Blogging For Business - Why Blog!

Imagine your business blog reaching a potential audience of over 260 million readers.

No, really, it's better to target the areas of that audience that want what you have to sell, but I'll get to that later. Let's start with statistics.

How Many are There?

WordPress alone reports over 260 million people worldwide visiting one or more of their blogs every month. WordPress also states that as of December 2010, they are hosting 16 million blogs.

Blogger by Google is also increasing in size and probably so are the numerous other blog hosting services available. This comparison chart shows the increase of blogs produced in WordPress and Blogger up to the year 2010. I found this image at techie-buzz.com.



Who are They?

Blogging has also been under study by the "Technorati," that is the literati of technology. In the Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2010 report, it's revealed that nearly half of the bloggers worldwide are based in the United States, 40% of bloggers blog from their mobile devices, and 40% of the people interviewed trust the blogger's opinions over the mainstream media. A significant portion of the bloggers are women and more specifically stay-at-home-moms who are "the most likely of all to blog about brands."

Even so, in the U.S., the majority of bloggers in 2009 were single males who were employed full-time. 74% of those were college graduates and 50% had a household income greater than $75,000. Referenced from Technorati.com.

Men and women, young and old, rich and poor; it doesn't matter who your customers or employees are, the odds are in favor that someone will be blogging about their personal experiences in relation to your business. This is important for business owners to recognize because businesses don't have to sit by and watch other bloggers lead the conversation. The business itself should have a blog.

Your Blog is the Face of your Business

Large and small businesses have gotten into the act of blogging. In 2005, Bob Lutz of General Motors became a headline because of his blogs. He wrote about his specialty, car-design. According to Katherine Heires in the article Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?, Lutz and other high level executives realized that blogging was a cost effective way to achieve marketing success.

Here are five suggestions for making a better business blog:

1. Lead the conversation about your company by informing your customers, employees and the media about the unfiltered details that you want to be known.
2. Lift your brand into higher SEO rankings while establishing your credibility as an expert in your field by maintaining your blog and linking back to your business website.
3. Listen to your customer base by reading their comments and corresponding with them in your blog.
4. Provide an authentic human voice to present character and personality to your business.
5. Narrow the scope of your blog to highlight your own special niche.

What's Your Authentic Voice?

As a designer, I think the representation of an authentic voice is most interesting. How you turn a phrase leaves a lasting impression, especially when it's a first impression. Like the words of presidents, blogs remain for future bloggers to repeat. If I'm going to be repeated, I would hope that it was my authentic voice that spread my word in a favorable way.

"In your blog, express your enthusiasm and passion for your work and your company's product, with occasional asides on topics that reflect your personal interests. The latter will keep your voice authentic and increase the linkability of your blog."Kathy Heires

Your authentic voice needs to be informal and expressive of what's most important to you. It's easier to keep on your business track in a blog if there is one voice or one topic for discussion. A business can have different blogs for different topics like one about employee life as a recruitment tool for new employees and another one about the personal stories of your customers and how they put your product to use. The subjects are as diverse as your authentic voice can imagine.

"A business blog can provide a 'voice' for your company that educates and informs your website visitors; it is more easily updated than traditional web pages." Susan Heathfield

More than One Voice?

However, one blog can have multiple authors and maintain one voice. Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing wrote in his article Five Tips for More Efficient Business Blogging that a blog maintained by a team of people is "more interesting, expands audience reach and it's far more sustainable." It's so much easier to keep on top of your business blog if you spread out the responsibility of replying to customer comments and forming new ideas to share.

Another source of ideas to blog about is your customer base. Ask your employees who come face-to-face with people or meet your customers at informal events and ask what they would like to know more about in your business blog. You can increase your readership with personal invitations to join in on your blog conversation. Whatever you blog about, personal or business, be true to yourself and your authentic voice.

What's Your Niche?

Okay, so you have an authentic voice but what's your niche and why is it important? A niche is a special topic that you, as a blogger, have enough knowledge and inspiration to carry on a long conversation. You not only inform or educate with your content; but you also reply to comments; so make sure you know what you're talking about.

"Blogs in different niches will attract different audiences." Niall Harbison

Many people who leave comments on your blog are bloggers themselves, so their link to your blog is how your word speads, good or bad. Not all of your readers are bloggers but the readership of those bloggers trust their opinion of your business. What's important to your business is that you attract the audience that will want to buy what you have to sell.

So, How Do You Attract the Right Audience?

Choose a niche "that you're passionate about that just happens to have massive demand and no competition..." Darren Rowse

Sometimes a niche can be too broad, so narrow it down to a unique branch of your topic. Then your blog will rise to the top of Search Engines. Darren Rowse, for instance, started with the topic of how to write blogs. Then, he specialized his niche into how to make money from blogs. He wrote eight articles on Adsense Tips for Bloggers, the first to which I have linked here.

Finally, I want to end with a video that I really liked of Lee Odden interviewing Brian Clark on Content Marketing with Blogs. Brian Clark can be found at http://www.copyblogger.com/ where there is a lot of FREE information on how to create better copywriting for your business blog.

Resources in the Order of Appearance:

1. WordPress alone reports: http://en.wordpress.com/stats/
2. techie-buzz.com: http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/wordpress-com-growth-2010-stats.html
3. Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2010 report: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/
4. Technorati.com: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-1-who-are-the-bloggers/
5. Does Your Company Belong in the Blogosphere?: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5111.html
6. Kathy Heires: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5111.html
7. Susan Heathfield: http://humanresources.about.com/od/businessblogs/a/business_blogs.htm
8. Five Tips for More Efficient Business Blogging: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/12/25/five-tips-for-more-efficient-business-blogging
9. Niall Harbison: http://www.simplyzesty.com/blogging/reads-blogs-bloggers/
10. Darren Rowse: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/15/how-to-choose-a-niche-topic-for-your-blog/
11. Adsense Tips for Bloggers: http://www.problogger.net/archives/2004/09/23/adsense-tips-for-bloggers-1/
12. Brian Clark on Content Marketing with Blogs: http://www.toprankblog.com/2010/08/brian-clark-video-interview/
13. Brian Clark: http://www.copyblogger.com/