Creating a Blogging Strategy For Your Non-Profit

I am in the middle of creating a blogging strategy for this blog. Why do I need one? Well, it's important when planning out your blog to create a list of possible topics that you are going to blog about. Rather than posting them as you think of them, it's wise to create a blogging strategy.

Here are my steps for creating a good blog strategy:

1. Assess your audience.
Think about who you want to read your blog. If it's donors, what would they want from a blog? What makes a good blog and why should they read it? Brainstorm ideas to make it interesting and new.

2. Create a list of topics.
What do you want to talk about? Write down the top ten categories you want to discuss on your blog.

3. Create a list of blog posts.
Take each one of the topics and brainstorm as many blog post ideas as possible. You don't have to come up with the whole post, but rather just the titles. This will give you a jumping off point to write your posts.

4. Determine what should be posted at what times.
Examine your topics and look at ones that closely tie together. Rather than writing about one topic until you've exhausted it, tackle several topics at once. If you only have a few topics, rotate them so that blog readers get a bit of everything.

5. Make your strategy flexible.
You don't want to have too rigid a schedule that you can't post some news when it comes along or an interesting article you find. Just use it as a guideline as to what should be posted.

A strategy will definitely take the stress away from blog posting and free up time for your other work.

*cartoon from http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/

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