Thinking about blogging for your business? Eight things to consider before starting your business blog

Most businesses are at least on board with having a website now. Some will run their whole operation via a website. Others will use it as a place to find the address and contact details with maybe a brief description of what they do. I use business websites a lot in my work – I ran my website in my own business; when I was targeting some partner businesses in my last role I would research them beforehand; and as a buyer in retail,  I used them to find suppliers. Websites I commonly encounter usually have a home page, about page, contact page and some sort of services page. There may also be a link to a Facebook or Twitter presence. Frequently now, though, we are seeing blogs on websites.

For this reason alone, other people are doing it; people are bolting on a blog to their website with some vague notion they will write the occasional article about their business. Your nephew might have told you, you need a blog. Your friends who know something about marketing all have blogs and you have heard that some businesses even have blogs that create their own revenue stream.

You think it’s worth a shot and send an email off to the web guy or girl to add a blog to the website or think about signing up to one of the many blog platforms and ‘have a go’. But before you do, I ask you to think about these points.

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Stop bitching about Facebook – how to create content people want to see and share

I know how hard it is to build Facebook reach for a business page. It’s something I have worked very hard on in the past. Like most things worth having, it’s right that it’s difficult and it’s right that you have to do a good job to get results. If it was easy then everyone would be doing it and how would you stand out from your competition?

Understanding how media companies work

Facebook offers a huge opportunity to reach an audience with no cost to entry. For FREE you can start a business page, share content and reach people based on their age, gender, geography, and interests. Facebook, however, is a business. It has to pay salaries and create a profit for its shareholders. Just like yours. It also has a duty to its members to serve content that they find interesting. This is why they regularly change things. Facebook want to offer a better experience to its members, keep members logging in and to encourage interactions. Otherwise, they have no platform at all.

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A new shiny notebook

new-notebook

I always loved a new notebook. The potential of all those crisp, white, blank pages. The cover not yet covered in bottom of the handbag gunk. What would those pages contain? Thoughts, dreams, lists, notes from events. I have notebooks from buying my first house, planning our wedding, starting a business and endless lists.

I occasionally use note-taking apps for shared tasks or when on the go and caught without a notebook. Noting a song I like, Christmas gift idea, film I want to see, book I want to read etc. But I see this as perfunctory. It’s not the same as keeping a record with pen and paper. With a notebook you take time to expand.

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