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5 Better Uses for Your Business Blog
The Sprocket Report
This article has been updated on 3/28/2023 with the article entitled “When Was Your Last Blog Post? Here's Why You Should Get Back to It:”
Blogging has come a long way from the days of telling people what you ate for breakfast. Your website’s blogging capability is an indispensible marketing tool. Are you using it to its fullest?
Yes, a blog is known for being an online diary. Or in the business world, as a log of the news you want to share and which your clients and prospects need to see. Blogs are also a great way to constantly build fresh content on your website for both your human and spiderbot visitors. If you’ve been neglecting your blog lately, read on for five marketing opportunities you are missing:
Blog as a News Feed
Our government and educational websites use their blogs to continually post news such as school closings, special events, meetings and schedule changes. Authors and speakers talk about upcoming events they are headlining or simply attending. Shops post sale dates and celebrate the birthdays of employees. Each post needn’t be a dissertation when a couple paragraphs will do. Create a monthly calendar and you may surprise yourself by how much news you actually have.
Blog as History
Once the news is old, your past posts become a repository of all the cool things your business has done. From the spiderbot point of view, each blog post is filled with search terms that reinforce your website as the authority in your niche. From the prospective client point of view, your company is active and knowledgeable and of much more interest than a competitor with a static website.
Blog as Newsletter
In the content marketing world, “create once, post many” is a common phrase. You have different audiences for your various media, but who has time to write different content for all the possibilities? One way to get more mileage out of your content is to use an RSS feed that automatically sends your latest blog post to your email list as a newsletter. You can schedule the email to go out once a week or whenever a new blog is posted and you have options for the look of the email newsletter as well.
Blog as Social Media Fodder
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like all have their own audiences who are looking for interesting content. Blog posts can be that content. For example: Social Media Post #1: “Interviewed our employee of the month today for an upcoming article.” Post #2: “Meet our employee of the month!” Post #3: “Did you miss our latest employee of the month article?” There you go – three opportunities to connect with your social media audiences linked to a single blog post!
Blog as Landing Page
When you have news to release, you’ll want to hit all the outlets: newspapers, community calendars, social media, online media outlets and any other place you can think of. But every news release needs to include a “for more information” link and that would be your blog post. When folks click on the link or type in the URL, your post becomes the landing page that has additional details to back up the news release.
We are always surprised by the number of clients who don’t want a blog on their website because, in their experience, blogs are for emo ranting. But blogs can be so much more and a vital marketing tool for your business or organization. We urge you to rethink blogging and if you want to bounce some ideas around, give us a call. We’re happy to help you build a useful blog.
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Kate Gingold
I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.
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