WHY ARE BUSINESSES DOING IT AND WHAT ARE THEY BLOGGING ABOUT:

Okay, so you may be thinking what is all this blogging about and why are businesses actually doing it, what are you meant to blog about and how can I do it? Im sure your business is great, you love it, so why wouldn’t everyone else? Who wouldn’t want to read all about your business everyday? Now while your business is your life, and its probably very interesting, its highly unlikely that people will want to constantly come back to read more and more about it. Your customers? No, even if they love your product they may want to buy or use it often but I doubt they want to read about it. Maybe your employees…. again unlikely, when their shift is over it is likely they will want to spend their time off, thinking of anything but your business.

While its good to keep your business blog updated with your companies events you need to be careful that this is not the sole focus of your posts. You also need to be careful not to confuse a blog with a sales channel. Yes your blog may generate leads but you need to look at this as more of a side effect rather than the desired effect. (Chef, 2013)

So you’re probably confused right about now. If you’re not meant to use your business blog to focus on your business or with the sole aim of generating sales why is it called a BUSINESS blog at all? Don’t worry were getting there…

A blog is meant to generate awareness about you and your brand. It’s best used as a tool to establish authority and make people trust you. (Chef, 2013)

So if the purpose of a blog is not to sell then what is it and why do businesses do it?

• To Get Exposure –  Lets say your business is a local coffee shop, why should someone buy from you when they could buy from costa? To them you are a stranger, why would they go to you when they could go to their long term, reliable friend, costa, who can serve them coffee in 29 countries around the globe (Costa, 2015)? When people read your blog they get to know your company and its values and you expose yourself to people who may not seek your offerings in the present but in the future they might. Your blog may stick in the back of their mind and next time there is a long queue in Costa, they may decide to try your coffee instead; and voila you may have converted a new customer!
• Connect with your customers – One of the key components to your blog is your comments section. Nowadays, some companies disable this section but I say this is a big no with a capital N. As previously discussed in another blog there is no such thing as bad word of mouth (WOM) (Liu, 2006) – read my blog on the Rise of eWOM for more information. If an unhappy customer can’t moan about you on your pages thats not going to stop them; they’re only going to do it else where which is much worse! If you get bad comments left on your blog this just hand delivers you the opportunity to showcase your excellent customer service. This makes customers feel valued and less afraid to spend money on your products or services. Connecting with customers in the comments sections in how-to blogs will help you to form a bond and encourages brand loyalty.
• Engagement helps – use the wisdom of the masses to help improve your product or services! If you make them feel like their comments are welcome, people may make suggestions for improvements or new markets! If you then make these improvements providing them with an update – they’re all the more likely to tell their friends about how they had an input!
• Share’s, likes and SEO! –  if people like your company and content they will spread the word for you! They will continue to come back to you more and more and may even link to you – meaning SEO in a natural way!! (Chef, 2013)

For more on why businesses blog see here…

Please also see my previous blog on ‘The Power of a Blog‘ for more of an insight on what a blog could do for your company.

Okay, so now you know why people do it, you need to know HOW to do it…

WHERE TO START:

Right, so first of all you need to decide where you want to blog! There are so many options out there which all have different pros and cons, some of the best ones are (click on the links to take you to view their site):

WORDPRESS.ORG

WordPress is a free software and requires no coding knowledge. It has over 60 million users and is recommended for blogging and websites.

Pros: ease of use and elegance of design.

Cons: You first need to acquire and pay for a domain name and web hosting. The good news is that this only costs around a couple of pound a month from places such as FastHosts.

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WORDPRESS.COM

This is a free hosting sight which has around 50% of the features of the .org version. Although this comes with less maintenance it also comes with less control, but it all depends what your looking for because if your just a small company who wants to try out blogging this may be the option for you as it is cost free. You get a .wordpress domain name, but as I just said it’s down to what your looking for and if you’re conducting some trial and error with marketing techniques this may be the one for you.

Pros: fool-proof to use and difficult to mess up – call it blogging for dummies!

Cons: you don’t get as much customisation.

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BLOGGER.COM

Googles free blog-hosting site, you can be posting blogs with only a gmail account – however you can pay a fee per year for a domain without the ‘.blogspot’ extension.

Pros: you can publish anywhere, including images, video, edit HTMLs, have a template designer and you can teach traffic stats in Blogger and get Adsense at no extra charge.

Cons: Google owns your blog – meaning less control upfront and some of the themes are childlike.

This is a good starting place but many seem to outgrow blogger.

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GOOGLE+

If you want to be considered an expert in the field this may be for you! With Google+ you get an instant community and audience.

Pros: Google circles – where you can divide people into groups and jump between the different streams of circles. It also has a hangout feature, authorship, multi-language and can increase your search rankings, chat, Gmail integration and mobile publishing.

Cons: Generally there does not appear to be many complaints about Google+ however one appears to be that you cannot mute a person in your stream so could find it monopolised by an overly chatty person (you can however mute individual posts). (Bash, 2012)

(The Blogger, 2015)

 To see more options of where you can host your blog please click here.

Okay, so now you’ve decided where you want to set your blog up; the most important part – how do you do it…

HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS BLOG:

Doing something new can be scary and daunting, especially if you feel as though you don’t know where to start. Luckily for you it doesn’t have to be scary and daunting with this step by step guide to walk you through it.

1. Make goals – Why do you want to blog, what do you hope to get out of it, what will your readers get out of it.
2. What is the purpose – Why should people visit your blog? (remember the information above about the purpose of a business blog – your business should not be the sole focus!)
3. Know your audience – in order to right a successful blog you need to know who you’re writing one for and what they want/ need – research your audience!
4. How often – you should decide how often your going to post then try to stick to it – it will be harder to get a loyal following if you don’t update with regular posts. This does not necessarily mean posting everyday – sometimes less is more!
5. Who – you need to decide who will be the primary and contributory writers of your blog. Is this going to be someone from within the company or are you going to outsource to get this from somewhere else.
6. Editorial calender – this is kind of an online to-do list which is recommended to keep you on top of what you should be posting.
7. Give your blog a brand – the theme, colour and language of your blog all goes towards determining whether you are going to have a large following or not and has a big impact on the way readers view you. Please click on this link to see an article on tips to brand your blog.
8. Write it! – Write interesting and engaging content and your readers are sure to come back for more. BUT REMEMBER – don’t just write about your business, how-to blogs always make for nice insightful content. To read an article on how to write a blog post please click here. But some quick tips are: be helpful and unique, tell stories and respond quickly to trends.
9. Promote your blog – You may think that after writing the blog the hard work is over. I am sorry to tell you but I’m wrong – thats probably the easy part! Now you have to share it and distribute it across as many people as you can. For more information on how to promote your blog please read this article.
10. Measure and improve – In order to see if this is something your company should continue you need to measure your blog! You need to know if people out there actually care about your blog. In order to measure your blog you need to decide what you’re blogging for – content, commerce or community? If it content you need to look at total visits and percentage of new visits. Commerce – average length of stay and number of pages viewed. Community – repeat visits, subscribers and comments. For more information on this please see here.

(Redsicker, 2014).

 WHO IS BLOGGING BEST:

It’s no surprise that the popular social media platform only allowing the posting of pictures has   got their business blog spot on. Instagram engages with its readers through hashtags encouraging them to share on social media, it also blogs about current affairs which leads to a more diverse following.

WAIT…

Blogging is great, it humanises your business and forms a bond but don’t be fooled into thinking that there aren’t any drawbacks! Marina states “that consumers who believe in personality stability (i.e., entity theorists) view anthropomorphized brands that undergo negative publicity less favorably than nonanthropomorphized brands” (Marina, 2013). Suggesting that once you form a bond of trust with a customer, if you break it, there is no going back! Just something to think about – if your going to humanise your business, make sure you can live up to the standards that you set.

JUST BEFORE YOU GO…

So, you now know why businesses are blogging and how to do it… and if you’ve been paying attention you should know the do’s and the don’t’s! Just incase you haven’t:

• DO engage with your customers.
• DO make it personal, try to humanise your business.
• DONT constantly focus on your business, try to post on a variety or subjects.
• DON’T disable the comments section – no WOM is bad WOM (Liu, 2006)

Okay, I think your just about ready to go.. thanks for reading and happy blogging! ♥

REFERENCES:

Baer, J. (2015). How to Match 10 Key Success Metrics to Your Blogging Strategy. Available: http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/how-to-match-10-key-success-metrics-to-your-blogging-strategy/. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Basith. (2012). 10 Disadvantages of GOOGLE+. Available: http://www.guide2tricks.com/2012/05/10-diadvantages-of-google.html. Last accessed 26th April 2015.

Bohra, K. (2013). 6 Effective Tips to Brand Your Blog Like QuickSprout.Available: http://www.shoutmeloud.com/6-useful-tips-to-brand-your-blog.html. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Chef, T. (2013). The Actual Purpose of Business Blogging is Not What You Think. Available: https://blog.serps.com/the-actual-purpose-of-business-blogging-is-not-what-you-think/. Last accessed 26th April 2015.

Costa. (2015). Costa Full Store Franchise. Available: http://www.costa.co.uk/business/franchises/. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Everard, M. (2014). 3 Top Corporate Blogs to Inspire You. Available: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/03/10/3-top-corporate-blogs-to-inspire-you/. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Liu, Yong (2006), “Word of Mouth for Movies: Its Dynamics and Impact on Box Office Revenue,” Journal of Marketing, 70 (July), 74–89.

Marina, Hyokjin, Joseph. (2013). When humanizing brands goes wrong: the detrimental effect of brand anthropomorphization amid product wrongdoings. Journal of Marketing. 77 (3), 81-100.

Morrison, K. (2015). How to Promote Your Blog Effectively [Infographic].Available: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/how-to-promote-your-blog-effectively-infographic/618939. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Redsicker, P. (2014). How to Create a Successful Business Blog.Available: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/create-successful-business-blog/. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Sprung, R. (2014). How to Write a Blog Post: A Simple Formula + 5 Free Blog Post Templates. Available: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-write-blog-post-simple-formula-ht. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

The Blogger. (2015). THE Best Places to Start a Blog (Updated 2015 Edition). Available: http://www.dearblogger.org/blogger-or-wordpress-better. Last accessed 27th April 2015.

Wright, J (2006). Blog Marketing: The Revolutionary New Way to Increase Sales, Build Your Brand, and Get Exceptional Results. The McGraw-Hill Companies.