5 Typical Stereotypes About Bloggers And Blogs That Make No Sense
I spend a lot of time talking to clients who want to start engaging with bloggers or who are keen on setting up their own blogs and I hear the same questions over and over again week after week. Like many things nowadays blogging has been pigeon holed it is thought of in a very specific way that for the most part is completely and utterly wrong and I wanted to fix a few of those myths here. There is no doubt blogging has come a long way in the last couple of years and it is certainly a lot more mainstream than it was before with lots of businesses embracing the medium but having said that there are still a lot of lingering doubts as to what it is, how it works and if it should be used as a tool. So here are my 5 common misconceptions about blogging explained…
Won’t Bloggers Just Slag Me Off?
This is the one that I hear over and over again from brand managers and companies who have never engaged online before. For some reason blogging seems to be tarnished with a misconception that if you ask a blogger to review something or send them a press release your company will be shredded to pieces and spat out online. No matter how many people I meet and explain that this could not be further from the truth I still walk away feeling the person I have been talking to is far from convinced. Sure bloggers might slag you off but it will most likely be for something that merited it anyway like bad service or a poor product. The answer to this is of course to provide amazing service and brilliant products.
Don’t Bloggers Just Pat Each Other On The Back?
Bloggers hang around in cliques in exactly the same way that people from any other walk of life do. The fact of the matter is that most of the comments that appear on blogs are from other bloggers (makes sense really as most bloggers are opinionated people who like to have their voices heard) but that doesn’t mean that others are not reading the blog. Many more will be reading the blog without commenting. It might look as if it is only bloggers who are active on other blogs but taking this blog as an example there are only a handful of people who comment on a regular basis here and most have some sort of blog or online presence but the stats say there are 100s who never interact and are lurking.
Isn’t It Just A Blogger’s Mother That Reads The Blog?
In some cases yes. In some cases no. Just like some newspapers have massive circulations and some have a tiny amount of readers the same is true of blogs. The one issue that blogs have is that very few actually release their stats so it can be hard to tell just how big a blog actually is. The 3rd party traffic sites like compete or Alexa are largely irrelevant for blogs due to their mostly small traffic but there are plenty of blogs out there with large readerships and the fact that blogs feature constantly updating fresh content that Google likes means they will show up well on Google.
Won’t They Just Scream Blue Murder About A Press Release?
They will yes if you just blast out an impersonal press release that has just been copy and pasted saying something like “hi X I love you blog and all you super brilliant content please tell all your readers you love my company” or worse still if you cc lots of other bloggers in on the same email. However if you take time, read the blog in question and write to them in a thoughtful and considerate way with relevant well timed information then you will be fine. Treat people with respect and talk to them as you would anybody else and everything will be fine.
Won’t Blogging Take Up Hours Of My Time For No Return
It can do if you don’t do it right. We recently estimated that we bring in over 80% of our business as a direct result of this blog. That is not bad considering it keeps a team of 8 in full time work. Blogging is time consuming but you don’t have to write massive big thoughtful posts like we do. You can easily set up photo blogs that publish automatically. Simple Video blogs. Short content blogs and some of the best blogs in the world only publish a couple of short articles a week. If you are blogging for business make sure you have a very clear reason for it with some well defined goals so as you don’t just end up spending endless hours for no return. Done correctly your blog can be a massively powerful marketing tool and will certainly not be a waste of your time.
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