As more businesses embrace blogging as part of a social media strategy, confusion about how to blog, what to blog about and how blogging fits into the big picture has increased. Blogging is never an end in itself; rather, it should be one of many tools used to achieve a top business goal.
Whether your company is new to blogging, or has been active for a while, here are ten Do and Don’t concepts to make your blogging effort more worthwhile.
1.) Do blog regularly. Make sure that new information posts to your blog more than once a week. Blogs that are rarely or sporadically updated never gain momentum.
2.) Don’t think you have to do it all yourself. Invite experts, clients, authors, vendors and others related to your field to provide a guest post. Not only does it add fresh voices to your blog, but their friends, followers and readers will discover your blog because of the guest posting.
3.) Do post more than just words. Pass along links to articles in other publications or to business videos that are noteworthy. Use polls and surveys to increase interactivity.
4.) Don’t lose sight of the big picture. Blogging should support achievement of your number one business goal by providing valuable content to your number one business audience.
5.) Do repurpose your writing. Make the most of the time it takes you to write an article by re-using it as a series of blog posts. Break the video or audio of a speech or presentation into short stand-alone snippets and post them. Expand on short blog posts to create articles, book chapters or presentations.
6.) Don’t forget that what’s on the web lasts forever. Sure, at the moment you want to vent about something, whether it’s politics or poor service from a vendor. Just don’t do it on your blog, where your comments will long outlive the heat of the moment.
7.) Do remember that people don’t have to agree with you to spend money with you. Do the political, religious or social beliefs of your clients and prospective clients actually matter to your business relationship? If not, keep controversial and provocative comments off your blog. Clients who discover you hold others like them in contempt for their opinions may just decide to spend their “dirty” money with someone else.
8.) Don’t focus on amassing a huge subscriber base. It’s not about having a million subscribers; it’s about having the right subscribers. “Right” as in actively interested in what you sell or provide and likely to purchase your product or service. It’s much better to have a small and passionate readership than to have a massive list of people who will never buy from you.
9.) Do have patience. It can take more than a year to build a readership base, even with exceptional content.
10.) Don’t overlook RSS. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a built-in application that enables you to have your blog posts (and Twitter tweets) automatically show up in your web site home page, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites. With RSS, the work of writing and posting your content can reach multiple sites without your lifting a finger.
Social media doesn’t have to be a bottomless pit for your time. Use these ten tips to get more out of the time and energy you put into social media, and see your results blossom.
Gail Z. Martin owns DreamSpinner Communications and helps companies and solo professionals in the U.S. and Canada improve their marketing results in 30 days. Gail has an MBA in marketing and over 20 years of corporate and non-profit experience at senior executive levels. Gail hosts the Shared Dreams Marketing Podcast. She’s the author of The Thrifty Author’s Guide to Launching Your Book and 30 Days to Social Media Success. Find her online at www.GailMartinMarketing.com, on Twitter @GailMartinPR and check out her Facebook page at 30 Day Results Guide.
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Last Updated: February 11, 2012
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Really great article about blogging. Many times it is easy to get confused on goals when starting a business blog. A list like this is a good resource in order to stay on track with your goals.
Thanks for sharing article .
Its give me some interesting ideas
good job
keep it up..
awesome tips, I particularly liked the first one. gaining momentum in blogging is very important, knowing that this industry really requires hard work (lots of it actually) and patience. But there’s one thing that I really do want to share with everyone here. The main point of having a blog is not just to write stuffs, give your readers what they want and “EDUCATE” them, that’s the main purpose of some in the first place, to share their expertise right? profits will surely come, if your readers find value with your contents :)
Yes, you’re right! Readers first, Profits second!