Measure Your Corporate Blogging Goal

If you can’t measure the goal then it’s not really a goal – it’s just something that you think would be cool if it happened. You measure your online marketing activities right? If you don’t then measurement should be your new top priority. Make sure that you have a free analytic package installed on your blog at the very least. A basic analytics package will let you see where people are coming from and what they are engaging with once on your blog.

Make Sure Your Goal Creates Impact

Don’t just make the goal about reaching a number of posts. You can end up with crappy content this way. Make sure that the goals you set will help create and add value to your overall program.

Example of a great goal: Improve the read time on an individual’s blog posts by 5% over the course of the month. Increasing read time (aka engagement) should lead to an increased number of conversions on your corporate blog – thus improving your overall blogging ROI.

The Blogging Carrot Should Match the Impact

The value you provide your bloggers for reaching a goal needs to match the impact that reaching the goal has on your corporate blog. Harder goals to reach will require bigger carrots perhaps even real carats (a girl can dream right)!

Image acknowledgment: bookgrl