Blogging for Business

I firmly believe that every business should have a blog. That’s right, I said every business. Blogs should be integrated into every business as an essential marketing tool.

Raise your hand if you think blogging is a new trend. It isn’t. Way back in 2005, Bloomberg Businessweek featured an article titled “Blogs Will Change Your Business”.

According to that article: “Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business — including yours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They’re a prerequisite.”

Many businesses avoid blogging because they think they are only for “small” businesses. They couldn’t be more wrong. According to Socialtext, as of last December, 79 of the Fortune 500 companies have active blogs about the company and/or its products—and that number is growing. BlogPulse reported that there were 126 million blogs in 2009—not posts—actual blogs. Sure, many were personal, but a great many were for businesses and organizations.

Blogs provide two-way communication with consumers. Websites are great—but they are static. The information is there to be read, but only to be read. With a blog, people have the opportunity to respond to what is posted. One of the fears, of course, is that negative comments will be posted. You need to realize that those comments are probably being posted somewhere online anyway, so why not take the opportunity to respond to the criticism…and maybe turn the situation around?

When a business considers blogging, one question I frequently get is about who should write the blog. Personally, I think that it should be an executive in the company, even the CEO, president or owner. It can be someone else, but the absolute most important thing is that the writing be authentic. While it is a marketing tool, blogs are designed to be personal. Come across as a used car salesman just hawking your product and no one will read what you write.

How often should a blog be posted? Every person will give you a different opinion. Marketing expert Seth Godin blogs every day, but his posts are short, quick reads. Think that’s too often? Take a look at his numbers: virtually every post is Tweeted hundreds of times and nearly 60,000 people “like” his blog’s Facebook Fan page.

I’m a proponent of weekly blogs, but at the very least, I think you should blog every two weeks. Otherwise, people forget you exist.

Now it’s time for class participation: what are the best business blogs that you read and why?