I’ve spoken to many businesses over my years as a social media trainer, who discount blogging. They cite that they don’t have the time, or struggle to find things to blog about. Others state that it’s down to the process of sign off needed from higher management that puts them off.
To me, blogging is an essential part of my business marketing activity. Blogging serves many purposes, and I’m going to highlight five of them to you in this blog post.
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Search Engine Optimisation
Discount actually driving traffic to your blog from social media, and your blog can still generate traffic for your site via search engine optimisation. With the right keywords in your blog, you can be found through search engine results. And search engines have a preference for sites adding regular fresh content (hello blog!!).
2. Social Media Content
Struggling for something to say on social media? Write a blog post every week, share it multiple times, and you instantly have more content to share. And, that content is driving people back to your site! Which leads me to…
3. Lead Social Media Users To Your Site
If you don’t sell anything from your site, it can be difficult to send social media fans and followers to your site. People will rarely click updates such as “click here to read more about our services”, or “have a look at some of our case studies”. They are much more likely to click something that gives them knowledge. So, it’s a great way for getting those who follow you to your site, where they can then navigate round to find out more.
4. Show Your Expertise
Your blog should be about giving its reader value, rather than trying to sell to them (though occasionally it is ok to include a relevant sell. See the end of this blog post for an example!!). As a result, it’s a way to show your businesses expertise, whether that’s one expert or different experts within the business. People are much more likely to buy from experts, and your blog post will raise their thinking.
5. Capture Leads
As you are reading this, you should see in the sidebar the option to download a report (currently The 7 Steps to Social Media Success at the time of writing, though it does change regularly!). Many of those who are on my email list are so from filling in this form. They arrive to my site for different reasons. But the majority of visitors land on my site due to my blog. It’s a great way to capture leads that you can then market to through email.
If you’re unsure about blogging, getting started, the right content to create, how to share it and how to sell through it, then you might be interested in my next workshop! Click here to find out all the details of Blogging for Business!
