Wise “Why’s” of Blogging for Business

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“But everybody’s doing it!” was never a successful pitch when it came to Mom letting me do something back in school days.  And, frankly, “everybody’s doing it” isn’t a very good reason for starting and maintaining a business blog, either.
Business owners, I find, start blogs (or have me start one for them) for different reasons, too. At Say It For You, we spend a great deal of time discussing business blogging, particularly with entrepreneurs who’ve heard about blogging but aren’t completely sold on the strategy.
One of my idols, Seth Godin, says he’s noticed the same thing about the variety of motivations business people have getting into any new activity, blogging included.  There are four types of people in the world, Godin remarks.  Some people want to do things because those things are interesting.  Some people want to do things because everyone else is doing those things.  Some people are too satisfied, too scared, too shy, or too lazy to do anything.  And then, says Godin, some people want to do things because those things work!
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/kinds-of-people.html
Blog content writing is definitely not for the lazy or scared, or even the too-satisfied. Maintaining an effective business blog is simply too difficult and challenging to undertake just because it’s an interesting thing to do, or even because everyone else is doing it. That leaves just one valid reason – blogging works!
But, does it always?  Of course not. Your customers and prospects encounter content every day. Some of it’s good, most of it is forgotten immediately, says Sean Royer of Social Media Today. It is your job, Royer adds, to make sure that your business content is remembered and has a positive impact on your customers. But if you’re still debating whether to pour effort and resources into creating and maintaining a blog, he says, “the answer is, of course, a resounding YES.”
http://socialmediatoday.com/seanroyer/2007981/blogging-really-necessary-marketing-tool

Content marketing is now an essential component of an effective SEO campaign, because Google values high quality content,” confirms Seb Atkinson of Social Media Explorer.
http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/content-marketing-2/how-to-double-your-marketing-effectiveness-by-combining-content-marketing-and-social/

Some “why’s” of blogging listed by quickstudy.com include:

A blog provides an online platform where you can express your point of view.
A blog is a low-cost marketing tool that will reinforce and enhance all the other marketing you do.
Your blog can be emailed as a newsletter, and can also serve as inspiration for content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other networks.
Each new post you write is an opportunity to attract search engine attention.

Don’t create a blog just because “everyone else is doing it”.  There are plenty of wise why’s for blogging for business!

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Keeping Your Business Blog in the News Feed

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“Out of news feed, out of mind,” quips Reader’s Digest in “Updated Sayings for the Digital Age.” The point, so crucial for business owners and professional practitioners to understand, is that nowadays it’s only recently updated information that is likely to impact the success of their online marketing.

That’s because reality in the digital age Age relates to recency. That’s exactly why once-in-a-while blogging just doesn’t do the trick, even if it’s high-quality stuff.  To satisfy a search engine, your blog material must be updated frequently, and I mean very frequently.  To stress this point in a corporate blogging training session, I put it this way: When it comes to blogging for business, search engines are saying, “Never mind what you’ve done. What have you done for me lately?”

But don’t take my word for it.

“Google loves fresh, relevant content,” says Simon Tayler of Hykano. “The more regular the updates, the more ‘fuel’ it provides for Google to rank you on.”

“There isn’t any doubt that blogs on the website play a part in SEO, “ says Cristine Bentonnot of Iconi.

“Unless you’re steeped in SEO terminology, you may not have heard of the acronym “QDF” or Query Deserves Freshness. QDF, simply stated, is that for every query (“search term”) a search result list should include one (or more) piece of content that’s been recently published,” points out Sean Jackson of copyblogger. The caution, though, is that, “While QDF is a powerful benefit… it does not last.”

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, over 43% of Americans go online to get news on a daily basis. To stay plugged into news consumers on a consistent basis, you have to share your own “news” and opinions frequently.

At Say It For You, we freelance blog content writers understand the “out-of-news-feed-out-of-mind” principle: We’ve gotta keep our clients’ business blogs in the news feed!

 

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In Business Blogging, Embrace Your Own Opinion

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This week’s Say It For You business blog posting lessons are based on the secrets and shortcuts Geoffrey James shares in his book Business Without the Bullsh*t .

In a way, James’ entire book showcases a point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions – whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve gotta have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

(Of course, you can do that, just aggregate, I mean, and many sites do. Aggregation may even make your blog site the “go-to” destination for information.  But if you ask me, that’s not going to result in readers coming to your business or practice for service, products, and advice.) 

James’ book has a chapter I love, called “How to Cope With Management Fads”. The author gives readers career-saving tips for when their employers are in the throes of implementing that he calls “faux panaceas”.  Six Sigma? “Expect everything to take 10-20% longer than it otherwise would because of buttinsky experts clogging up the way the organization runs.”  Reengineering? “…one of half a dozen euphemisms that executives use when they’re planning to fire a bunch of people.” Matrix management?  “The result is predictable: an endless, debilitating turf war.”

The book blurb explains that Geoffrey James writes one of the world’s most visited business blogs.  The reason, I firmly believe, is that he’s opinionated, very opinionated. Sure, James’ style may seem far too harsh for you to use anything like that in your own online marketing.. You’re out to nurture the relationships you’ve established and welcome new clients and customers to your business or practice, not “turn them off”.

Still, what I’ve learned over the years of creating blog content for dozens and dozens of clients in different industries and professions is that, in order to turn clients and customers “on”, we must incorporate one important ingredient – opinion. Taking a stance, I’ve found, is what gives a blog post some “zip”.

We must be influencers, I advise clients and blog content writers alike. Whether it’s business-to-business or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers.

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The Pareto Principle in Business Blogging

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Just one of the 49 secrets and shortcuts Geoffrey James shares in his book Business Without the Bullsh*t is how to use the Pareto Principle to prioritize your to-do list. (You remember Pareto’s concept – 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions.)

Couldn’t help recalling the Say It For You video I’d recorded about time management for blogs. Allowing 120 minutes total per blog post, I’d allocate 40 for research and “reading around”, learning others’ opinions on your topic and gathering information.  50 minutes should be used, I advised, for the actual writing and editing of the business blog, with 10 minutes for finding photos, charts, and clip art for illustrating your points, and 20 minutes for the actual posting on the site.

The reason most time management systems don’t work, James points out, is that the less important actions are given the same priority as the more important ones when it comes to making a schedule or to-do list.  A more productive planning system would come from following these steps:

  • Prioritize each item on your to-do list by the amount of effort required, numbering the item from #1 (least effort required) to #10 (most effort required).
  • Then make a second list, numbering the items by expected positive results of each action.
  • For each action, divide the effort number by the potential number. The result is “priority ranking”.
    Now, follow your list in order of priority ranking, doing the tasks with the highest priority rankings first.

So, how did my blog content writer’s allocation work out under the Geoffrey James system? Almost entirely on target:

Reading around:                                    #2 effort, #2 results.
Writing/editing content:                    #1 effort,,#1 results
Actual posting                                         #3 effort, #4 results
Illustrating                                                #4 effort, #3 results

Yes, it’s always nice when someone more famous than you confirms what you’ve been saying for a long time. Distilling your own experiences in your business and profession and gathering wisdom to share with your business blog readers are the two tasks that take the most effort and, over time, the ones that make for long-term blogging success.

 

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Business Blogging Without the Bullsh*t

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It’s always nice when someone more famous than you says exactly what you’ve been saying for a long time, and author Geoffrey James, in his book “Business Without the Bullsh*t”, did exactly that when he advised, “Don’t blog unless you’re a natural.”

James starts off by pointing out a fact of the universe: “Almost everybody who starts blogging gives up after a few weeks, after which the posts become few and far between, and eventually peter out altogether.  What remains is an out-of-date blog that’s a testament to your inability to blog regularly….If you’re determined to blog, be realistic rather than ambitious.  If you think you can post once a week, set a schedule to post every two weeks or every month,” James advises.

In fact, the how-often-is-often-enough? is one of the very first questions I hear from business owners or professional practitioners getting ready to launch a blog. Here are some opinions I’ve read on that very subject:

Once a week:  (Stan Smith of Pushing Social) – “Your blog strengthens your relationship with your customers by keeping you top of mind. Your weekly post establishes a rhythm to your relationship.” Megan Totka (Small Business Trends) reminds readers that daily content can give a small business blog a great boost, the once a week is an absolute minimum for getting search engines to crawl your website.  “If your updates are more than a week apart, it’s about as effective as not blogging at all,” is Totka’s view.

Anywhere from 2 to 4 times per week to multiple times per day: (Ben Roberts of Salty Dog Interactive) – “Less is not always more where blogging is concerned,” says Roberts “…7 days a week, 30ish days a month. This is where the magic starts happening.”

So what about the Geoffrey James caution about not blogging unless you’re a natural? TashWord offers three reasons for using a professional writer to craft blog posts:

  • To save time.  Blogging is a task to be outsourced so you can spend more time doing what you’re best at – running your business or practice.
  • Distance – a blog content writer is not so close to your business and will have a clearer perspective on what needs to be said.
  • To get words that work well, are easy to read, and are grammatically correct.I have to agree with James’ that it would be “bullsh*t” to advise business owners and professionals who aren’t “naturals” at writing to try to maintain what I call the “drill sergeant discipline of blog content writing.

    Given all the many potential benefits of business blogging, though, “Don’t blog!” is hardly the best advice. You may not want the BS, but you definitely want the business!

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