Blogging is more than just SEO & “Thought-leadership”
I have been really enjoying the conversations lately on #blogchat, hosted by Mack Collier (@mackcollier) on Twitter. The weekly Sunday night chat is wrapped around blogging, and this past week was specifically geared towards monetizing your blog. Why do we blog? Seriously.
Businesses and organizations use blogs for many reasons, but I think it is specifically to position themselves as thought leaders in a specific discipline or arena. It is a great way to have an immediate position on a topic or ideal and generate traffic when audiences are looking to consume information. The ulitmate goal, drive traffic to your “mothership” in the hopes to gain some monetary goal or position a viewpoint to raise some awareness.
My wife has been blogging for over two years. She has no reason what-so-ever to gain any type of moentary position from her posts. She used it as an outlet when dealing with the loss of her mother and our two children. It has become her outlet to articulate thoughts, connect with others, and theraputically sooth the soul.
So why do we blog? I honestly think…we as humans just want to be heard and we want to connect with like minded individuals. Whether it be gaining business from our thoughts or connecting with loved ones, we use it as an outlet to organize thoughts.
So why do we as business owners blog? This is why I am writing this post. It is more than just the SEO perspective. It is more than gaining business from blog posts…even though we will not admit it. Blogs are a place to articulate our thoughts and help us keep focused in our business. This iterative process requires time and thought to critically think, “why are we dedicating time to an outlet in the hopes to generate cash?”
Blogging takes focus! It requires us as business leaders to write a mission statement for the blog. The blog is our sounding board for business, our credibility platform to justify to the world we know what the hell we are talking about. It requires us to define a goal for each post and justify whether it warrants a post, then focus it to specific key words that closely align with our business objectives.
Blogging is our creative outlet to work through creative ideas. Through this online discourse, we find ourselves creating an argument for a great project, a great proposal, a great business plan, or even just get some responses on an idea.
Some of the smartest marketing gurus and most successful business people have successfully found a focused voice in their blog. They have a community of followers, a one stop focus group (or usability testing facility) for ideas and thoughts. They have used their blog as a platform to successfully write their business plan. We should learn from them…because it has probably taken them lots of time and diligence to refine their blog, their online business plan.
Big-box business have a hard time wrapping their heads around how to “monetize” a blog because the voice is way to big. They are having to go micro and use individuals within the organization to focus the objectives. But…they use other marketing platforms to generate their own equitable “SEO”.
Our thoughts are our voice, if focused they will engage those with like minds. When you hear the heavy blogging gurus talk about focus…it is more that just focusing the blog, it is focusing the business of writing the blog.
The watch words this week are about sharing the WHY’s of your story as the most effective means of communicating new ideas to others…as a blogger who has day in day out blogged in various locations for over a decade now, a blog is proof of your WHY’s being present in your daily existence….consumers and individuals want relationships and in blogging we find an audience for our voice, but more importantly for many…we learn what our voice sounds like and in sharing it with others we grow into new communities…
Thanks for writing, I’ve enjoyed reading.
Bobby…
“focusing the business of writing the blog” is the truth. Debates rage about whether any blog by a business owner is therefore a business blog (I tend to say no…. more on that in a minute). The debate rages because many people who own a business SAY they blog only for themselves, because they love it, to free themselves from the obligation (real or perceived) of treating it like a focused business exercise. Something we do for enjoyment can be done on our own schedule, right? 😉
I have multiple blogs, two that are very much business and one that is an eclectic mix of stuff I share because I like it, stuff I write about my personal life and stuff I just comment on for others’ sake. I don’t ever lose sight of the fact that my name is on all of them and saying “this one is my personal blog!” doesn’t shield my business from what I’ve posted or positions I take.
Sweetie…btw, love typing your name! It is so funny how the iterative process not only takes us down a path for both ourselves and our audiences as well. Your wisdom is well noted especially for those who are still seeking their voice. That is the joy of the creative enterprise of writing, especially in a community setting such as a blog. Our topics can be predicated by our audiences, and if we are not careful we will spend more time addressing the audiences’ needs and shy away from new innovative writing.
Mandy…first of all, you always have thought provoking responses. When you created a distinction between your business and personal blog, were you worried that someone might read a personal viewpoint and potentially marginalize your business? I have been thinking about a personal blog and whether or not making it anonymous or not? You know that there are times where personal views might be subject to a critical lens especially in the world of relationship based client work.
Thoughtful post, Bobby.
I’d add a point to which you refer but do not explicitly mention: blogging is a way for a business owner (or anyone representing the business in a professional capacity, for that matter) to make a personal connection with clients, prospects and other interested parties. The human element should be an important part of the blog’s mission. You are a great case in point.
Bill, you are absolutely right about that point. I have made more friends and established great business contacts in the short time I have had my blog up and running. It has been a great source of fun and connection point to so many new people. It is my hope that these forged relationships grow…especially as the life of the blog grows.
BR
My blog is responsible for driving a few hits to our website, but more importantly, people have found out more about our business, what we do, and who we are, than from any other means. I have only a handful of subscribers, but a few regular readers, and when I post to twitter that I have a new blog entry, we get a few dozen hits to it… Sometimes an email, or phone call follows from those who read but don’t care to get “involved” in blogging and reply or anything.
I also find it a fun outlet… Shame I don’t have something more interesting to say! hahaha
John, that is so cool. What you are describing is exactly what I was expressing. It is more than just the SEO…it is building your business around the ideas you articulate via your blog. The blog has become, in essence, a tool to help business owners and others help articulate their mission regularly beyond the main part of the website. Therefore it is a mutually beneficial position, the more you articulate, the more refined the message, the more search engines find you, the more you engage with audiences. It is business writing tool. We should treat it that way and see the SEO as a simple bi-product.
BR