Is a Blog Right For Your Business?
By Meryl K. Evans
Lemmings are cute, but dumb. If you tell them to jump
off a cliff, they will. Just like the people who start blogs because
everyone is doing it. Guess what happens after a little while? The
blogs die.
In managing a list of many Web sites, most of which
are blogs, I deleted countless sites from the list because the sites
and blogs no longer existed. The people ran out of steam or had no
reason to start them in the first place.
How do you know when a blog is right for your business?
Learn why people start blogs, how they find their niche and how blogging
tools can be used for more than blogs.
Some people like to read blogs, others like to read
newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few
or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed,
each medium has one thing in common: content.
Having a blog connects your newsletter and your business
with all of these readers and delivers important content in a particular
style.
I've been blogging since June 2000. If you review
my early blog entries in meryl's
notes, you'll notice they're more personal. When blogs first hit
the scene in the late '90s, they were personal diaries and journals.
Like the blog business, my blog has transformed from personal to business
speak, although I still add personal notes here and there.
A few bloggers tend to talk about their work, their
products and their little world. That might work for celebrities where
fans want to know everything about them, but it doesn't work for the
average business person. Other business people want information on
how to succeed and when a blog spends time hawking products offering
information of no value, few people will return.
The people whose products sell well are the ones who
provide valuable information. Readers already know what kind of information
they're getting, so they trust that when they buy something, it will
be of the same or better quality. This value must be reflected in
their blog. It's much like people who only sign up for a newsletter
after first seeing an example.
No one wants to be a lemming (I would hope). How do
you decide whether or not to set up a blog? The answer isn't black
or white (what did you expect?). Ask these questions:
- Can you regularly update it — at least five times a week?
- Do you have something to say other than just linking to others?
- Do you read other blogs or feeds?
- Can you provide information of value to others not just to yourself?
- How large is your newsletter subscriber list?
- How many unique visitors do you get on an average day, week or
month?
The big decider is whether or not you can write in
the blog almost daily. The people behind the high traffic blogs post
multiple times a day. Though resourceful, merely linking to other
sites doesn’t give visitors much reason to make the effort to
come to yours.
Reading other blogs or feeds is a great way to learn
how to carry a discussion. Find other blogs covering topics similar
to yours and check them out. Disagree with their opinions? Write about
it and explain your reasons. Cross-blog discussions are common, and
that's where trackback comes in handy.
Trackback is a blog feature. If you decide to comment
on another blog posting in your blog instead of in that blog's comments
page, then you link to the conversation through the trackback link.
Trackback is similar to the permalink, the permanent URL for the blog
entry, but it has a different URL for copying and pasting in your
blog's trackback box.
Aside from the technical aspects of operating a blog
on a daily basis, subscriber list size and Web site traffic are good
indicators of what kind of reaction you'll get when opening a blog.
Starting from scratch with little traffic means you have a long road
ahead and lots of work to do.
There is no magic formula anyone can sell you for
$97 to make your blog an overnight success. But with some perseverance
and ingenuity, your blog can engage many prospects and clients.
Considering there are numerous blogs out there, pick
a niche topic when starting a blog for a better shot at attracting
and keeping an audience. meryl's notes focuses on three areas: webby,
geeky and wordy. In reality, this is too much.
What I need to do for my readers is create three separate
blog entry points, so those interested in writing, newsletters and
Internet marketing get nothing but the wordy entries. Those interested
in Web design get the webby stuff and the technophiles receive the
geeky content.
I also manage a personal blog separate from meryl's
notes. It's about cochlear implants and deafness. This could fall
under the geeky category, but it's a personal blog and doesn't belong
in meryl's notes. This blog is written for a different audience.
The blogging tools for both of my blogs come with
syndication capabilities so those using feed readers or aggregators
can read the content through the software. When sending a new issue
of a newsletter, comment on it or link to it in the blog, that way
the blog and feed readers will get the goods, so all three bases are
covered.
Blogging tools aren't just for, well, blogging. Such
tools are an excellent way to help you update your Web site more often
than you otherwise would. I use it to manage the list of tableless
Web sites.
Using blogging tools is much easier than the way I
managed it before, updating the HTML files by hand. Though using a
blog tool, it isn't a blog. In this case, the blog tool has become
a content management system (CMS).
Small business owners don't have a need for the fancy
and pricey CMSes out there. They find it easier to use blogging software
to manage their sites or hire someone to adapt the tool for their
site.
Blogs have found a place in businesses and people
are finding creative ways to use them. Some companies have a blog
on the intranet for communicating project status, jeopardies and metrics.
They’re used for knowledge management. With information pouring
in, blog tools provide a way to share, organize and process the information.
Being a follower can be good or bad. No one wants
to walk off a cliff with the lemmings, but everyone wants to succeed.
Best practices won't help, since the decision to blog is based on
the organization's mission, needs and goals along with its target
market's desires and needs.
A blog about lemmings? There is one, sort of. Or maybe
you’d like to start your own and talk about dumb business moves.
Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl.net
who increases conversion rates by writing and editing content so organization
can focus on their core business. She is the editor-in-chief of the
eNewsletter Journal and Shavlik's The Remediator Security Digest.
Visit her Web site at http://www.meryl.net/blog/
