Blah, Blah, Blog
Blogging can be a great way to attract and engage customers and communicate your brand; but say the word to a lot of small business owners, and you’ll find yourself talking to the hand. For some, it’s a tech thing, and building and managing the administrative end of a blog (OMG, there’s code in there!) is a problem in itself. For others, the prospect of putting themselves out there in writing just isn’t a comfortable idea. Some people just aren’t sure exactly what benefits a blog can have, so why invest the time? But here’s some encouraging news: it is possible to create and manage a blog with just a little inspiration and very little technical know-how, that’s actually worth your while.
Point of Fact #1: The vast majority of those slick-looking blogs that you see out there weren’t built from scratch and didn’t require much expertise or expense. They were created using one of the more popular (mostly free) blogging platforms available on the web. These applications—including WordPress, TypePad, and Google’s popular platform, Blogger—will take you step-by-step through the creative, letting you point and click your way through a menu of available formats (themes) to decide how your blog will look, then easily customize the various elements of the theme (header/title, sidebar, links, main content blocks, images, etc.). With time, some experimentation, and a little self-education, you’ll get more familiar and comfortable with the creative/management end (the “dashboard”), and find that you can make more customized adjustments to your blog’s layout, including changing out images, colors, headers, and more; and add custom elements (sometimes called “widgets”) that perform specialized functions like displaying your Twitter feed in a sidebar, scrolling testimonials, a photo gallery, and more. But it’s important to know that a blog’s quality isn’t determined by the number or widgets you can cram onto the page. Even if the old adage that “Content Is King” were to die in relation to every other form of expression on the web, when it comes to blogs, it will always be fundamentally true.
Point of Fact #2: You don’t have to be Shakespeare. If you have any doubts, take a minute now to visit www.WordPress.com, www.Blogger.com, and www.TypePad.com and start clicking around. You’ll see blogs of all shapes and sizes and levels of literary capability; and you’ll very quickly realize that pretty much everybody these days has a blog, and if they can do it, you can, too! (You’ll also realize that there are way too many people out there who think it’s a great idea to put a cat in a dress, but that’s a topic for another day). Here’s what you need to know about composing for a blog—and about writing pretty much anything, when you get down to it: write what you know and the words will flow. If you’re at all good at what you do, then you know your customers and prospects fairly well. You’re familiar with their questions and their needs. You know exactly what you have to offer and how to communicate that to them in a way they can understand. Fall back on those real-world skills and channel them into blog entries that say it like you’d speak it, and you’ll be more than halfway to blogging success. For a fabulous example of all of the above, visit http://sethgodin.typepad.com/.
Point of Fact #3: When it comes to blogs, success is a seriously subjective thing, and it’s admittedly more than possible to totally waste your time. As with every other business effort, it’s important to have a plan that states what you hope to accomplish, delineates how you plan to get there, and identifies all the appropriate measures of success. If you want to get the word out about your products and services, then you’re shooting for high stats so focus on all the available opportunities to pull in more eyeballs by promoting your blog URL everywhere you can, and make sure you have tools in place to measure the visits you get. If you’re looking to boost brand loyalty, then focus on ongoing ideas like special rewards and “how to use our product better” features that focus on developing continuing relationships with the people who’ll visit your blog. I’ve had more than one person tell me they blog simply to get the ideas out of their head and into a place that helps them analyze things more objectively, which is a completely worthy goal in itself. The target here is incredibly broad, so just enter into the endeavor with your own idea of success as fully formed as possible if you care about making the most of your effort and time.
And finally, Point of Fact #4: There are so many more possibilities in blogging than we could ever fit into one article, so if you want the whole scoop on building a blog, make sure your plan for our next #OptSum event includes Scott Ellis’ workshop on WordPress 101: Build a Website in 4 Hours; and if you’re ready to go beyond the fundamentals, don’t miss Jason Falls’ workshop on Practical SEO for Corporate Blogs, and Mike Merrill’s workshop on Social Media ROI in the Real World just to name a few. We’ll see you there!
