Hubspot just did a blog post on the importance of blogging for companies.  When analyzing their clients, they found that companies who blogged had 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages, compared to those who don’t.

In makes sense, doesn’t it?  Instead of a company providing static content, companies can consistently post and share new information relevant to their company and industry.  Here’s a few key tips to blogging:

1. Consistency is key.  Figure out how much time to allocate to blogging and post consistently every week.  Will you be able to provide valuable posts 2-3 times a week? Or would you rather write one knock out blog per week.  This gives readers something to look forward to and shows reliability.  At FYIndOut we do two posts a week, but if we attend a cool event like Tech Cocktail, we’ll do a Friday post too.

2. Transparency, who’s behind the blog? A good way to personalize the blog is to have the company individuals leave their Twitter account, a picture, or contact information.  Twitter is a great platform for customer engagement, so if your clients or colleagues contact you, write back!

3. Value Value Value:  Since 2002, Technorati (Blog Directory) indexed 133,000,000 blogs.  You’ve got competition, so what will set your company apart?  Why would a potential client want to take time to read your blog when they have 133,000,000 others to choose from? You can post new releases, industry trends, topics, ideas, videos etc…the list goes on.

4. You can’t be something to everyone, the web is big so choose a niche community and provide extremely high valued content to that niche.

(Photos and statistics from @Hubspot)

Pick whatever PR or Marketing blogger you want and they will all say that companies will be getting more deeply involved in social media as a way to connect with customers.

The next thing they will say is that in order for any company or person to connect, they need to be genuine.  While everyone agrees with the statement, many have a different opinion as to what genuine means.

While most successful companies let you know that you’re reading a blog post from Scott or interacting on Facebook with Tony, there’s a key difference in how these companies set standards to communicate so that people feel like they’re connecting with the company and not just the specific person themselves.

Some good examples are Zappos and HubSpot.  Both companies have a great online presence and if you see the way they reach out on their own blogs, “TV” videos, tweets, and other forms of social media, they do very well at representing their companies while educating, interacting, and some times entertaining.  But here’s the part that really stands out; if Tony moved on from Zappos or Mike or Dharmesh moved on from HubSpot (Disclaimer: I haven’t met these people (yet) and I know nothing about their future career plans.), yes, I would probably follow their new blogs or interact with them wherever they went.  More importantly though, is that I would still continue to follow and interact with HubSpot and Zappos.

Some companies are mistaking being genuine for being too personal and while your community manager is doing a fantastic job connecting to prospects, customers and everyone else, those people are associating themselves to that one person and not your company.  That’s bad.  What happens when that person leaves your company?  How many people will continue to follow them and have absolutely no interest in your company once they leave?

The key point I’m trying to make is that getting into social media takes a strategy just like every other part of your marketing plan and while being genuine and helpful are critical, if the people you’re communicating with aren’t connecting with your company or brand, it doesn’t really matter.