Return on Blogging: Discussion Continues

We've been following the discussion on several blogs about the return on investment of blogging. Mostly it's big companies that want dollar calculations and proof, but even small businesses and independent professionals have concerns:

1. How much time is writing and maintaining a blog going to take?
2. How will I see the results?
3. How will I know my blog is working?
4. What's it going to cost in terms of money, time and energy?

We've seen spectacular results with some blogs... and we've seen them tank, get abandoned, or worse, continue without any results at all. There are a lot of variables, the biggest one, in my humble opinion, being how good are you at writing valuable content readers want and need?

Here are our top reasons for devoting time, energy and a couple of dollars to blog for your business:

• You'll get found by the people who need you and want you on the Internet
• You'll get known as an expertise in your field
• You'll build a base of readers who like what you have to say

• You'll have conversations with some of those readers and learn more from them
• You'll stimulate word-of-mouth marketing in some of those readers
• You'll get contacted by clients and organizations who want more of what you have
• You'll attract journalists and the press who'll want to write about you and give you more media attention

That's all good stuff in my book, but then I've never been one for calculating dollars and cents anyway. But if you are one that needs more proof in numbers, check out the ROI discussions here:

Debbie Weil's BlogWrite for CEOs: (take her poll while you're there)
Charlene Li's research from Forrester
Mario Sundar's Corporate blogging ROI post at MarketingProfs
Cynthia Trevino's Small Company, Big Image! blog 

Comments

[Glenn (Customer Service Experience) Ross]

A blog can also assist in building customer loyalty by providing additional information to customers on how to care for the products they buy and as a means of getting feedback from them. Think Southwest Airlines' blog.

Regards,

Glenn

[Dawud Miracle]

It seems the first question to ask is, "What do I/we expect to get from blogging?" Isn't it from this question that we can build our bullet list of expectated results and the metrics guidelines to measure those results?