Blogging for Business

One of the most powerful mediums to reach your customers, and also to build links, is a blog. People love blogs, Search engines love blogs, You win!!
In a recent book about the changing face of Media Ken Aulletta noted that much of the traditional medias concern over slumping sales and viewers is attributed to blogs and Social Media. Why? – because we are dealing with people. If you can get the story from your best friend instead of some nebulous reporting mechanism, you probably will! Never mind that your friend got it from his friend, who got it from the mailman who read it on a magazine. And don’t worry about all the years spent going to school for journalism to become a reporter in the first place. As humans we tend to trust those that we know, and thats where blogs come in.
Blogging, like Social Media, is not meant to be a direct advertisement to get people to buy. While it can serve as a point of reference shoving people in the right direction, blogging is more effective when it is used to build repor with your audience and to establish the fact that you really do know what you are talking about. What does this do for you? – two things:
First, it sets you out as an expert and a human. Now instead of going to the ecommerce store or trusting someone on live chat who is most likely stationed in Kenya, readers can get a first hand account and advice right from you! This establishes your expertise. Give them good advice, and they will come back. Give them junk, and you just lost a valuable reader.
Second, Blogging starts a conversation that can hopefully end up in sales. So you write a great article… thats only the beginning. Involve your readers in conversation, ask questions in the post that you want answered in the comments. Reply to your readers comments in a comment. Keep a conversation going to get the reader back and eventually get them to your business.
So blogging is not selling a product. It is selling you. You have to be the expert, the sales rep. and the customer support guy all in one. But in the end, it represents another cost effective marketing strategy that can grow your business.

Happy Monday,

Jon Neubauer