Anyone can start a business blog, but not everyone can be successful as a business blogger. That’s because writing for a business blog is different from any form of traditional marketing or business development. Instead of self-promoting and selling on your business blog, you need to focus on dialogue and relationships in order to find success.
Following are 5 fundamental requirements you need to follow to BE successful with your business blogging efforts:
1. Be human.
No one will want to spend time with you online (or offline) if you sound like you’re reading from a corporate brochure or PowerPoint presentation. Your blog posts must demonstrate your personality and be written in a conversational style and tone befitting of your target audience. They have to be interesting and engaging, and they must be completely devoid of any corporate rhetoric.
2. Be honest.
Business blogging should offer insight into your organization. Therefore, your blog posts must be transparent and help you build trust with your audience.
3. Be useful.
Your business blog posts should add value to the online conversation by offering useful, helpful, interesting or entertaining content. If you’re blog posts simply regurgitate information and offer nothing new and interesting, no one will want to read them.
4. Be social.
Not only do you need to respond to comments left on your own business blog for your blog to be successful, but you also need to join the online conversation that happens off of your blog. For example, leave comments on other blogs that your target audience reads, answer questions on Twitter or LinkedIn, join conversations on Facebook, and so on to demonstrate that you’re interested in more than just boosting traffic to your own blog.
5. Be uncontrolling.
One of the most difficult steps a business has to take when it implements a social media marketing strategy, including publishing a business blog, is giving up control of the online conversation. By allowing consumers to take control of the conversation, joining it as appropriate, and nudging it in the right direction without trying to control it yourself, your business, brand and bottom-line have a greater chance of finding success on the social Web.
What do you think is the most important step to BE successful with a business blog? Leave a comment and share your opinion.
