With Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks/media, is there still a reason or a need to blog? There really and truly is. Why is blogging so important for a company? The no brainer fact is that blogging gives your company a voice. Blogging allows people to get a better indication of what your company is like and the interests that drive and inspire the company. It leads into the more personal side of the business that can help customers feel like they know you better. Incorporating testimonials, or first-hand accounts of how clients were treated, can make a real impact on potential customers, and create a community.
1. Brand Identity:
A blog provides a low-cost, long-term venue to continuously bring your brand to life. What distinguishes you from your competitors? Brands that clearly define their personalities and build an identifiable group for their audiences to connect with find their efforts enhanced by the desire to belong. For brands like Southwest Airlines, Google and Starbucks, products and services are only a small part of their company identities. They create emotional bonds with their audiences that pay dividends. Part of this is the personality they communicate with their corporate blogs.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
A blog provides an informative resource for anyone seeking information about you or issues relating to your brand. Blogging allows you to constantly capitalize on hot topics and popular search terms. SEO helps increase traffic to your site and expose audiences to your brand, services and product offerings. If a customer can’t find you with a search engine—even if they know where you are located and what a good product, service or experience you sell—you may as well not even exist. They’ll find someone, and that person will likely get their business.
3. Control the Message:
A blog provides you with a platform to accurately tell the important brand stories that may otherwise go untold or be inaccurately reported. When someone searches for something related to your brand, you want them to receive that information directly from you rather than an unauthorized, inaccurate and potentially adversarial third party. In order to lead and shape online conversations, organizations must continuously tell their story. If you don’t have a blog, you are leaving one of your most valuable assets—your reputation—at the mercy of everyone else.
4. Social Media Home Base:
A blog provides a long-term home for content that can be continually accessed and pushed through other social and traditional channels. Your blog is the only place where you can continuously tell your story in its entirety without the bias or limitations of a third party. Twitter is limited to 140 characters. Facebook has its own rules and limitations. And, we no longer need to wait for the broadcast and print media to tell our stories through the press release system—nor should we. While Twitter, Facebook and traditional media are all great resources for promoting your brand, they are temporary, constantly moving streams of information. Your blog provides a stable home for information related to your brand.
5. Lead Generation:
A blog can help grow your business. Social media and blogs are the fastest growing category in lead generation, and they continue to be categorized as the lowest cost lead-generation channel. As noted in Hubspot’s 2010 “The State of Inbound Marketing” survey, inbound marketing-dominated organizations average a 60 percent lower cost-per-lead than outbound-dominated organizations, and 46 percent of those using company blogs have acquired customers from a blog-generated lead.
In addition to all these concrete reasons, blogging can be fun. You only have to look at some of the blogs out there to see how much people who are successful at blogging are enjoying themselves. We at Pattern find it a good way to share our quirky office culture, our accomplishments and those of our clients, and blow off some steam. We hope you give it a try and send us a link if we inspired you!