The advantages of blogging are well known in the business world. Have you been hesitant about adding a blog to your own site because of potential disadvantages, such as negative comments and comment spam? Hesitate no longer. Wayne Hurlbert discusses how to deal with these issues, as well as how to get the most mileage out of adapting this personal form of communication for marketing your business.
Blogs are a topic that has everyone talking. Whether the discussion is about marketing, public relations, or search engine optimization (SEO), the influence of the blogging phenomenon is part of that conversation.
In fact, conversations are part of what makes a blog a high impact power tool in any business marketing tool box. Building relationships with current and potential customers and clients is one of the most basic purposes of a business blog. When combined with the blog’s built in strength in the search engines, a marketer would be well advised to add a blog component to their online marketing effort.
Some of the factors that make blogs so powerful as marketing tools include personal interaction through comments, instant notification of page updates through RSS feeds, and the overall friendly personalized tone and writing of the blog posts themselves. Coupled with the proven high search engine optimization value of blogs, they are a marketer’s dream for building customer relations.
To ensure that the blog serves its purpose of encouraging open conversation between the writer or blogger and the regular readers, honesty and transparency is essential. The blog is not simply a sales page or a public relations flak. Instead, it’s about helpful information of value to the readership.
The marketing purpose of the blog is for developing longer term relationships between the business and the general public. Over time, the readers naturally gravitate toward purchasing the company’s goods and services. People buy from other people. If the person is trusted, there is no need to make a sale. That area of marketing is already completed through the blog conversation.
A blog is relationship marketing at its best. The blogger provides helpful information, and links to other sites that benefit the readers. The visitors return the business' generosity with their purchasing dollars.
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