A business blog can do lots of things so it really depends on the company. I can tell you that we are not a digital company that immediately says you need a blog.
We are a company that will find out what you want to do, find out what your audience really wants from you and then if a blog fits our strategy – well then, we’ll suggest you start a blog.
But that being said, I am a big believer in blogs. Right now, blogs are very good at doing lots of great things on the web.
Driving traffic (#2 from the guys at SEOmoz.org)
Spurring conversations – Check out Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel
Giving business a real voice and personality (Chris Brogan and Bob Rhubart’s Comments
Search engines love them
But they can also suck. Here’s a good list for knowing if your business blog sucks.
We measure our business blog by the traffic it generates and the conversations it spurs. Our chief evangelist, Scottyhendo, is very, very good at getting conversations going. Some of his more intriguing ones are:
I Gave $10 to David Armano to Help Daniela and Now I Regret It
Why Chris Brogan’s Kmart Moment Matters: Personal Reputation vs. Corporate Brand
But he is amazed at how much traffic my little post about Princeton Premier has driven for our blog.
I wrote it merely as an example of how I used searching and social media to find out about a company and then make a common sense evaluation of whether I wanted to do business with them.
But the blog post itself remains one of our top posts and continues to drive traffic to the site. It’s on the first page of the Princeton Premier SERP (Search Engine Results Page) for Google and it continues to get comments.
I never really intended for it to do anything but be part of our voice to help businesses understand that if you aren’t out there in social media spaces and being a part of the conversation, others will do it for you. And it may not be the message you want.
For Princeton Premier, I think it is bad. Their site is number one but almost all the other links are blogs calling them out for being a scam.
The lesson here is make sure you are constantly making sure that you know what is being said about you on the web. I use SM2 and Google Alerts for both my company and myself.
And then if you find something bad, knowing what to do about it. MediaSauce has several solutions for this that range from contacting the person directly to establishing a siteless web presence with social media.
If you would like to learn more, just give us a call at 317.218.0500 or email.
But back to my original purpose of this post, business blogs do work if you give them time and you write about things that your audience wants and you tie it into your business. Don’t give them just fluff. Don’t give them that old school marketing spin.
If you don’t believe in business blogs, I would like to understand why. Give me your feedback and experience.
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