Business Blogging: What's the Point?

We've been teaching how to gain massive online visibility to a group of smart and savvy professionals in our mentoring program. The background theme has been blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and multiple forms of online content so that people with problems can find your solutions.

The idea is to be everywhere on the Web. For example, a remark on Twitter can lead someone back to read more about you on your blog. But, wait a minute, what's the point?

What's your purpose once you've got a new visitor over to your blog? Sure, you want to impress them with your expertise. Sure, you want to build a relationship with them. Sure, you want them to subscribe to your blog updates and become a fan.

But  hey, this isn't high school and you're not running for prom queen. This isn't a popularity contest. So you can forget about your numbers. All you bean-counters and Google Analytic-types can groan all you want. It's so easy to get distracted by numbers and widgets and glitter and buzz.

Online social networking can make you feel good, really good...all those followers and friends.

Here's an old cliche, but one that's never been so important as now: Show me the money, honey!

If you're not turning visitors into clients, then what's the point? Well, if you're running a hobby blog or an ego blog, you don't have to think about this. For the rest of us non-trust-fund baby boomers, we need to follow the money path.

So visibility and blog stats are nice. But there's got to be more. Here's my perspective, my road map:

1. Post a blog post
2. Twit about it
3. Retweet other good tweeters so they retweet yours
4. Facebook follow up
5. Get peeps back to blog post
6. Do 3 things in your blog posts:
   1. Provide useful unique info
   2. Build relationships & trust
   3. Add your personality & stories
   4. Ask for audience participation

This last point is a call to action, a persuasion that readers need to do more.

What do you want them to do? What can they do from your blog? What are you asking them to do?

Do you know how many good blogs we see and read where there is no way for us to do anything? Yeah, a lot. No email subscription form, no free report to checkout.

Sometimes we see something to buy. But who's going to buy something on the first visit? No, most of us are looking for the freebie first. If you can get readers to download or register for something for free, they are one step closer to opening up their wallets to buy or hire you.

Here's a list of ideas for creating downloadable digital information products:

1. Ebooks

a. From blog posts
b. From newsletters
c. From articles
d. How to…, 7 insider secrets, 5 mistakes, the real reasons for… etc. etc.

2. Ecourses

a. Set up an autoresponder series

3. Teleseminars, webinars

a. Set up free registrations
b. Recordings
c. Transcripts
d. After sales

4. Special reports, or a white paper
5. Take a survey (great for creating blog posts that go viral) and then you can create a special report from the data. (SurveyMonkey.com, Vizu.com) Ask questions on LinkedIn as well.
6. Other ideas?

The point is, if you want to actually use your blog for business, you've got to deepen your relationship with readers by getting them more involved.

This is only a partial list of ways to do that. It's key. But to decide what kind of free information product to offer readers, you must first be really clear about what business you're in. What is it you'd eventually like to sell to your readers? Which service or product will you be pitching?

You need to be clear on this because your free give-away really needs to be similar to what you're selling for everything to make sense and work. Always remember that business blogging is about business.

Free Report:
Better Business Blogging: 4 New Concepts for Getting Spectacular Results

Related post:
Blogging, Branding and eBooks to Build Your Busines

Comments

[Drew Gneiser]

Wow! After reading your post, I realize that our blog is missing a company profile that would help people understand what we do as a business. Thanks so much for the ideas.

[Sandy McMullen]

Not only a roadmap but mileage and gas station locations included - wow - great (thorough) post - now to get busy implementing each mile along the way.

[David Moore]

This is probably one of the best blog posts I have read in a while. Just recently, quite by accident, I have tried to start doing this very thing. We try to be so "social" and "serving", we are scared to admit the fact that all this blogging, tweeting, etc is with a very "self-serving" goal in mind. Most of the time, to make money for our businesses. We can be "self-serving" but your tips allow one to still do it in a respectful manner. My blog www.AdvantageBlog.typepad.com can improve because of your blogging efforts. And the 4 New Concepts. Thank you so much. Great post.

[Gerry Heidenreich]

Good post - We are currently working on a training program to teach a couple hundred lawyers about social networks, especially LinkedIn & blogging. I drew up a diagram that demonstrates the SEO cycle. It was posted under CC license so you're free to use what you want if it helps... my post is here:
http://www.edsid.com/blog/archive/2009/02/18/diagram-seo-with-blogging.aspx

[dr-patsi]

David, Drew, Sandy & Gerry: thanks for stopping by and encouraging me. At 5 this morning I knew I had something to say but wondered if I could pull it together enough to be coherent.

Gerry Heidenreich: This is a great diagram that is relevant, thanks for sharing it with our readers. But again, there's a missing step where you do more than just gain new subscribers. It's that all important step of getting readers to sign up or download something to deepen the relationship.

Of course an email subscription to your blog feeds is a great way to achieve that, and you need to continually invite people to do so. Love diagrams like this. Thought about doing one for this post, but it could easily get way too complicated for all the steps including the registration page, thank you page, and follow up autoresponder series! 'Nother time...!

Patsi

[Chris Baggott]

Great post! love the 'running for prom queen' LOL I'm going to use that one in my post today (full attribution of course)

Please remember that blogging is the tip of the SEO spear. Marketers have two goals, drive traffic from people who have problems that you solve, and convert that traffic.

The one key to great SEO in blogging has to be focus. The SEO Expert Vanessa Fox has it right when she says:

"Relevance means keeping to a topic, helping the search engine understand what your site is about and, ideally, about one thing in particular.”

One problem with traditional business blogging is the lack of focus. Pick a narrow range of keywords and focus all your content around those keywords.

Want to spread your scope? Add more blogs. We see even small businesses with 25 to 50 different blogs.

[ioffersearch001]

Business blogs are sweeping the business community. Blogs are an excellent method to share a company's expertise, build additional web traffic, and connect with potential customers..

http://ioffersearch.com/

[Sarah]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

http://www.lyricsdigs.com

[Sarah]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Sarah

http://www.lyricsdigs.com

[bloggingnews01]

Blogs is the only way to do effective business marketing over the web. This plays a major role over online where people can discuss and share their information. Bloggingnews.net is the site where you can share and post your information over it.

Blogging News - Blogging News Information You Can Use