BCS PR’s Paul Muckle examines why people blog
Newsflash from Nottingham: the usefulness of blogging is not ubiquitous. There are many very good reasons for starting and maintaining a blog. Being told you should be blogging (without understanding why) is not one of them. As digital services, public relations and integrated marketing experts, BCS should know that better than anyone.
In my humble opinion there are two reasons fundamental reasons anyone writes and posts a blog. The first is vanity. A belief that someone actually cares what you think and a desire to get your opinion heard.
The second is commercial, competitive or organisational gain. The integration of one online channel into a wider marketing strategy to achieve a specific business or group goal.
I don’t have much to say on vanity blogs. I think if you have a view and the broadcast of that view will not harm others, you are entitled to express it through whatever medium you see fit. If you write a boring blog people will think you are boring. If you choose to blog about your daily life and don’t offer insight, humour, or an alternative way of thinking about the world, people will regret spending time reading about what you’ve been up to – and they certainly won’t make the same mistake twice. Lots of people have interesting things to say, but if you’re not one of them you should probably give up vanity blogging as a waste of time and find another way to be creative.
I do, however, have a lot to say about how to make a blog work for your business, and the basic but often overlooked need to set clear objectives for blogging activity at the outset. Each of the headings below is a potential reason for creating a blog. Under each I have given my thoughts on the key priority to ensure that the full potential is realised. There are many other considerations, but that’s why we have a comment box at the bottom!
Renewed content for SEO
Get creative writers. You’ll want to generate new content as frequently as possible, always incorporating the key words and phrases that will boost your search engine rankings - but without getting repetitive. That takes skill. You can point at the new content through other social media like twitter, but you’re not making the most of the opportunity if potential visitors aren’t following the link back to your website because they know it will just be repetitive nonsense that they’ve heard before.
Raising an individual’s profile within a specific sector
Get the right character and make sure they say something worth saying. There is absolutely no point in spending time creating and promoting your spokesperson’s soapbox only to have them post benign or badly targeted content. And please, be honest and tell the people attempting humour and failing to give up the ghost and get a ghost writer.
Giving people a reason to regularly check your website
Don’t get too focused on sales and mix it up a bit. If you sell cars and blog about what’s on your lot every week, people probably won’t keep coming back. But if you talk about the state of the market, what manufacturers are doing, how tyre pressures can reduce fuel consumption and what colour cars depreciate the quickest, you’ve got much more chance of keeping your audience interested until they’re ready to buy - and hopefully beyond.
With any of the above you must stay focused on your strategic objectives, commit to constantly creating content, and don’t fall into the trap of turning a blog with a goal into a pointless ramble that no one has the slight interest in.