A paradigm shift (shift in habits) has been happening in the last year as far as blogging is concerned. It was not surprising to find that according to a research done by Hubspot, blogs are the most critical platform for businesses, more than social media.
75% of the respondents said they consider blogs ‘useful’ and 31% said it is ‘critical’ to their business.
According to the survey businesses with corporate blog generate more leads than businesses which don’t have one. And it is true not only for business to customer relations but also for business to business.
As long as you post quality content which addresses your specific target audience, business leads are almost guaranteed.
The quality of the content, posting frequency and having an interesting and easy to read design, have to be consistent to ensure effectiveness.
Before you embark on a blogging adventure you have to ask yourself several questions:
– What are your strategies? Experts have found 4 different kinds of blogs that are used for businesses advantage:
Building brand awareness through leadership. It requires businesses to share their thoughts and opinions regarding their industry. The aim is to be a trusted source, to be considered an expert in the field and come up with blogs about new developments, opinions about old ones and guidelines. (For example: http://edelmandigital.com/page/1/)
Another kind of blog deals with the corporate culture – helping others understand the company and what motivates it. (http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos)
Connecting with leaders – is another kind of blog written by the CEO or another head of company. It helps connect the leaders of the company with its employees and the customers. It creates familiarity that has disappeared from the corporate culture as companies grow bigger. (http://www.blogs.marriott.com/)
Branding – a blog that establishes a brand image. (http://www.openforum.com/)
The content must reflect the reason for the blog.
– Set Goals – Think what you want to achieve with the blog and how are you going to be able to see if you accomplished that goal.
– Management – Someone in the company has to be responsible for the blog. If you don’t have an IT to build the blog for you, you can go to hosted blogging services such as WordPress. That is for the look of the blog and the ability to upload it quickly, but managing the content is another issue. Have an “editor” designated to working on the blog and generating and evaluating the information that comes in. Have more than one person post blogs especially if you want to publish on a daily basis.
– Post interesting blogs. Make them easy to read and informative. You’d want people to spread the word through Tweets and the readers own social networks.
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