Notes on helping THSH to blog

Today marked a new chapter in my professional blogging career, a phrase that still makes me raise an eyebrow whenever I mention it. But given that I’m currently earning a pretty reasonable wage from the art of the blog it’s about time I just got used to it. Having given a couple of talks about blogging at arts events and gotten stuck in corners of pubs explaining the concepts at length to surprisingly interested people it was only a short step to becoming a Blogging Consultant to businesses, and that’s what happened at 3pm this afternoon.

As you might be aware from the media coverage Birmingham’s Town Hall re-opened this week as a predominantly music-based venue. Town Hall and the Symphony Hall (home of the CBSO) are run as a single organisation and, in the summer, got themselves a new website, thsh.co.uk. Cue lots of jokes about how this might be pronounced, but it’s a very well built site. Made Media, one of the more switched on internet companies in the region, put it together to strict web standards obeying all the good practices and the results are very nice indeed.

Made made the suggestion that THSH start blogging and they were keen but a little scared. Which is where I came in, not to show them how to blog but how they might approach their blogging. It’s an interesting problem. For most people their blog is a low-impact thing. It’s okay to spend time finding your voice and making mistakes and it doesn’t matter if, to begin with, no-one’s reading you. But when you’re blogging as a company, either a self-employed freelancer looking for business or a large organisation looking to reach new audiences, there’s a desire to get it right straight away, and that desire can be rather inhibiting. You don’t want to get it wrong but you’re not sure what makes it right yet because you haven’t gone through the process of getting it wrong.

The session was with seven members of the THSH staff covering marketing, fund raising and sales – the departments that are responsible for website content and, as they put it, bringing money in to the business. I figured an informal chat would be better than using a boardroom or having me showing them stuff on a computer (I hate having visual aids in these situations – they just get in the way) so we dragged a few tables together in the cafe and chatted for an hour or so. Here’s some of the concerns they raised and suggestions I made to them (including a few I’ve thought up while writing this, in case the team are reading this and thinking “he didn’t say that!”).

How much time should blogging take?

Since their job descriptions do not include the phrase “blogger” they should be spending as little time as possible working on the blog. I suggested concentrating on linking to external sites to begin with rather than generating a lot of their own content. Search for reviews of concerts in newspapers and around the blog-world, post up photos found on Flickr of their buildings, link to things on the CBSO site, that sort of thing. There’s a lot of attention being given to the re-opening of Town Hall at the moment. That sort of stuff should be blogged. Think of the blog as a scrapbook, at least for the first few months. Maybe have someone spent 10 minutes every morning checking the feeds to see if there’s anything out there and posting it on the blog as part of their standard duties.

Then, as you get comfortable with the medium, start expanding what you’re doing. Still make sure it doesn’t take over your time but write some longer pieces telling stories about what happens in the buildings. You could treat it as a testing ground for ways to reach out to people – try something on the blog and see if it chimes, and if it does apply it to other areas of publicity. Eventually using the blog should be second nature, like replying to email or checking the reviews, or whatever it is they do, but until then take it slowly and don’t get bogged down.

What sort of things should be written about?

Here’s a couple of areas I thought of. The first is adding detail that won’t fit in the standard listings on the site. As they’re putting together the summaries for the programmes they’ll be coming across material that won’t make the cut but will still be interesting. YouTube videos of the performers, for example. Say Nigel Kennedy way playing – there are 112 videos for him alone. Collate this material together to give more information for prospective customers, letting them see and hear what the concert will be like. None of this needs to be generated by themselves – it’s all already out there waiting to be embedded.

The second thing, which might take more time to get right, is blogging about the Town Hall and Symphony Hall themselves. Here you’re trying to get the personality of the company across but not in a false, smiley corporate way. Behind the scenes reports and, if possible videos will be of interest, especially if you get the techy guys blogging. Niche subjects like the lighting rigs and acoustics will have an international appeal will help put the establishments on the map. Listen to the questions people ask and answer them on the blog (one popular one, apparently, was how the seating gets removed in Town Hall and, without prompting, someone else suggested making a time-lapse film.)

What sort of voice should be used?

This is the tricky one. For a company blog I suggested something informal but not too personal. Think of how you’d talk to guests at a function where you’re representing the company. You don’t want to be a PR robot but you can’t completely be yourself. And, to be honest, people don’t want something too personal on a company blog. It kind of jars. That said, is something is flagged as a personal essay, such as stories told by a long serving security guard, then the more personal the better.

One way the voice will develop might be by engaging in the conversation. As you start to get comments look at the style they’re written in. This might not always be appropriate but it’ll give you an idea of how people expect to be addressed. Similarly as you blog you’ll find yourself becoming grouped in with other blogs along similar topics who’ll link to you. Follow their lead and experiment with their style of writing. But take this slowly.

Above all, keep it honest. Insincerity and mealy mouthed writing will show. If you can’t tell the truth either state as such (“ticket sales can’t be made public because…”) or say nothing. Honesty, along with humility, is the best policy.

How often?

This was an interesting one. Given that there’ll be seven people initially working on the blog with the intention of widening that to more of the departments (meaning, what, 50 people with posting rights?) a lack of content might not seem a problem, but once you factor in that all these people are busy and don’t necessarily have half an hour to write some nonsense for the blog, not to mention the admin that will come from monitoring and responding to comments it might be a struggle for them to keep the blog fresh. I suggested they try and post at least one thing each day so that the blog has something new on it when people visit but not to worry too much if they miss one. I’d also say to be aware of overloading the blog with content. I’m pretty guilty of this and I’m sure stuff on Created in Birmingham slips below the radar too quickly as I pile on the posts. Space stuff out. If you find you’ve got a lot to publish one day hold the less time specific stuff over for when you have a drought.

How critical is the blog?

This is where my experience of blogging doesn’t necessarily chime with the corporate world. I’m of the opinion that blog posts don’t matter unless they do. If you write something and nobody reads it then it’s not a problem. But if they do and it sparks a wide conversation then it matters a lot. And its very hard to predict whether or not that’s going to happen.

On a corporate website everything is perceived as mattering, even if it doesn’t. An off-hand or flippant remark on the blog taken out of context by an unscrupulous journalist could, in theory, spark a whole bucket of nonsense.

There are a couple of ways around this. The first is to just watch what you write and don’t say anything controversial in the everyday posts. Be positive and don’t let your frustrations come through no matter how much some idiot is pissing you off. If you really need to vent, take it to your own blog where can’t implicate the company quite as much. Remember the context you’re writing in.

The second is the aforementioned idea of flagging stuff as “Personal Opinion Of Staff”. This might be something to consider in the future if more of the staff express an interest in contributing. Do something along the lines of those email disclaimers. It’s tedious but it’ll cover your ass.

As for the wider marketing message, I think the importance of the blog will vary tremendously depending on the audience. Some fans will be more blog-savvy that others. Writing about a folk legend like Richard Thompson will have you linked to from all the folk music forums and blogs, especially if you add something to mythos. Similarly once you put historical artifacts from the history of Town Hall on there you’ll get the history buffs linking in. But other acts won’t have a big internet-savvy fan base – they’ll be using your brochures and features in newspapers and magazines to get their information. Figuring out which performances need more or less of a blog presence will be something that comes with time, though it’ll surprise you. Google them before hand to see what sorts of conversations are already going on and post accordingly.

What is this blog for?

That’s the big question. One of the reasons given was to reach new audiences, especially for their classical concerts which are pretty grey haired. They see the blog as reaching that 25-35 demographic which is pretty reasonable. But then my Dad is a keen CBSO fan (or was when he lived nearby) and an avid blog reader so this isn’t set in stone.

I think the blog would act rather like their Friends of program, allowing people to feel a little more connected with the organisation than they otherwise might. While readers of the blog won’t get the privileges of the Friends members (who pay a not insubstantial amount to get them) they will hopefully feel like they’re part of the conversation, having access to information and low-level gossip that they wouldn’t normally have. It’ll also show that THSH value the opinions of their customers through linking to their reviews and posting their photos. This in turn should generate more feedback, something arts organisations that depend on a level of funding are always struggling to get enough of.

Then there’s the international angle. This being The Internet your potential audience is global, as is your potential subject matter. Say one of the team visits the South Bank Centre on a fact finding mission – report it on the blog. Perhaps someone goes to a festival in Manchester or Glasgow – write about it. On another level they often deal with promoters and agents when booking acts -give them some coverage on the blog. Not only is this behind the scenes stuff interesting to the average punter (how do concerts get booked anyway?) but it’ll give the partners something more useful that their logo in the booklet. How do similar organisations operate in different countries? What’s the classical music scene like in New York or Barcelona? While this stuff is aimed at the public it also raises the profile of THSH across the industry, and that can’t be a bad thing.

And in conclusion…

My main message was to Keep It Simple Stupid or K.I.S.S., a nice buzz phrase that I actually agree with. I think as a consultant it’s good to have a buzz phrase and this is one of less wanky ones. If you’re doing your job properly you shouldn’t have time to spend hours constructing the perfect blog post. If it’s getting overwhelming then stop and write something simple. It’ll probably be more effective anyway.

And there was probably more stuff we talked about but I wasn’t keeping notes. The session appeared to work – everyone said they were happy and copious notes were made. The proof will be in the pudding though. I’ll be watching their blog with interest (and because, as a Birmingham arts blog, it’s my job to do so…)

[Important note: One thing I didn't cover was the legal implications of having employees writing on the company website and letting the public comment, because that's not an area I'm qualified to talk about. It's certainly something the company's legal team should address though.]