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Corporate blogs can be an important part of a broader social-media strategy, writes Sarah Hofstetter, but only if you keep your audience engaged and enthused. Polish your writing, make it easy for users to share your content and use social-media platforms and hub pages to promote your blog content

There has never been a better time to start a corporate blog, writes Chris Abraham. Amateurs have largely shifted to Twitter and Facebook, leaving space for professionals to enter and shape the conversation -- and the rise of social tools makes it easier than ever to find an audience for your content, he writes. "[Y]ou too can be part of feeding the giant maw of the 24/7/365 Twitter, Facebook, and social media monster," Abraham writes.

An effective corporate blog campaign requires more than blog posts, says social-media strategy consultant Jay Baer. The best corporate blogs are part of diversified content strategies that engage with users across a plethora of channels, he notes. "Have a blog post, but also do stuff on SlideShare and do podcasts and do videos and do stuff on Scribd and Squidoo and Wikipedia and sort of be everywhere. Because each piece of content you create is more bait in the water. Both for Google and for people finding it," he says.

To take a corporate blog to the next level, it's vital to use keywords effectively, says Top Rank Marketing's Lee Odden. Design a list of keywords tailored to your ideal customer, then use SEO basics to ensure that your posts and headlines feature your target words as prominently as possible. Clever turns of phrase may look impressive, Odden notes, but "search engines don't understand puns or metaphors."