Why blogging is good for your business

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Gary Chow | No Comments » | Trackback URL

I love reading blogs on the Internet. I have a number of favourites that I consume voraciously on a daily basis, on topics that matter to me: music, sports, travelling, social media and my work. But I must confess I am a latecomer to blogs, having only ‘discovered’ them in recent times even though they’ve been around for the past ten years or so.

Blogging as a means of disseminating information is huge and growing rapidly. It’s estimated that there are well over 120 million blogs worldwide and new ones are entering the blogosphere by the ton every week.

If you read the statistics generated by sites such as Technorati you’d be amazed at the spread of blogging and the numbers of users who go to blogs for either their primary source of information or to supplement what they find elsewhere.

Clearly, based on usage and reach, blogging offers businesses enormous scope for marketing and relationship management.

Yet, statistics indicate that only a small percentage of companies use blogs as part of their marketing strategy, perhaps well under 10%. In Australia, relatively few companies blog on their websites. A quick look around indicates big retail shops such as Harvey Norman and Myer do not run blogs, neither do Virgin Blue or any of the cinema organisations. Yet, you’d think businesses such as movie houses, airlines and retailers would be prime candidates to run blogs.

Ok, so what can a blog do for your business?

1. Build your brand – your blog can provide insights into your business over and above what you’d normally offer through more traditional means such as your corporate publications. Moreover, using the Internet to spread the word makes perfect sense given an increasing number of people go online for information rather than newspapers and magazines.
2. Become an authority in your field. Regardless of the industry you are in, you can always benefit from raising your profile, and blogs offer a cost-free way of doing so. If you run a coffee shop, why not run a blog sharing all you know about coffee beans? Not only will this be useful to coffee-lovers, if your blog grows in prominence you may attract the attention of general media who will call you for insight and quotes on your area of expertise, further building your personal brand.
3. Manage perceptions. Blogs can be used effectively to correct unfavourable perceptions about some aspect of your business and to defend a product that may have run into a spot of negative reaction.
4. Influence decision-making. Blogs are a great way to talk directly to your customers. By carefully explaining your products and describing its features and benefits, you can influence decision-making in a way that is more acceptable and more effective than traditional advertising and sales promotion. Blogs allow you to participate in a conversation not simply push a message.
5. Empower your customers. Running a blog gives your customers a direct means to talk to you, to offer feedback, suggestions and advice, which you can take on board to improve your products and services.
6. Build relationships. Blogs enable readers to respond to what they have read and to add their own insights and opinions. By generating such a dialogue you can build a relationship. Moreover, people who regularly use blogs feel a sense of community and like the idea of conversing and sharing with other like-minded readers.
7. Generate word of mouth advertising – by providing useful information and engaging content (for example a humorous video) about your products and services, you can harness the power and reach of the Internet to spread the word about your products.
8. Build traffic to your website. Providing your blog is interesting and meaningful, you could in time build quite a following. Your readers may then include links on their own blogs or websites back to yours thus increasing traffic. The more links you have to your site, the more credible your site becomes and the more likely you will rank higher in searches.
9. Update your constituency. If you operate in a dynamic field that experiences rapid changes and where new products come online at a rate of knots, then blogging is an ideal way to keep your target readership up to date with trends and abreast of your company’s moves. It’s a potent medium for introducing new products.

Bottomline:

A blog that provides engaging content and enjoys a loyal following can be a significant asset for a business. As with other Web 2.0 media, you ignore it at your peril. For one thing, if you aren’t blogging about issues in your area of influence and in your segment of the industry, you can bet your bottom dollar that someone – more than likely your nearest competitor –  is doing it already or will do so soon.