subject: Blogging For Business: Getting The Best From This Free Promotional Tool [print this page] Blogging For Business: Getting The Best From This Free Promotional Tool
Blogging has come a long way in a short time and the simple text-only blogs have been joined by photoblogs, videoblogs and audioblogs.Some bloggers may focus on one particular medium, say video, while others will mix and match words, pictures and audio files in varying degrees. Diversity is the key to blogging and each blogger will have their own unique style.
Blogs can be produced for pleasure, for business, to inform, to challenge, for political or religious reasons; in fact they can be used for just about anything at all. Theyhave no formal rules or regulations, there is no correct way to write a blog and they can be on any subject matter at all. Blogs can be serious, flippant, interesting or dull and they may have wide general appeal or just focus on a narrower niche market instead.There is no need to blog every day, although some people do, but blogging does work best when it is done with at least some degree of regularity.
If you are blogging for business then you will want to take extra care over every post you produce as you want the overall look and feel of the blog to be professional.
While a personal blog can make many random twists and turns along the way, a professional blog should be more considered with posts limited to your particular niche. There is little point in producing a blog about "celebrity pets" if one week you decide to randomly post about "celebrity homes" instead.Taking care to only post about matters within your niche will ensure that visitors know what to expect and are not surprised by irrelevant content they have no interest in.
Business blogs may have a specific purpose such as generating leads, establishing the blogger as an expert, introducing new products or providing useful information to customers and the main purpose will dictate the overall look of the blog. For example if the blog's main aim is to bring in lots of potential new customers then a lead capture form will be a prominent part of the blog. If, however, its aim is to showcase your products then it may have several pages containing lots of pictures and videos of your product range instead.
You may also choose to use your blog to directly promote some of your products with adverts or banners highlighting special offers or your latest hot deals.
Blogging for business means having a blogging strategy and a constant review process to ensure that your blog is actually helping you achieve your goals.
If you encourage your customers to ask questions or post comments on your blog then you will have to ensure it is regularly monitored so you can follow up with timely replies. However encouraging customer feedback is a very useful blog strategy because every now and again you will be presented with a great idea; perhaps for a new product or perhaps for a way to make the blog more user-friendly.
You can experiment by using varying amounts of videos, pictures, text and audio posts throughout your blog but don't keep chopping and changing too much or you will only confuse your visitors.
A professional-looking and well-designed blog is easy to achieve and will reflect well on your business but once you start a blog you must keep putting in the time and effort to ensure it remains up to date. If you are still promoting your "Christmas Special Offer" in March then you really aren't paying quite enough attention to your blog and your customers may think you are not such an expert after all.
