By now, most business people understand the benefits of social media and especially blogging. A blog can help turn you into an authority on your given subject, it provides useful information to your customers that will keep them coming back to your site, it provides a way to interact with your customers, etc. When you are developing a blog for business, rather than just a hobby project, there are some things that you need to keep in mind. The folks at Problogger.net have compiled a list of the 9 (really 10) things you need to do before launching your small business blog. Here are my thoughts on this list…
1. Define your customer: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Rule #1 of marketing is to segment the market (aka define your customer).
2. Determine if you’re going to create a blog within your business website or on its own: It depends on the situation / company, but in general my thought is that you should keep your blog separate from your business site. This way you have multiple ways for your customer to find you, and also so that you aren’t seen as someone just trying to sell something, but as someone that is offering value. This is definitely not a one size fits all decision though so what do I know?
3. Keyword research for domain name: I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t do this before setting my domain. I just thought that Evil Marketer was a cool name. But just like your parents used to always tell you, do what I say not what I do. The Google keywords tool (this can be accessed by signing up for Adwords, which you should do even if you don’t use the ads) is your friend. Use it.
4. Choose a blogging platform and select a design or theme: We’ve talked about choosing the right platform before. Obviously I like Tumblr (especially for a beginner), but do some research and find out what will work best for you.
5. Register your social media accounts: Social media is a great way to promote your blog. Use it. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and whatever else you’re going to use (then come back here and use that share button at the bottom of my posts). In the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger “Do it! Do it now!!”
6. Measuring ROI, listening, and your blog’s feed: There are tons of tools you can use to keep track of your success. I’ll probably talk about this in more detail in the future.
7. Draft at least ten posts in advance and have them loaded with preset publish dates: I don’t really agree with this, but I guess it’s sound advise. In my opinion, if you already have 10 posts ready to go, then you may get lazy and skip days that you know you should be writing. I would say, instead of this tip, that you should come up with topics to discuss, and come into blogging with a commitment to continue for some period of time.
8. Spend some time in forums: This is great advice. Whatever your subject is, go out and find the online communities and forums that relate to what you’re doing. Don’t just spam them with links to your site. Instead you should interact with the community and participate.
9. Reach out to key influencers: I totally didn’t do this, but perhaps I should have. Who knows, try it out, and let me know how it worked for you.
10. Draft a web optimized press release: I thought there were only 9 tasks. I guess this one was a bonus. Anyway, if you’re running a business get in the habit of writing press releases. It doesn’t hurt and can only help.
Well there are my thoughts. What do you guys think?
