Blogs and Vlogs

Your blog (or vlog or stream or whatever you choose to call it) is the foundation of your communications program. To fulfill its business purpose, posts can never, ever be dull. Outside Voice writers have penned, edited and curated more than two dozen blogs across multiple industries. We know how to keep things fresh. Here are some of the techniques we use, and some real-world examples. 

Reported Posts

Bringing new information or a different perspective makes readers smarter -- and that's the best way to keep them coming back. Here's an example we wrote on the Connectivity blog, which serves advocacy professionals, about how state legislatures are far more prolific than Congress. Note all the fully-sourced reporting.  

Unique Lists

Most organizations are filled with data, and there is more available outside the building. This data can fuel your blog. Unique and meaningful lists draw readers. Done correctly, they can also provide new information. This list of top Twitter handles for Washington associations was generated specifically for this post.

User-generated posts

We all love to read about ourselves, and about our industry. Give your audience a chance to weigh in -- or even vent -- on a topic and they will almost always respond. The result is some compelling posts. Your audience will read to the end. They'll share it, too. And you'll see the pageviews jump. This post, which was a presented as a slideshare, presents survey data. It was widely read, shared and generated earned media as well. 

informational Stunts

You don't want to get too crazy in a professional environment. But sometimes crazy works. Posts that delight readers get shared. A little magic from time to time can dramatically increase readership. For a marine industry blog, we once put a writer in a life raft, towed him into the Chesapeake Bay and left him there for 24 hours. He shared his experience live on Twitter, and later in a post and a podcast. Sadly, the website no longer exists. But here are the photos. 

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