Mar. 16th 2007
It depends.
Step 1: Ask yourself, “In your industry, are there blog readers?”
It’s not necessarily just your potential audience we’re talking about here. How about your strategic partners, business associates, your current clients and their employees? Mike McLaughlin at Guerrilla Consulting says, “If the purpose of a business blog is to reach your targeted audience, it’s best to know someone out there would want to read your stuff.” Even if blogging isn’t so popular in your industry, would that fact give you a leg up over competition?
If your readership likes what they read and gets to know you better through your posts, don’t you think you have a better chance to stay on top-of-mind when they do need the products and services that you provide.
Step 2: Do you already have the characteristics of a good blogger?
Have you subscribed to blogs? How often to you read people’s blogs? Mike goes on to state, “You need to be a good blog reader before you can be a good blogger.” If you are considering blogging for your business, then swipe some of the techniques you admire of other great bloggers. Why do you like reading their blog posts? Why did you decide to subscribe? How did you feel about the ability to make comments? How did that blog engage you into the dialogue of concepts and ideas you had read? Were there consistent tones, a certain manner and structure used throughout the posts you can learn from? What do you think of the blog author?
Step 3: Determine your Blog’s Focus
In the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey wants you to, “begin with the end in mind.” Write down the results you are looking for, then brainstorm all the ways your blog will help accomplish these goals. According to Publish & Prosper. Blogging for your Business by DL Byron & Steve Broback, business blogs are created to focus on marketing, public relations and/or customer service.
So why will you be blogging? How can you make more money with the help of blogs?
Step 4: Are you Commited?
Have you ever played with domino pieces? Remember, you stand them up in long lines just so you can topple the first tile, which falls on the second tile, to the third… so on and so forth. How does the domino effect play a role in blogging? When you post to your blog (using a catchy title, sprinkle keywords throughout the post and share information of value that your readers can learn from) search engines are notified. Having a listing in various search engines enables more people to find the information that you are posting. They click to your blog post and then the possibilities are endless… Visitors may become frequent readers of your blog. They may subscribe. They may comment. They might write a blog post about your article and link back to your post. They may email you. You get the picture.
So, will you commit to a schedule of posting often to your blog? What does ‘often’ mean? From the words of Publish & Prosper, “the most important thing is to write posts that are relevant to your audience, it’s also vital that you do it frequently enough that search engines see the blog as an actively updated site and your readers have a reason to come back.” Does that sound overwhelming? You don’t think you can do it? Are you asking yourself, “Won’t that just create more work for me?”
Calm yourself. Keep it simple. Andy Wibbels, author of BlogWild! writes, “You don’t have to blog every day to have a successful blog. I recommend beginning bloggers commit to writing at least three posts each week… The e-mails you write to friends and colleagues, the interesting and enjoyable quips, ideas or comments you come across in your daily life, and even the ideas in articles and books you’ve read – all of this can become content for your blog… Be controversial. Be passionate.”
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