Some Popular Business Blogging Misconceptions
If I had my way every company would have a business blog. I spend large amounts of my time working with brands and businesses that have certain stereotypes about blogging and trying to convince them to establish their own blog. It’s a scary step to take because even though blogging has moved in to the mainstream in recent years it’s surprising how little people know about the mechanics of blogging. It is now a common term in most board rooms and with marketing teams but there is still a huge amount of ignorance out there as to the benefits of blogging for business and the mechanics of how it works. I hear the same questions over and over again so here are some of the most popular misconceptions around business blogging…
Isn’t it just other bloggers who read blogs?
There is no doubt that other bloggers read blogs because that is what they are passionate about and it’s a very tightly knit community but a huge amount of people read blogs who have never written a word online in their lives. Blogs rank especially well in search engines because Google likes fresh content so people often find blogs first when they search for products or reviews. More commercial blogs are attracting larger amounts of traffic so no it is not just other bloggers who read blogs, far from it actually.
It’s somewhere for your press releases
If I do convince people to start blogging the first thing they usually say is what a great place it will be to share their press releases and all their latest award wins. In other words another traditional channel used to broadcast out messages that they expect people will be interested in. 99.9% of people couldn’t care about press releases in their current format so putting them on your blog is not going to change anything. People read blogs because there is something in it for them and not as a marketing channel. So once you do take the step to create a blog don’t just treat it as another marketing channel.
My brand will come under attack
It depends. If you do silly things and treat your customers with disrespect then yes of course it will just as it would in any other platform. Just because you start a blog doesn’t mean that some online mob is going to pop up and start attacking. People are already online talking about your brand in places like Twitter, Facebook and on other blogs. By having your own platform and engaging with people via a blog you have a place to give your side of the story. All comments on blogs are moderated anyway so even in the highly unlikely event that people do start attacking you don’t have to publish unmoderated comments.
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It will take lots of resources
Depends what sort of blog you write. If you want to write a blog like ours here where we publish at least two posts per day then yes it will take lots of resources. It is possible to have a very engaging company blog that takes 1 hour to write a week. Blogging has never been easier and there are even sites like Tumblr and Posterous that let you create content in a matter of seconds. I’ve written in the past how you can create content in less than 5 minutes so there really is no excuse. Having a good business blog does not take lots of resources.
Nobody will be interested in what I have to say
Not true. Find your niche and write about it and no matter how narrow that niche is you will find an audience. You’ll have to work at making your content interesting and to stand out form the crowd. Tap in to the passion that people have within your niche and more importantly show your own passion and people will come flocking to your blog.
I’ll make lots of money from my blog
So many people set up a blog with the intention of making money directly from ads or trying to monetize their blog from day 1. This pretty much never works. You might make money from your blog in terms of business leads or by positioning yourself as the expert in your niche but there are huge blogs out there already who have far more traffic than you ever will who are not making any money from blogging.
It’s Too Technical For Me
People always think blogging is some sort of complicated technical challenge that should only be attempted by developers. The software has moved on to a level where if you use something like WordPress (like this blog is built on) it could not be easier to use and you need very limited technical knowledge. I always say that it’s as easy as logging in to your email and creating a word document. You will probably need a developer to set it up on your own domain name at the start and host your blog etc but once that is done any old technophobe could be blogging away with little technical knowledge.
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