Since the birth of digital marketing and the reiterated importance of this marketing avenue, companies are now utilising the majority of digital marketing techniques to ensure that their presence online is as significant as possible, however one technique that isn’t used as frequently as it should is blogging.

Blogging is something that not only gives organisations a platform to publish relevant information regarding their products and services but it also provides advantages, such as the following:

• Drives traffic to company website

Blogs can and if done effectively, will generate traffic to your website. This is due to the fact that the more blogs that the business posts around a number of different topics, the more pages from the company domain will be indexed into search engines, which in turn generates more traffic and potentially more revenue. (Holtz and Demopoulos, 2006)

• Humanises the brand

News pieces from a company not only shows customers and users that there is a real expertise in knowledge in regards to a number of subjects based around the said product or service but it also allows businesses to portray a more human side to their writing. Blog posts give businesses a unique opportunity to share their voice and personality, building up trust and increasing the brand’s likeability quotient.

An example of how a company has humanised their brand is Coca-Cola with their Unbottled Blog. This blog has enabled Coca-Cola customers to see and understand the company beyond its conglomerate stature and see and understand that the company is doing much more than selling their products. To see Coca-Cola’s Unbottled Blog, please see here or alternatively see below.

• Supports social media initiatives

Sharing other people’s content on a business’s social media is great but having a platform to publish content allows users to read and ultimately click through to the company’s website instead of someone else’s, which in turn generates an increase in leads and more importantly, conversions.

An example of this can be seen here, alternatively see below.

• Works towards establishing authority and generating free PR

A company blog allows businesses to showcase both their experience and expertise in regards to their field, which is also something that will establish a certain amount of trust between customer and organisation. Due to a company’s expertise, they can often be interviewed by journalists as industry experts, which in turn generates free PR for the organisation.

An example of this can be seen here, alternatively see below.

There are of course a number of disadvantages to business blogging, which could ultimately result in customers losing faith and trust in the organisation in question.

Disadvantages are as follows:

• Time

Preparing blog posts can be extremely time consuming and for some businesses, especially start-ups, time isn’t something that is had in abundance.

Preparation isn’t simply the writing and publishing of the blog but also the editing and most importantly, proofreading. This is due to the fact that users will instantly pick up on grammatical errors and incorrect terminology, which can result in the loss of customers to better-informed competitors.

• Inconsistency

Having an inconsistent, dead blog is worse than not having a blog at all. Once a company introduces a blog to it’s website, it is of paramount importance to ensure that blog posts are made regularly.

This is due to the fact that customers and other internet users may come across the company’s website, see that their blog posts have not been updated and assume that the company may not be trading anymore or it may be understood by customers that the company may not have the expertise that is expected.

An example of a inconsistent blog can be seen here, alternatively see below.

• Quality

A good, well written and thought out blog, full of useful posts and information is a great brand asset. A poorly written blog, rushed together, with low-quality posts full of typos and spelling errors could be doing more harm than good.

Poor blog quality will result in loss of customers and ultimately reflects poorly on the brand if the blog also contains incorrect information.

• Less Income

Despite the previous advantage in which companies will experience an increase in revenue due to the fact new customers may come across a new company blog via search engines, which is true.

However, there is also a possibility that blogging could result in less income. This could be a result of a poor quality blog or also the fact that the customers arriving at the blog may not be interested in purchasing the company’s product or service. This is something that may occur if the subject of the blog doesn’t entirely revolve around the company’s sector.

To conclude, the advantages of blogging do outweigh the disadvantages, however there are a number of points that need to be addressed to ensure that a company blog doesn’t have a detrimental impact on both the brand and also the revenue streams.

• Define the exact customers being written for
• Plan content in advance that will appeal to customers
• Define what the blog is being introduced for and monitor the success of it
• Be consistent

To gain a further insight into the requirements of introducing a successful blog from small business owner Amanda Webb, please see here and if you are looking for inspiration and want to see what the best in business blogs look like, please see here.

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