Why Isn’t Your Business Blogging?

August 31, 2012 by

As a consumer yourself, wouldn’t you like to have easy access to fresh updates concerning the products and services you regularly use?

Your customers are no different.

Customers have been conditioned to expect answers whenever they need them. When they don’t get what they want your reputation erodes.

Knowing this, why are so few small businesses actively blogging? I believe it is because they do not understand the practice.

Early blogs were predominantly personal journals consisting of periodic communications on random topics. However, the top business blogs today are some of the most valued sources of fresh and relevant news.

Think of your business blog as a digital magazine for your customers. Quality blog posts are now often considered articles. Even the word blogging is considered passé. Now we simply think of ourselves as publishers.

This new mindset acknowledges that in this digital age every business is now its own media company.

Your business blog should include the following, which you can easily accomplish with a self-hosted WordPress site. WordPress started as a blogging platform, but has now evolved into the world’s leading CMS (Content Management System) for businesses.

#1 – Organized Information

Early blogs used archives and categories to organize information. Just as your business processes must adapt to changing conditions, so too have the methods for successfully blogging.  Guide your visitor.  Consider adding a “start here” tab that leads to your best articles organized into a series of subject matter tutorials.

#2 – Up-to-Date Information

Google wants what people want, and that is the most up-to-date information they can find on a particular subject. By consistently publishing fresh content to your blog, you are serving both your customers and the search engines that will help you find new ones.

#3 – Relevant Information

The more you blog the more you will learn how to help your customers, particularly if you are paying attention to comments and what earns greater sharing among their social network communities. You’ll soon realize the most relevant issues change slowly, if they change at all.

For example, last week I read a publication that interviewed several business leaders. Nearly every comment eventually circled back to one core challenge – getting new customers and keeping the current ones happy, while of course turning a profit.

Customer acquisition and servicing is a problem that never goes away.

What are the problems in your business that never go away?

Start blogging about them.

Build a content management system using WordPress – a digital business channel (on a domain you own) that regularly addresses the needs of your customers.

They will love you for it.

Isn’t that what any business wants?

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+

Photo Credit

The Channel of You

July 2, 2012 by

Your business channel is you. It’s often personal and at the core of what your business does well to create healthy relationships with the communities you serve.

Channeling Your Highest Value

Value always starts at the source.  What your company cares deeply about is exactly where you should begin when designing your social media communications.

Traditional media is only interested in the big story, one that is large enough to merit everyone’s attention. That’s not true with social media. It tends to amplify the little things that often go unnoticed.

Savvy businesses understand their community cares most about the little things that only an insider would know.

That’s your highest value, and your business channel (blog, newsletter, and social networks) should be designed to consistently deliver it.

It is always exciting to learn how my small business clients are working to support their communities. Many are so involved the challenge is using the social channels well to effectively convey their good works. Fortunately, with practice social media brings out the best side of every business – and helps to make them even better.

If you really want to get more from your social media, find ways to bring more value to it. It tends to work best at channeling the better and higher value qualities of every business.

Your Channel Relationships

It’s helpful to think of your business channel as a relationship with your community. Why do people enter into and stay in relationships?  There is only one reason.

People value only those relationships that make them happier and more successful.

As a business, you should always be thinking about what makes your customers happier:

  • Useful Tips
  • Expert advice
  • Timely reminders
  • Interesting stories
  • Inspiration
  • Unique perspectives
  • Innovative or visionary ideas
  • Something that makes them smile

Think of your business as a person. That’s the idea behind the channel of you.

The paradox is that by starting with you and your business, which may seem like self-serving approach, you liberate what is valued by your community. It creates a focus that gives them what they really want from the relationship.

Children love their parents and simply want to be engaged with them whenever possible. The parental responsibilities involved in nurturing that relationship are not unlike those a business has with its customers.

If you can bring that mindset to your business channel, your community will love you too, and that will be good for the growth of your business.

 How are you using the business channel that social media has afforded you to bring value to your community?  Leave a comment below – and feel free to share. 

Until next time,  Jeff

Photo Credit: Free Digital Photos