Blogs are becoming an increasingly important feature of a companies digital marketing strategy. In the past they have been popular for people to post information, content, images and videos about their personal interests and hobbies, such as gardening, technology and photography.
At last count there were an estimated 122 milion blogs on the web.
So why is a blog an important pillar in your brands website online content strategy?
It does take effort, time and commitment and along with your website is the foundation for your content and social media strategy that will be read for years and will help you establish you and your company as a “thought leader” that will get people coming back again and again to your site.
Brent Britton is a Lawyer that uses his blog as his ”core branding and content anchor site” and if you read about his experience you can see why he treats his blog with such importance. My experience is is very similiar and the content of my personal blog continues to permeate and spread virally with over 1,500 inbound links generated in a 5 month period. I find content from my blog… like an article titled… “Report Reveals:15 Best Practices of Social Media Implemented by the Top 100 Brands” at websites at Universities such as UCLA “Teaching Social Media Marketing” . If you are creating and distributing unique and valuable content that helps companies and individuals solve problems and provide answers it will spread and be used as a valuable resource.
Darren Rowse at “Problogger” says that ”You should make a blog your ”Homebase“.. your online home and consider Twitter as an “Outpost” (a place where you have an online presence out in the other parts of the web that you might not “own” such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook).
9 Reasons Why Your Company Should Blog
- You create credibility and trust by positioning yourself as a thought leader and expert in your industry
- The next logical step is that they trust you and want to buy from you
- Blogging demonstrates true commitment and passion to your industry that you really can’t fake long-term. Most won’t be able to sustain it over long periods of time with frequency, but those who do so are rewarded in spades and stand out from the crowd
- Old articles are valuable and still read years later, given infinite life by the search engines
- You own your work in a self-hosted blog and are in total control over how it is presented
- Cumulative results over time are provided by blogging, it assists your websites SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and each post incrementally adds value to your site as a whole
- The blog provides multiple touch points that readers can interact with within the blog, such as polls and surveys and also you can provide different media such as text for the baby boomers and Videos for the Gen Y’s
- It provides a platform to share content and ideas.
- A blog is the perfect place for that if you want focused attention and to build an interested community.
So when are you starting a blog?
