Creating business blogs is not a new concept. However, most businesses either do not know how to create and effective one or have a blog but do not use it to its full potential. For many small businesses blogging can be an extremely great tool in building your social media foot print, establish your brand, or position yourself in an area of expertise. The ultimate benefit of business blogging is the opportunity to communicate your expertise to a mass of people and provide a resource for customers.  In recent years the big buzz words have been "content is king". However, in todays blogging world "platform is queen". Creating this platform is to create a social media presence and increase traffic of online searches for your company. Content is the message, but platform provides visibility and engagement with the audience.
Should a business focus more on content of their blog or more on just getting their name out there?
Building your business blog

Last week we talked about vlogs or video blogs. Today, we will go deeper into this. Some people don’t have the ability to do quality video but still desire to do something different than a traditional blog. One way to do this is to record audio only and then create “slides” or moving pictures on your computer to make a movie. It’s not a video of you but it is still a video with your voice with something like a power point presentation that you prepared. Almost every single computer you work at has the ability to do something like this. On PCs, try using Movie Maker or on a Mac, iMovie. As far as equipment goes, you only need a microphone and your computer.

Do you find that a vlog without video rather slides is as interesting as one of someone looking into the camera?

I was reading an article about “the next step” of blogging. Video Blogging. This is a type of blog that is always audio and usually video of a person that is sharing their thoughts on a subject. While blogging is essentially a paper that you write “nonchalantly”, there is much more work involved in video blogging. The article I read blamed this extra work of vlogging as the reason of it not taking off as well. So the question is, are you interested enough in a video blog to look into doing the extra work required or do you prefer the “traditional” style of blogging?

The different types of bloggers

There are about 7 different types of bloggers out in the world. With this blog I am going to focus on the first 3 types:

1. The Niche expert
2. The Business owner
3. The Professional blogger

1. The Niche expert.This type of blogger is someone who finds something that they truly enjoy and are good at. They write to their readers with an expertise on the subject, and allow their readers to feel as if they are learning something.

2. The Business owner. The business owner does not see their blog as the business, but as a marketing tool for their business. They allow their blog to become a go to place for their customers to learn about products, and about the business.

3. The Professional blogger.The professional blogger is a mixture of a niche expert and a business owner. They treat their blog as if it was a business, and they write about subjects that they are passionate about. They do use their blog to make money just like a business.

These are just 3 of the 7 different types of bloggers out in the world. Come back later and find out the other 4 types of bloggers, and you can figure out what kind of blogger you are.

http://writetodone.com/the-7-types-of-blogger-which-one-are-you/

Blog Contest

So your company wants to give things away? Try these tips on your blog and see what will happen.


1. Introduce A Great New ProductHold a contest to giveaway new products. Just because a company thinks that their product is the best new item on the market does not mean that people will spend the money to purchase the item. A company should allow people to have the chance to win the item, and then the winners can rant and rave about how much they love it. However, the item does need to be good. Word of mouth can either make or break a company and the product that they are trying to sell.

2. Reward Your Current Fan BaseDon't forget the rest of your fans on the blog that did not win. Still thank them for following the blog, and recognize that you (the company) value them.

3. Capitalize On Trends For SEO
Think of the best times to give items away. Holidays are a great time to do giveaways on a blog. Or think of minor holidays as well. People love the little things, and doing giveaways that correlate with a holiday may bring in more traffic for your business blog.

http://todaymade.com/blog/contest-giveaway/

This week I was reading an article titled “Why BloggingMatters to Businesses” and it talked about how blogs are meant to create a personal, relatable image for the business to market to their customers. It said to create an identity complete with a “voice” of the company. This made me think, what would I look for in a bloggers “voice”? Now I recognize that I would have no idea who is truly writing the blog, but would I relate to an individual better than a company? For example, if I could read Henry Ford’s blog about how the Ford Motor Company is doing, what ways they are being innovative in the automotive industry, indirect, subtle hints at how they are beating the competition, would I enjoy that more than a Ford Motor Company blog? (Please note, this is just an example and we should imagine that we are in the starting days of Ford, before Henry’s death.) I believe that I personally would prefer to read Henry’s blog to get a personal aspect of the company. I would have a name and a face to match up with writing instead of a company logo. What about you? What type of blog would you prefer to read? An individual’s or a company’s? 

Alternative Blogging Options

Most businesses have just a standard blog like WordPress, but did you know there are other options? Tumbler is a very easy blogging platform. With more than 100 million bloggers out there, Tumblr has an active group of users who are constantly searching for content based on keyword tags and phrases. This can help to build a stronger audience quickly. Also allowing users to post pictures, text, links, music, video through a desktop or even a phone. Tumblr works best for more visual businesses such as retail design, food, or fashion. Another great thing is Tumblr owners are allowed to link back to e-commerce sites with coupon codes, QR codes and links to other social media accounts. The templates are easy to manage and there is no download necessary.

Do you think tumblr could be a good alternative blogging site for a business? 

Finding Alternatives to Building a Website