21 Reasons to Blog

1. 1.To build a hub for your social media presence.  Everyone needs a home, and your blog can be your home on the Web.  From a social media perspective this is where I live.  This is my foundation where ideas grow into something worth sharing on the other networks - and offline.
   
2. To get found on the Web.  This may be the most common business reason for blogging.  Active blogs create relevant information that gets indexed, and that builds links, which builds the Web presence of the blog and those sites it points to.
3. To strengthen your marketing messages.  Blogging makes you a better communicator.  And in many instances, it does this by helping you communicate more concisely.
4. To provide tips and advice that help your community of fans and customers.  If you enter your business specialty into a Google search, it will give you a prioritized drop-down list of what people are searching for that relates to that term.  9 times out of 10 times they are looking for tips and advice.  Do this well, and your credibility skyrockets.
5. To test new ideas.   Why not test the waters before making an investment of time and money into a new project.  I did this recently to see if my readers were interested in a series that explored common small business marketing challenges.
6. To show off.  Your community likes to see you succeed.  Just be cool  about it.
7. To rave about the good works of others.  Seth Godin does a nice job with this.  He recently shared an excellent eBook on the psychology and art of pricing.
8. To help with a good cause.  Geez. I don't even know the guy, but again, Seth Godin recently did a nice job or raising several hundred thousand dollars for a good cause through the launch of his new book, Linchpin.
9. To entertain.  I'm not good at this at all, but here is one post about social media callbacks where I got lucky.
10. To celebrate or make an announcement.  Everyone enjoys a great success story!
11. To challenge.  Oh, believe me, I have wanted to write many posts like this.   I just recently let the string out when I wrote about why small businesses are confused about social media.
12. To apologize.  Social media is a platform that amplifies.  I've had to apologize on Facebook, but not here .... yet. :)
13. To unite a community.  First, it helps if your community is actively commenting on your blog.  When this happens, the energy is ripe for change.
14. To share.  How can you help your market, your community, to do more of what it wants to do?
15. To clarify or respond to a question.  When you solve a problem for one customer, why not post it for others to benefit from.  I like this reason a lot.
16. To collaborate.  The easiest way to do this is to leave a call to action at the close of your post to encourage comments.  I tend to highlight it in color to make it more noticeable.
17. To give a new perspective.   Try to do this without it being all about you, but more about being of service to the community.
18. To rant.  I don't recommend this, but it is still a popular use for a blog.  You decide.
19. To promote or sell.  This should be limited to less than 5% of your posts - maybe a lot less.  If your product or service is truly a good value and will help your readers, then go ahead.  This is how I feel about my CD: Strategic Social Media Marketing for Entrepreneurs.  It's a great overview that I carefully scripted and studio-recorded for those just getting started with this platform.
20. To document your business legacy.  I implore you to get started blogging if you haven't, for no other reason than to document your decades of wisdom and experience.  New prospects will often see their situation in your real life examples.  Here's a post I kicked of 2010 with to show how to do this to grow your business.
21. Because you can.  If you have a gift for communicating, then you should use it.  How do you know?  You just do.

How about adding to this list by leaving a comment to share your reasons for blogging?