Sunday, May 18, 2008

Create a Blog for your Business?

Should you create a blog for your business?


There are different Pros and Cons. Personally I like the idea of creating a blog for a business. However, at the business level, there might be some concerns for different businesses.


You have a website, why do you need a blog?


For me, website is a place for you to provide one way information to your visitors. Whereas in a blog, people can interact with your posting and visitors can discuss among themselves or with you, all topics are archive in chronological order/ category. Anyone who is interested in a certain topic can read all related postings. The communication is both ways, visitor tells you what they think and you explain to them and others who read the postings. The best thing is, customer get to communicate with insider of the company. In some case can be CEO, Marketing Manager, Sales Manager or Service Manager etc. In some case it can be the master blogger. Anyhow, it is still another channel for the management to know about what is going on in the field.

Moreover, you can create reciprocal linkages between your website and your blog. The rich and extra content in your blog will get itself a high page rank. This in turns will bring more traffic to your website. The reciprocal linkages in both sites (your website and your blog) might help themselves to improve their Search engine page rank.


What if your customer asks you some question you don’t know how to answer?


This is many businesses’ concern and that’s why many of them are reluctant to have a blog. If a business chooses not to answer, it will seem to be irresponsive and won’t get the company any good images. If a business chooses to answer, which it should, it needs to answer very skillfully, need to satisfy the customer and still not disclosing anything it doesn’t want to tell or get away with something it doesn’t know how to answer. Moreover, the customer will respond back in your blog. I think the business needs to have a very good Public Relation (PR) team to do that.


Uncontrolled postings…


This is another concern of many businesses. Some bloggers just keep on posting, maybe even on some irrelevant topics. Anyhow, this one is easy, the blog administrator can just delete the irrelevant posts. Some bloggers just keep on confronting the business. It can be a tougher situation. You cannot just delete or block a blogger. If you do that, and some mad blogger might bad mouth your company. Your PR team should get you a good tactic based on the situation.

I guess based on the priority of your company, you can decide whether you should get your company a blog. If your first priority is to get a channel for the management to have interaction with the customers, and confrontation is not a concern (you know how to handle it), a blog might be good for your company. When you do have your blog, make sure your master bloggers are responsive to the postings there. Otherwise you have defeated your purpose of having a blog and this will also gain your company a bad image.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks to the blog owner. What a blog! nice idea.

Anonymous said...

Nice.. Actually im starting/practicing to blog and I've learned something new.
hey, can you please drop by my page and leave some ideas on how to work more on it. I really need help. It's about
Marketing Online
I'm just fresh in the scene so a tickle from experts like you really counts. have a nice day!

Anonymous said...

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Marcelo Chabes said...

Hi,
Very good post, congratulations! I totally agree with you. Do you think there is always a right moment for a company create a blog?..or in case that BAD TIMES ON PR DEPT wouldn't be the best time to create a blog and avail an on line discussion for customers and industry critics?
See yap

June said...

Hi Marcelo,

Thanks for your nice comment. Glad that you like my post.

To answer your question, I don't think there is a particularly right moment. It all depends if your company is ready for it. Or if people at your company are ready for it, and the right company culture too. You don't want to put extra burden for your team if they are not ready and don't want to blog. This won't make a great blog.

Moreover, blogging is just one of the many ways a company can use to communicate with people and try to turn a bad situation around.

Online and open discussion is good only if your PR team is ready for it. If they are not, it can make the situation worse. Talk to the PR team to decide what they want to do.

All the best,

June

Anonymous said...

It is important to create a blog for your website. This is great for increased traffic and by keeping up to date on the blog it keeps your website new and exciting therefore people will want comment.

valrossie said...

Blogging is the latest innovation to take the web by storm. According to blog tracking firm Technorati, there are currently 14 million blogs with 80,000 more being added every day. And 30 percent of all 50 million internet users are blog readers. In short, a lot of people are reading and writing blogs.




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valrossie
SEO

Marney Lewis said...

Great Informative read here, I really enjoyed all the points you made and how you explained each one so well. I'm glad I read this today, I will be taking away from great tips. Thank you!

June said...

Hi Marney,

I am very glad that you have enjoyed reading my blog! I would write more when I am less busy! Be sure to come back later to read more! All the best!

June

Anonymous said...

June,

I recently started a blog to optimize my website. It is not doing so well right now, but it has only been up for a few weeks. Thanks for the points that you have made here.

Jerry

June said...

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for visiting my blog and I am glad that you like my post. Wish you success in your blog and your website.

June

Anonymous said...

My first answer is always that people should have one, but it takes a serious time commitment, something companies often don't realise. When it comes to measuring the value of your blog and the time you put into it it's also worth considering that promotion is important. We are constantly endeavoring to measure what we benefit from our blog, having said that interaction with people who are interested in what we're doing is always valuable.

June said...

Hi Kat,

Thanks for your comment. Benefits from your blog can be both tangible and intangible.

Tangible benefits include improved search engine positioning, increased traffic to your site, access to customers' opinions. Moreover, it is a perfect way to publish news release quickly.

Intangible benefits include earning the company a better image by sharing and interacting with its customers; giving the company a personality, favorably a positive ones. Blog entries are written by a real person in his/her own style as oppose to marketing copy written by a copywriter. Blog entries' personal touch could be more appealing to readers.

All the best,

June

June said...

Hi Alanna,

Thanks for your comment and I am very glad you like my blog. I will write more when I have more time, to include more of the latest internet marketing topics. Come back to visit often!

All the best,

June

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Keegan02 said...

A blog in your website gives you a good recognition.SEO content management helps SEO customers by handling SEO tactics.

Unknown said...

Blogging sounds good. But how to bring readers? Anyone with good ideas?

Discount Jay Z Tickets said...

yah its nice and informative thanks for sharing all these here

Internet Marketing said...

Creating a blog for your business is a great way to advertise or promote your business with a larger audience. You can also get more potential customers by simply doing articles or blogs for your business.

Unknown said...

thats really helpful & i think that blogs are very imporant for product we are marketing.

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PR Firms said...

blogging one of the best way to promote the business like show your business updates like price, offer, quality, discounts etc.

web developer phoenix said...

Blogging is one of the technique in which you can drive traffic to your website.
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Joel Gray said...

I still prefer to include a blog into your website to make it more interactive.