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Blogging to Reach Your Buyers
Blogs are now a mainstream vehicle for organizations to get their ideas into the marketplace. The readers of blogs view the information shared by smart bloggers as one of the few forms of real, authentic communication. Audiences consume advertising with skepticism and consider pronouncements by CEOs to be out of touch with reality. But a good blog written by someone within a large or small company, a nonprofit, a church, or a political campaign commands attention.
At the same time, the term “blog” carries a negative connotation with some people who believe the content contained inside is frivolous. The best marketing and PR strategies must include creating your own content. If you are creating valuable information to market your business, don't let someone's anxiety with the term “blog” hold you back. Or maybe its best to not use the “B-word” at all—rather than a link on your home page to “Our Blog,” you could link to the name of the blog or to “Our Industry Commentary.” For more on this discussion about the term “blog,” please refer back to the section in Chapter 5 called “A Blog (or Not a Blog).”
This chapter sets out the basics of how to establish your own blog. But I recommend that before you begin to write, you first monitor blogs in your market space and that you step into the blogosphere by commenting on a few blogs before you write your own. You might want to reread Chapter 5, where I introduced blogs and provided some case studies of successful ...
