Having worked in PR for most of my 25 year career, I've written countless articles, press releases and case studies on behalf of my clients.  More recently, I've written guest blogs, along with generating ideas for Twitter posts and am frequently advising clients on how to make sure they follow a structured approach to subjects they're keen to blog about.  So when it came to writing my own blog, I thought the words would flow and I'd have a multitude of subjects that I'd want to talk about - and then my mind hit a wall - it went blank.  
 
 

I realised I needed to take some of my own advice and sit back and think about what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it and what subject matters were important to me, and crucially what opinions or advice I wanted to share with my readers.  So in this first post, I'm going to share 5 tips that I offer to clients when they're looking to start a blog:

1. Develop a plan in advance - lay out at least a quarter's worth of ideas for blogs, taking inspiration from other blogs that you enjoy reading.  If it's a corporate blog, make sure your plan fits with the timing of any upcoming product launches, specific issues being debated as part of the PR programme or any news likely to hit at a specific time across the quarter. 
2. What shall I write about? professional advice or insight will offer value to readers and be a compelling read.  As will opinion on industry debates, your take on a specific issue or commenting on specific editorial or blog posts on news sites.  Writing about what you know about, should come fairly easily.
3. Keep a check on feedback, if someone posts a comment that calls for a response, make sure you follow it up.
4. Readers will soon get bored if you don't write reasonably regularly - once you start blogging keep it going or let your readers know if you're going to be taking a break.
5. Make time for your blog, take time to look at industry news sites, online forums and other sources of news and you'll soon find plenty of things to talk about!

This definitely isn't an exhaustive list, I'm sure others have their own personal advice to offer, so feel free to post any tips you'd like to share!