Breaking Down "Cause" Blogging
It’s pretty simple. If you’re spearheading some kind of cause, and you’re blogging about that cause, that’s what I consider cause blogging. You’re typically not selling a product or service. You’re trying to increase awareness and maybe get some support through your blog.
As a non-profit organization, especially in blogging, you have two target audiences: the people you help and the people who support you through donations, volunteering and other types of service. Very often, the messages you’re sending to those two constituencies are very different.
Think of any kind of non-profit or charity that helps the underprivileged. The people who need the charity have to be reached in a different way than those who are going to be providing the resources. That may mean you need to put those messages in different channels.
Maybe the people that you’re trying to help are reading your blog, and you don’t want to put requests for donations in the same spot. Perhaps those topics belong in a newsletter or a different blog altogether.
We have a brainstorm exercise on our website to help you come up with around 64 topics in less than an hour. If you’re cause blogging, I would suggest going through it twice- once with the beneficiaries in mind, and once more for potential donors. That way you have content that’s appropriate for both audiences.
At Shortcut Content, we have an easy way to help you produce that content. You can find the (free!) brainstorm exercise and more information about what we do at ShortcutContent.com