This discussion was so good that we actually have to break it up into two parts.  Wednesday’s chat about Blogging & Community saw 613 Tweets and 92 participants! We’ll be continuing the discussion on Wednesday at 2pm EST, so you probably won’t want to miss that.

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Q1 Who blogs at your co & how often? Are you alone, or you + team?

AskTim: I write the only blog in the office. I aim for once a day, but it doesn’t always happen. It’s been a week since my last one.

msbruschetta: Twice weekly right now for company & one client, with plans to collaborate on another client blog starting Nov. Team effort.

JennaLanger: So far It’s been me and @jkretch, the CEO blogging. I want to integrate everyone, providing personal/professional posts from all

tracytilly: Anyone that wants to… it’s voluntary, 1 post per person every quarter. I was excited about the enthusiasm!

cochinealred:I blog daily for the co, but we feature guest posts from community members (rottating once every 8 weeks) once a week

kaleighsimmons: We have a team of six people (plus a monthly post from president). Post twice a week.

just_kate: From an agency perspective, we tend to ignore initial enthusiasm for blogging b/c frankly it dies off quickly.

Jonk87: I write my blog with another person sharing the burden and allowing better content to be published more frequently. 🙂

muruganpandian: So a possible winning solution is strive for consistency and have folks from various areas of the organization representing?

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Q2: How do you drive traffic/induce comments?

digitalmention: Pose a question at the end of the post.

SMczarina: Establish real relationships. reward those who participate even with soft rewards. others see it, inspires more engmnt

muruganpandian: The use of captivating titles and key words.

mor_trisha: Driving traffic – cross post from other discussions within community

JennaLanger: Drive traffic/get comments – ask questions, tweet to your network, reply to comments to keep the conversation going

jessicamalnik: Good SEO headlines (to boost search traffic) and video posts and slideshows

SMczarina: Not being afraid to ask and generate conversations even if people disagree. You have to put yourself out there.

cochinealred: Make a point to respond to all comments on the blog. Acknowledge current readers.

JPedde: Hot button issues usually help too. We blogged about Customer Service & SM recently, and its the most trafficed.

SMczarina: For guest bloggers, i find it’s easier to say “let me interview you” than “write a post for us” bc it takes the pressure of

muruganpandian: How about making the site beautiful? How much of a factor is the presentation of a site in inviting someone to comment?

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Q3. What kind of blog stats are you looking at? Whats most important to you?

joshshear: I’m an analytics junky. As long as I generally see reads and comments going up, I’m happy, but I can look at numbers for hours.

AskTim: I track number of views per day.

buona_vita:Number of unique visitors and where they came from

Mitch_M: Number of visitors, number of RSS subscribers. There’s others, but those are my top two

mikeschaffer: Blog stats I care about (in order): Shares/Tweets, Views, Referring Site, Comments

buona_vita: Trackbacks are great for SEO

ValentineLuLu: We adjust based on analytics. But, we r constantly trying new things anyway. Experimentation is key to success.

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Q4. What part does your blog play in your overall social media strategy?

kaleighsimmons: It’s the anchor of our entire SM strategy. Everything links back to the blog. Most impt piece of the puzzle.

buona_vita: Blogging to help build a community shows office culture and give industry advice, along with driving traffic to the site.

Mitch_M: It’s the biggest part of my strategy, with Twitter a close second.

mor_trisha: Community blog is for direct customer support/product assistance. Corp blog is more for driving awareness and industry ldrship

pushingvision: Your blog is your “home base” as @chrisbrogan would say…

JRMoreau: Often, I use the company blog as a source for company info, case-studies, announcements, contests, etc,

KellyLux: I had a twitter presence long before I had a blog, and part of it is I would rather interact w/pp than sit & write by myself.

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Blogging & Community will continue next week. What questions do you have?   Please add to these suggestions in the comment section below or DM us!

AskTim: Q: What do you do when stuck for blog topics?

tmonhollon:I’d love to hear creative content planning strategies. How do you mix things up, keep it interesting with your content.

kaleighsimmons: I am curious to see what others view success as – comments? views? time spent on page?

muruganpandian: Suggestion for next week . . . you are a new SM director what is your 30-90 day vision/strategy?

tmonhollon: What are your Top 3 Daily must-do activities? I’d love to hear what others keep a priority.

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Thanks to all who participated! If you would like to see the entire transcript, pleaseclick here.Make sure to come back to #cmgrchat every Wednesday from 2-3pm EST for more chats!

If you have any ideas or suggestions for future topics, leave comments or get in touch with either Jenn or Kelly!