10 Reasons Why Your Business Shouldn't Start Blogging TribalCafe ...

Blogging isn?t for everyone and it isn?t for every business. This is contrary to all the news, reports and hype that you find on the internet, but does it make sense?

With more businesses now blogging you would expect that everybody should be recommending businesses to jump into the fray and start blogging. Yet if you look further at some reports many businesses consider blogging ineffective. If you were to consider the benefits of blogging it may seem hard to understand why every business isn?t blogging:

It is clear that companies that are used to promoting their business through more traditional routes, e.g. generating ads and pushing messages, are finding it hard to generate relevant content for their audience and enough of it.

1 Because Others Are Blogging

More business blogging and more content generally means more noise on the internet. The hard part for most people is finding good quality content not just more content. If you are going to develop a blog it is important to recognise that it isn?t free, it takes time, commitment and resources to make it work.

To stand out from the crowd you need to develop a clear focus on what is going to separate your blog from your competitors and what is going to make it stand out.

Key marketing actions:

• Set a clear goal for a blog aligned to your business goals e.g. increase website traffic by 200% in 6 months, provide a percentage increase in leads
• Set out a clear purpose for your blog and how it fits to your target audience e.g. how will your blog help solve your customers problems, build trust and convey your brand

2 Because You Don?t Do Social

The reports all suggest that marketing budgets are being pumped into digital marketing with content and social seeing a major increase.

There are still many businesses that have not empowered their employees to be social as part of their strategy and purely use social as another advertising channel. Being social without content as your central hub is hard. Content forms the fuel for how your brand generates the conversations around it. It is also the voice of your brand, the personality ? the human side of your business.

Out of all your content your blog forms a major role in helping to develop conversations with your audience.

Key marketing actions:

• Plan your social strategy to fit to the profile of your target audience.
• Generate simple marketing personas around them. Use these to identify which social networks they use and start to listen to what they are interested in, what problems they have?
• Use your blog to reach out to the questions and topics that interest them
• Use the social channels to promote your blog and build engagement

3 Because You Don?t Want To Give Away Useful Information To Your Competitors

Outside of research projects or new services there shouldn?t be any excuse not to provide useful information to your customers. If you are not sure on this then simply Google some terms. If you understand your customers and how they buy, the customer journey, you can provide real value simply by helping them with information that answer their questions during this process.

Imagine for a moment you were selling an integrated HR planning platform and your target audience is HR directors. You would want to get their attention and become a trusted source for quality content. Ideally you would want them to subscribe to your blog and build a relationship.

At the time they are looking to then buy you are a known brand and trusted expert. An example blog posts might be ?5 trends affecting HR directors? or ?10 ways HR professionals can save time?. These blogs could provide helpful news and tips for HR directors. Giving information away when others don?t helps you not hinders you.

Key marketing actions:

• Map out the typical problems that your customers face when buying. Dig into how you make provide helpful information that makes those decisions easier.
• Look at what topics your customers share on Linkedin groups, Facebook and Twitter
• Make a list of key topics and headlines you can use.

4 Because You Just Can?t Write

Writing for a blog is not the same as developing an essay back in the day when your were in school. Blogging is generally more free style and you need to adapt to writing to your audience rather than in some form of academic style. Being natural is key.

There is a fear factor most people get about being judged, or not being liked?the truth is if you are passionate about what you are writing about then the rest comes easy. The best way to develop your style is simply by doing it, but plan first and it will save you the scary part of looking at a blank piece of paper and endless doubts filling your head.

Key marketing actions:

• Pick a topic you know is of interest to your customers and develop some headline topics that you know will interest them. Build this out until you have enough for a months worth ? (this depends on how many posts per month is right for you)
• Before releasing your blog, practice by building out 10 blog posts and then ask some friends for feedback to help edit and refine them. By the time you come to release them you will be a pracitced blogger!

5 Because You Simply Want To Tell People Your News

How many websites have you visited that used to have a news section but no news! PR is of course worthwhile and has its place but too much spin can turn customers off. Good PR is relevant to its audience, involves them or entertains them and delivers a clear brand message.

But thinly disguised press releases regularly chucked into a blog do not warrant being called a blog.

We all like stories and are hard wired to tune into them. So creating stories that are about your people, your customers and have a unique angle form part of your blogging editorial.

Key marketing actions:

• Research your customers: ask them directly, use your sales teams and when you meet them. Find out the heroes amongst them.
• Build out stories that fit to your brand ? your passion for your business, your quality of service or products, your attention to customer service. Who would have thought that a blender was that exciting ? http://youtu.be/ZWP8OUytprE 1.9M views!

6 Because You Don?t Have The Time

Businesses often think that the blogging has to come 1 person e.g. someone from the senior tea or the head of marketing.

The truth is you probably can spread the load of blogging across your business and as a result get a greater variety of posts, more ideas and more regular content.

Key marketing action:

• If you are going to use a team then set out clear roles and responsibilities
• Define an editorial process including a review process
• Set clear goals, objectives and measures for your blogging
• Meet regularly to review performance, discuss editorial ideas and adjust editorial calendar based on results

7 Because You Don?t Have The Know How

The first thing to do is make the commitment to blog. Then set out a project and timescales to learn and develop your capabilities.

If your doing this as a team, then split out roles and share our learning together e.g. one person looks at general case studies, another competitors blogs, another reads a book on blogging best practice.

Key marketing actions:

Some useful resources and books:
• Copyblogger ? great tips and methods on how to blog
• Problogger ? packed full of useful videos and resources
• Content Rules ? this covers more than just blogging and it is a great read.
• Corporate blogging ? a book looking at how you integrate blogging into broader communications mix
• Use Technorati to search on blogs and posts in your sector

8 Because You Are Not Creative

Many people already believe they are not creative yet this can easily be overcome. Each one of us is a special kind of artist. Every one of us is born a creative, spontaneous thinker. The only difference between people who are creative and people who are not is a simple belief. Creative people believe they are creative.

There are lots of ways to generate useful and relevant blog content for your target audience. You can of course ask them as well what they would like from you.

Here are some ideas that you can build around:

• interview leaders in your sector and write about it
• report on trends in your market, how they will affect your customers and what they do about them
• write about big events that take place and summarize your thoughts on them
• look at any industry reports and put your own angle and perspective on it
• produce a survey or poll and then write a blog on the results

9 Because You Don?t Have a Good Website For Blogging

A good blog deserves a good home. To blog consistently you need to have an easy to use content management system (CMS) to publish your posts.

Many business have hard coded websites or CMS?s that are not user friendly. By far and away the best platform is WordPress (there now over 80M WordPress websites/blogs).

Key marketing actions:

10 Because You Don?t Want To Change

The last one is the hardest and a good reason why many businesses don?t blog. Many businesses are still uncertain of the benefits of blogging and unsure of any return on investment.

I may be controversial here but I still see a generation gap in the digital world. Some people have embraced it whilst others still are wary of it particularly at older senior levels of management. Some people simply prefer to stick to what they know and have tried before.

In larger businesses it is often a cultural shift on a larger scale that is needed and blogging is part of a broader social marketing strategy.

Key marketing actions:

If you have internal resistance to change then build the case for blogging/social marketing:

• Produce a business proposal for how social marketing and blogging can benefit your business
• Use case studies (here are some interesting ones from Warwick Uni for instance)/ reports and best practice.
• Lobby people internally and find out who is blogging anyway! on their own blog

Well there you have it 10 reasons a business shouldn?t blog ? what do you think should every business blog?

Source: http://www.tribalcafe.co.uk/10-reasons-why-your-business-shouldnt-blogging/

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