Business Blogging by David Caldwell
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5 Reasons Your Company Should Be Blogging Business Blogging Made Easy {
Transcript of Business Blogging by David Caldwell
5 Reasons Your Company Should Be Blogging
Business Blogging Made Easy {
In the beginning…
BLOG: A Web site on which an individual or group of users record opinions, information, etc. on a regular basis. {
Today…
A blog is essentially an on online platform that helps you reach out to consumers by talking about things that are of interest to them and will peak their curiosity… and hopefully your business. {
Why blog?
1. Build a Team Mentality {
1. Build a Team Mentality
{ We, as humans, like to be part of a movement. We want to be part of a team. When all hands are on deck and each person is contributing to building the company’s content base, magic and momentum can truly happen, and all benefit together. Whether you’re an army of 1, 5 or 500, working as a team to produce content can have a powerful effect on any company or organization.
Why blog?
2. Keep Your Sword Sharpened {
2. Keep Your Sword Sharpened
{ • Blogging forces you to stay up to date with every new
technology in your industry.
• You become much better at explaining things in a way that consumers can clearly understand. (In other words, you learn how to become a better teacher and communicator.)
• You increase the ability to answer questions a customer could throw at you.
• Writing a blog post is like practicing for a game. The more one practices, the better their skills, timing and overall play—which ultimately leads to more victories, or in most case, sales.
Why blog?
3. Become a Trust Agent {
3. Become a Trust Agent
{ • When it comes to blogging, the process of making
connections with your customers is not nearly as complicated as we sometimes make it. Look at it this way:
Helpful Content = Trust Trust = Leads Leads = Sales
3. Become a Trust Agent
{ • Do you remember your kindergarten teacher? (Yes, I
know that was a long time ago, but try.) How did he or she make you feel? Did you trust him/her?
• Most of us love our earliest teachers – Why? The biggest reason is because they took the time to patiently teach us things in a way we could actually understand.
• That’s right; they weren’t there to impress anyone, as their only goal was helping us understand.
• When a company’s blog takes on this “kindergarten content” approach, they do everything in their power to answer customer questions by seeing the world from the consumer’s point of view, not their own.
• Once this occurs, walls of doubt are torn down and the trust level between the customer and the company immediately starts to go up.
Why blog?
4. Build a Better Business {
4. Build a Better Business
{ Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has: 55% more visitors 97% more inbound links 434% more indexed pages
4. Build a Better Business
{ Why are website visitors important? Because more visitors means more people to convert to leads or sales.
Why are inbound links important? Because they signal authority to search engines, thus increasing your chances of getting found on search engines.
Why are indexed pages important? The more pages you have on your site, the better your chances of getting found on search engines.
Why blog?
5. Benefit vs. Cost {
5. Reach vs. Expense {
• Blogging is both relatively simple and highly cost-effective. Blogs are assets that are extremely well suited for the needs of businesses as they desire to maximize visibility and minimize costs. When integrated with other social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter through links and references, blogs can serve to further an even greater awareness and allow businesses to reach an even wider audience.
• Blogs provide the ability to connect with clients on a less formal basis, one of the primary drivers of Social Media. In addition to this blogs are also very useful from a traditional Search Optimization perspective, the ability to write on various topics related to the business is an ideal method to increase the number of potential linking partners and therefore build the web site Authority factor over time.
5 Reasons You Might Not Be Blogging
How to overcome workplace roadblocks and myths {
Not blogging?
1. Takes Time Away from Other Duties {
1. Takes Time Away from Other Duties {
Yes, it probably does. Blogging takes time. But a boss who is airing this grievance is a sign you haven't sufficiently sold the importance of business blogging. Selling points: • 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day
have acquired a customer from their blog. 66% of marketers who blog once a week have acquired a customer, too!
• 70% of marketers are blogging at least once a week. Probably because they're all getting customers from it.
• 52% of marketers who blog say it delivers the lowest CPL of all other marketing channels.
Once you've convinced your boss, you have some options. Either keep doing it yourself, as part of a team approach or…. outsource it.
Not blogging?
2. Your Boss Wants to Review Everything {
2. Your Boss Wants to Review Everything {
Bosses are busy. If everything has to be approved before it goes out, you're going to suffer a huge bottleneck. You’ll spend more time chasing them down, asking them if they could please read that post you gave them two weeks ago. Solutions: Agree that it’s important to have another person review blog content before it gets published ... But ask your boss if a colleague can be trained on the approval process instead. Because when a colleague reviews content, it's more of a team effort, as opposed to an annoying task that keeps clogging up your boss' calendar. You and your colleague will enjoy a shared success when your blog takes off. And when you're relying on one another to complete a project together, that bottleneck disappears, because your success is tied to one another's productivity.
Not blogging?
3. Your Legal Counsel Needs to Review Everything {
3. Your Legal Counsel Needs to Review Everything {
Getting over this common hurdle comes down to advance preparation. Here's what you can do. • First, ask your legal team to do a little upfront work. They
should write down guidelines that dictate what can -- and more important, what cannot -- be published in your blog content. Ask them to provide examples of each so you truly understand the nuances of their requirements.
• Create an editorial calendar of blog topics. Send this to your legal team, and ask them to approve and reject topics, adding notes next to each topic of anything they think the writer should beware of to sidestep legal landmines.
Not blogging?
4. You Forgot to Mention This, That, and the Other Thing {
4. You Forgot to Mention This, That, and the Other Thing
{ That's why internal linking was invented. Make sure your company's internal blogging “roadblockers” understand the concept that blog posts should focus on shorter, more specific topics. Save some of that content and you’ll also struggle way less to come up with more blog topics to write about later down the road!
Not blogging?
5. Your Blog Does Not Sound on Brand {
5. Your Blog Does Not Sound on Brand { Inconsistency in the style, tone, and even grammar of your content is fair game for roadblockers, especially in larger organizations. And if you have more than one person in charge of content creation, it's made even more difficult. Solutions: Get everyone on the same page with a content style guide. A style guide for your written content will ensure everyone creating content is playing by the same rules, and gives everyone one place to consult for their questions ... whether about the decision to hyphenate a word, or whether their audience would truly appreciate that joke you want to make in the last paragraph of your post.
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
1. Set Up an Editorial Calendar {
1. Set Up an Editorial Calendar { Many people suffer not from writer's block, but from topic block. In fact, often writer's block is a symptom of a crappy topic. If you start writing and find yourself struggling, go back to the topic and ask yourself if it's focused enough and relevant enough for your target audience. Create an editorial calendar, or at the very least, a topic list that you can reference every time you sit down to blog. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet with a topic, working title, and notes on what you'd like to cover in the post. Add to it whenever a great idea pops into your head, which could literally happen at any time.
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
2. Require other Team Members to Contribute {
2. Require other Team Members to Contribute { • Have a requirement that each employee (related to
marketing efforts) contributes to the blogging content topic list. Or in a smaller business, ask each member of your company to contribute one or two posts each month.
• You'll probably encounter some people who aren't natural bloggers, and that's okay! Have them at least run topics by you as suggestions.
• Remind those struggling that not only is this an important skill they're building, but also that content doesn't have to be long, complicated, or forced. Just write like you speak, about what you know, and edit afterward for clarity.
• REMEMBER TO BUILD THE TEAM MENTALITY
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
3. Stop Worrying About Length {
3. Stop Worrying About Length { • Many people get tripped up over how much they're writing.
The truth is, most people hate reading. • People coming to your blog have a million other things they
could be doing with their time, but they're there on your blog to learn something very specific. The easier you make that process (AKA the less time it takes), the happier they'll be.
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
4. Answer a Common Question {
4. Answer a Common Question { • If you're on the front lines with prospects and customers
every day, consider one, just one, question you get frequently.
• Write a quick answer to that question just like it's an FAQ, and publish that to your blog. You're being helpful, providing valuable content, and it doesn't have to be long or require any research... because all of the knowledge is already in your head, and you probably already repeat this answer every single day!
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
5. Publish Other Kinds of Content {
5. Publish Other Kinds of Content { • Some days it simply isn’t going to happen.
• Instead publish alternative content. An infographic, industry related cartoon, slideshow, or video? These types of content are not only well received by readers and frequently shared, but they require nothing more than a quick intro in way of writing.
Tactics for Faster Business Blogging
6. Outsource It {
5. Outsource It { • When all else fails, just outsource your needed content.
• Tap into freelance copywriters elsewhere that specialize in your industry. Just make sure you screen the writers in advance to ensure they are high quality writers who are knowledgeable in your industry.
Reasons Why Blogging Is Still Important for 2013
1. It’s Socially Foundational {
1. It’s Socially Foundational { • Just because a lot of the conversation is moving off of
blogging platforms doesn’t mean that you should abandon ship. A blog allows you to create a base in which all of your work is anchored.
• As cool as it is, you cannot fully explain yourself on Twitter.
• A blog allows you to build a fuller picture of who you are. Most people will meet you through other places… but if they like what they read on Twitter, then they’ll follow you back to your blog and find out more about who you are.
Reasons Why Blogging Is Still Important for 2013
2. You Build Your Brand As An Expert {
2. You Build Your Brand As An Expert { • Successful marketing bloggers command attention and
garner interesting results by influencing trends, creating breakthrough ideas and giving its customers the best information out there.
• Successful bloggers don’t focus on themselves. They focus on publishing relevant content that puts their talent and knowledge on display, while simultaneously giving the customers something they can use. Being an expert is not talking about yourself.
Reasons Why Blogging Is Still Important for 2013
3. You Build Trust {
3. You Build Trust { People are skeptical. They are skeptical about strangers on the street and they are even more skeptical about strangers on the internet. A blog with consistent, truthful and helpful content will allow you to bridge that gap between distrust to trust. How do you build trust? • Clean and beautiful design • Correct spelling and grammar • High-quality photo of the author • Signs of social sharing • Links to trustworthy sources • High-quality images and visuals • Short, easy-to-read domain name • Professional logo • Solid, detailed content updated frequently
Reasons Why Blogging Is Still Important for 2013
4. You Get to Be Creative {
4. You Get to Be Creative { You might wonder why creativity is important in a world where business and hard-hitting metrics seem to dominate, but the answer is simple: in any competitive field it is the most creative who will succeed. Here’s how: • Create content that stirs up conversation and communities
that generate new ideas • Blogging can reduce stress as you work out ideas or
problems that might be weighing on your mind • The process of blogging unlocks hidden ideas in your own
mind, leading to insights • Helps you maintain a focus on what needs to get done. • But ultimately, blogging will lead to growth as you learn
about yourself, your audience and the world around you…leading to further creativity and profitable insights.
Reasons Why Blogging Is Still Important for 2013
5. Organic Search Traffic {
5. Organic Search Traffic { • Blogging improves your organic search engine efforts,
which in turns drives more traffic to your site.
• And when people show up to your site and find well-reasoned and useful content, they are going to learn more about your services.
• As more posts increase, your overall site traffic will increase also. In other words, accumulating posts on your site over time is like a snowball growing in size as it rolls down the hill.
• More content you have the more likely you are going to have something that a reader wants.
• Why not try and give it to them?
