Your website provides the world with all the necessary information about your business and your products. Yet everyone is telling you you need a business blog. You ask ‘Why?’
I say, because you need a ‘voice.’ Not necessarily you but your business and no one can get a sense of that voice by just looking at your website. Because here’s the thing, your website is boring. Yeah, I know you spent extra for the flash/splash page animated whatever but it’s still a business website to me, the web surfer/potential customer. Your website is not going to give me a feeling that I know you. But your blog will.
Take a look around my blog. The writing you see, the advice I give, that’s pretty much what you get if you talk to me in person. Conversely, if you just look at a page that lists my services, maybe my prices and contact information, it doesn’t give you a feel for who I am.
That’s where a blog comes in. Your company blog shouldn’t be a vehicle to pitch sales. It should give customers a peek inside your inner thoughts. What are you about? How do your processes take place? Who’s behind the company? Those are the things a blog should cover. Web customers are different than other types of customers because they want to know that stuff.
It’s easy for anyone to put up a website, but you never know who’s behind it. That makes it easy for scam artists, or anyone else for that matter, to have a presence on the web. To gain trust of a web customer you need to make them feel like they know you. Accomplish this with a business blog.
So what information should your blog contain?
- Introduce not so visible employees
- Employ YouTube to give your customers a walking tour of your facility or processes
- Show them how something is made.
- Talk about current topics in the news that relate to your industry and talk about how your company feels about them.
Don’t be afraid to let your guard down a bit. Embrace a friendly personal tone with your blog. Your business blog doesn’t have to be a chore either. Hire someone like me 🙂 who offers affordable public relations including blog maintenance or find an employee who embodies what your company is about and have them maintain it. Either way it’s an important part of your public relations plan.
Your customers want to know you. What are you going to tell them?