Blogging for marketing purposes is like a pen color wheel. The pens give you many ways to ink your thoughts and ideas for a larger audience reach.
By SHelley Widhalm
I blog for a reason—or actually a few.
First and foremost, I like to write. I like looking up things, and I like learning new stuff.
But I also have a motive to my blog (and my newsletter, which provides monthly writing and editing tips). I want to show others that I have quality writing and editing skills and, as I do so, market my business, Shell’s Ink Services.
With 150 million blogs out there, why would a business include blogging as part of their marketing plan? Why would aspiring or published authors want to take time away from writing to do some other type of content creation? Why would nonprofits spend resources on blogging when their missions involve helping others, providing education and resources, and improving environments?
First, blogging is trendy, but it’s also a tool on multiple levels.
Blogging has become a way for businesses to engage with customers, authors with readers and nonprofits with clients and supporters.
Here are a Few Reasons to Consider Blogging
Blogs help:
- Build a targeted audience of customers, clients, supporters and readers who want to know about what you do and why.
- Share new, timely and relevant information with that audience.
- Provide information about new products and services, new processes, or new projects.
- Tell stories about the company or nonprofit, its mission and the employees and volunteers who work there. Or give stories about the author’s current projects and writing life and ideas for writing tips and advice.
- Explain and grow brand identity.
- Build a platform to demonstrate skills and experience.
- Create a portfolio of content in a particular subject matter.
- Demonstrate expertise through positioning as an expert in a certain subject area or as a thought leader, which is a recognized authority in a specialized field whose expertise is desired.
- Publicize awards and recognitions.
- Answer customer and client questions.
- Generate discussion on ideas, topics or trends through comments and feedback.
Blogs Have Other Uses
Blogs:
- Boost SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, giving search engines content to send users your way.
- Drive traffic to your website.
- Provide material that can be promoted on various forms of social media, increasing your presence on outlets such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. Fans and followers have a reason to click to your website.
- Through use of blog analytics, identify interest in what you have to offer by tracking readers, click-throughs, comments and shares.
Blogging is a tool to bring in new audiences, grow audiences and inform audiences of what you know, what you have to offer and what you hope for in the future. I find blogs are a great way to share my knowledge about writing and editing, while also building my platform as a writer, generating interest from potential audiences and, hopefully, getting those fans and followers to click, like and link.