November, 2014 | MobiApps Experts

First off, what is business blogging? In the world of businesses and blogs, business blogging is a marketing tactic that uses blogging to get your business more online visibility. Let’s start off by defining blogging. Blogging, as everyone knows, is an act of creating short form content related to a certain topic, for the general public. Next, what is online visibility and how does a blog bring it about? Online visibility is exactly what it sounds—being able to be found and seen on the internet. This could mean that your business can show up at a higher frequency in search engines, and on social media. However, business blogging is not the same as personal blogging as it is a marketing tactic, a marketing channel.

The benefits of business blogging

There are many benefits of creating a blog for your business. In short, business blogging is a low-cost way to create opportunities to get your website found by the people that you want to find it, so you can generate new leads and customers for your business. Here are a few outlined:

It helps drive traffic to your website

To start off with, think about how many pages are found on your website. Probably not many, right? And think about how often you update those web-pages. Probably not that often, either. How many times can you update the About Us page anyways? However, blogging is a solution to these problems. Every time a blog post is made, it is an indexed page on your website, one more cue to Google and other search engines. Every new indexed page means more opportunity for you to show up in search engines and drive the traffic towards your own website. So the first benefit of blogging, it helps drive new traffic to your website and work closely with search engines and social media.

It helps establish authority

The best business blogs answer common questions that their customers have. By creating content that is helpful for your target customer, it will establish you as an authority in their eyes. This is a handy tool for Sales and Service Professionals.

It drives long term results

One hour of effort today can turn into hundreds of thousands of views and customers in the future. For instance, customers love to use blogs to test out big campaigns on the cheap, before they invest a lot of money and time into their creation. Blogs are also used to understand the company and what the companies offer better as well. (Fun Fact: About 70% of our traffic each month comes from posts that weren’t published that month. Whoa.)

The power of blog comment

Does your company allow for comments and promote discussion? If not, then you are missing out on a golden opportunity to learn from readers and allow them to tell you what exactly they are interested in. Sometimes businesses do blogging in a very conservative and limited point of view, and miss out on seeing the world through the eyes of the consumers. When promoting comments and discussion, you will be able to attract questions and people who are interested in learning more, much of which can be then turned into another blog post. Also, the comment section of a blog can become the reason behind the creation of a community of passionate individuals who appreciate your company’s brand and mission.

Do not underestimate the power of a blog!

With the emergence of new social media platforms, consumers are spending more time on social media than any other form of website. For companies, showing resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the web, and your competitors are already ahead by using social media. You need to put your businesses out there. This opportunity cannot be squandered as it gives you an opportunity to connect with your consumer, to shape your brand and develop long term customer relationships at a fraction of “above the line” media costs.

Here are a few ways through which you can leverage social media today:

Public relations

Well over 350 million people are reached through the social media platform every single day. These platforms have the ability to connect directly to the hearts and minds of the consumers, voters and public media. Social media platforms give the ability to instantly deliver messages to millions of people and the impact that it can have on public relations is ground shaking. However, crafting messages that are inevitable, all the while embracing transparency are the foundations for success.

Customer support

For many businesses, long after the sale has been made, a hidden cost is discovered, in the form of customer support costs. Good customer service is essential to maintaining a positive brand image, and it is absolutely required to avoid the returns of the products. Traditionally, customer support has been viewed as a cost center. However, some of the smart brands are starting to use social networks to help offload their support costs to a community of super users. This results in a net effect of two fold. The consumers are satisfied as they get the support they need and feel connected to a larger group of consumers who also have the same product.

Market Research

The value that good information holds is immeasurable. After the launch of your new brand, targeting the pool of consumers does not happen with the four walls of your company. Traditionally, people rely on expensive firms that cost both time and money. However, having access to tens of millions of consumers who are openly talking about their rational and emotional needs is a newly discovered goldmine for market research.

These are some of the areas that can add potential to your business and bring in a stronger pool of consumers for you. Other areas include promotions, consumer education, and sales and new product development.

Let’s be real, in the complex and ever changing world of social media, it is easy for even the best one of us to take a wrong turn and get lost. That’s why it is absolutely necessary to strategize through the four step process for successful social media; plan, build promote and measure. It is of utmost importance to identify the right strategic opportunities for best leveraging your assets and resources, so you can focus on building meaningful customer relationships, increase organization effectiveness, and grow your social platform effectively.

The missing piece to your marketing; Blogs

Ways your business should be using social media