Blogging Basics: Why Blog for Business?

To blog or not to blog. That is the question that our clients and associates often ask. “What would I write about?” Or another question is, “Who reads those things?” Some are more paranoid and say, “I don’t want people taking shots at me.” All are valid concerns, however, if you’re serious about marketing your business in this hyper fast age of information, get blogging.  Fast!

Look, if you’re already doing this, this probably isn’t a post for you, although please feel free to chime in with any constructive comments and suggestions. However, if you’re tinkering with the idea of starting a blog, jump right in. Some of the basics that you’ll hear over and over are: Be authentic, don’t ghost blog (write as if you’re someone else, like say a client) and at first try responding to other blogs to get the feel of it.  The one tip that I appreciate the most is to try to be helpful.  Try to offer some insight from which other people can learn.

Blogging Basics

First of all blogs don’t have to be long and complex, they don’t have to be written for your 12th grade english teacher or for the Wall Street Journal. They should make sense and they should be relevant. If you run or own a business you probably have lots of thoughts and ideas that make your business unique. What are they? Can you offer advice? Are you an expert on a topic?  If so, can you share some of your knowledge with those who are looking to learn?  You never know who’s interested in learning from you, maybe it’s a customer, a prospect, or maybe it’s a writer from a trade journal or local newspaper. By posting relevant content in a blog you could help someone do their job, or write a story(and oh by the way, wouldn’t it be cool if a newspaper attributed a quote to you, the expert?).

Blogging as Media Relations

As a former reporter, I can tell you first hand that daily news people are typically “jacks of all trades” and masters of none.  Your job in daily news is to learn as much as you can, as fast as you can so you are able to share it with your audience in time for the evening news, or for tomorrows paper.  And once you get that done, tomorrow you get a new topic for a new story.  With that, more and more media go to the internet to research their stories before writing a word.  They will pull all the information they can from the internet or other sources before writing a story or conducting an interview. This way they’ll know who to contact and what to ask. When you blog you are posting searchable content to the internet! You are actually writing material that journalists can find and hopefully glean valuable information.

Blogging to Customers

Take it a step further.  With searchable content we now have the ability to market directly to our customers. Just as media use search engines to find or research story ideas so too does the public when it wants to learn more about a subject.  Do you want to learn about solar covers for a pool?  Google it.  Want to see how to change the oil in your car? Search for it. Last week, I went to YouTube to learn how to mash potatoes!  Do you know how simple it is to find that? Amazing how many people want to show you how to mash potatoes. Same is true for “great marketing ideas,” or “fabulous PR campaigns.”  Think of it as it relates to your business.  If you make widgets and google, “world’s best widgets,” guess what? Something comes up on widgets, but is your company mentioned?  How do you get it there and what can you do to influence the probability of your company coming up in the first page? Blogging can help.

What to Write

I always find it curious when people don’t know what to write in a blog. Everyone has opinions and almost everyone has an opinion when it comes to their work or their job.  However, not everyone is comfortable expressing their opinion and that’s understandable.  That said, it’s an opinion and we all have them. As a sports reporter part of my job was to express my opinion, whether viewers agree or not.  While some would say the journalists job is to tell the news, not to editorialize, sports is one area of news in which the public is fairly forgiving of the opinions of reporters.  For example, is Tiger Woods among the greatest golfers of all time? Sure, he is and it’s an opinion that has a lot of data to back up the claim.  Still, there’s probably someone out there that would argue the fact.  Blogs are similar to the extent that if you’re a professional in an industry, chances are you’ve got some expert thoughts on a number of topics.  Everyone may not agree, but there are probably a lot of people who will.  When blogging, you can’t be afraid to express your thoughts.

Safeguards

Finally, and this is more a housekeeping note, but don’t worry about someone criticizing your post.  First of all, this program like many others has a filter, so I can read each comment to a post and decide whether or not I’d like to post the remark. Many bloggers will recommend you post all the comments because that can be healthy for discussion.  And if lots of people are talking about your post then your post just became more searchable.  Obviously, you don’t want to post anything that is inflammatory or potentially damaging to your business, but enact the filters and monitor the feedback.  Most importantly, don’t flip if someone doesn’t agree with you.

Get Blogging

Here’s the bottom line:  If you’re not blogging your competitors may have already beaten you to the punch and started to position themselves as industry experts.  ”I don’t have time,” is not a legit excuse. If your competition hasn’t started to blog, they’re probably like you trying to figure out how to start.  Beat them to the punch and in the race for that space.  Remember, the days of waiting for the news or commercials to come sell to me are over. Can you say TiVo?  People are searching for the information they want to find.  The key is making sure you have relevant content online so your customers can find you.

Ed Heil is the owner and president of StoryTeller Media & Communications an inbound marketing and public relations agency and video production company based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Ed blogs on topics related to inbound marketing, social media, media relations, news media, video production and crisis communications.

Tags: Blog, Blogging, blogging basics, local newspaper, PR campaigns, TiVO, trade journals, Wall Street Journal

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