Could your small business blogs be improved? Company blogs are now standard in every industry, from engineering to consulting to retail. However, not all small business blogs are as successful as they can be. And the success depends mostly on having the best business blog content.
Check out our thoughts on customer focus.
Social isn’t a new way of marketing; it’s a new way of doing business.
Social media is constantly growing and evolving.
So is the way we use it in business and as marketers.
Following blogs that discuss social media and social media marketing is a great way to stay up-to-date with these changes in how social media is being run and used so that you can utilize it in the most productive way.
Small business blogs … what you need to know about blogs
Blogs, short for weblogs, are online platforms to create specific types of content. People share them and interact with others around those content objects, known as blog posts.
They have some common features such as comment possibilities and trackbacks. Business blogs should focus on non-promotional and regularly updated content posts.
Blog Goals: Why Do You Need Them?
“Blogging is a journey,” Heidi Cohen explains. Like going on a trip, you can’t just jump into blogging without knowing where you’re heading.
They typically aim to attract prospective customers and other stakeholders. They provide information to pre-defined target audiences or buyer personas and drive conversions, including social conversions. While the content-type is not directly promotional, business blogs obviously serve direct and indirect business goals.
Blogs are essential parts of most social media programs and still often the hubs of content marketing strategies. In practice, we see this view of content marketing coming back in the approaches of many organizations. That is the blog as the hub and different other channels and content formats as the spokes. The real hub of any content marketing strategy is the customer value which generates business value.
Company blogs have great potential value. They can use these platforms for a range of purposes, from developing a reputation as an industry thought leader, to engaging with customers and building brand loyalty.
One of the most difficult aspects of running a good company blog is generating the right kind of content. Posts need to be consistently interesting and innovative, remaining on-brand without resorting to generic sales-speak.
Here are our blog success enablers for generating the best content. This is what we highlight most often to our clients:
Business blog examples … where to start
It starts with researching your target readership thoroughly. Understand who your audience is, and what type of content they’ll enjoy reading. More importantly, it is the posts they’re likely to share on social media.
Are We Misunderstanding the Purpose of a Blog?
For most people, a business blog is more about gaining exposure for their brand and less about making money. “Blogging and social media have never been the best ways to directly sell to others,” Mack Collier believes.
“Sure, some people and companies can make it work, but some people can sell ice to Eskimos.” Collier has some excellent insights on how to determine the value and purpose of a blog.
The big “who” is so important when it comes to blogging. Who is your audience? In an ideal world, your blog reader should fit the same profile as your actual customer.
To attract the ideal audience to your blog, you have to understand who they are and what they need. That way you can craft content that is both relevant and useful to your readers.
How to Define Your Target Audience the Right Way
“Can you please everyone all the time?” asks James T. Noble on Raventools.com. Of course not. And that’s why you have to know exactly who you’re targeting and why. This article hits all of the key points about relevant audience discovery.
Radical transparency
Want to blow your audience away? Give them your secrets! The idea of radical transparency is often used in financial posts. Here business owners or individuals talk about the real secrets to their success or occasionally their biggest failures.
Blog strategy … share consistently
If you have the expertise, share it. Sharing your insights can drive traffic to your blog, and raise the profile of your brand.
Engage your readers
Interacting with your audience is one of the best ways to encourage social media shares – Hashtags are one way of doing this, although you could also open a conversation in the comments section under each post.
Be an authentic personality
Personality is a vital ingredient for any company – it separates great companies from the rest.
Small business blogs … find the story
Top bloggers find interesting angles, and approach stories in unusual and innovative ways. If your product or service isn’t exciting on its own, find a way of making it dynamic.
Original research
If you truly want to stand out, you’ve got to bring something new and different to the table. Rehashing the same facts and statistics doesn’t set your business blog apart from others in any meaningful way.
To grab the attention of your readers, consider conducting your original research. Depending on your budget, you can do so using online survey companies, agencies that conduct telephone surveys or even market research firms that orchestrate in-person focus groups.
Not only does publishing the results of your work on your blog lead to epic content, but it also improves your small business’s overall perceived authority. Also, it creates brand recognition within your industry.
Blog about current affairs
Blog readers always appreciate diversity, and topical posts often tend to do well regarding page visits.
Explore the hard truth
There’s so much BS online that readers quickly tune it out. Despite your spin team’s best efforts, most people know when they’re getting the whitewashed “truth” rather than the real deal.
For this reason, one of the easiest ways out there to gain attention with epic blog content is to explore a hard truth. As an example, check out Common Health’s controversial post, “Why I Quit Medicine.” It isn’t always fun to be so blatantly honest, but your readers will love it for keeping things real.
The bottom line
We’re often told that innovation is about ideas, but that’s only partly true. If your idea is revolutionary enough, your biggest problem won’t be having it stolen, but getting anyone to take it seriously at all. That’s why the hardest part of innovation is not coming up with an idea, but getting it adopted. Talent will only take you so far; you also need the grit to stick with it.
That, in truth, is the best way to outsmart the opponents of change. Find a way to make it successful, no matter how small that initial victory maybe, then empower others to succeed as well. It’s easy to argue against an idea, you merely need to smother it in its cradle. Yet a concept that’s been proven to work and has inspired people to believe in it is an idea whose time has come.
