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11 Tips for Getting Readers for Your Business Blog

readerpedrosimoes7You’ve set up a blog for your business and started writing.  Now, how do you get readers?

  1. Content, Content and more Content – Did I mention content?  The only way to attract and keep readers is with great content.
  2. Share – You started a business because you have some specialized expertise.  Share that expertise with your readers.  They will respect your efforts and look to you for advise.
  3. Consistency – Readers need to know that there’s a reason to check back from time to time.  Choose a posting schedule and try to stick with it.  Ideally, you should be posting at least once a week.
  4. Stay on Target – While straying off the path occasionally is ok, readers generally expect you to post on a certain subject matter (whatever your expertise is).  You may want to keep a personal blog for other posts (remember you’re representing your business).
  5. Listen & Respond – Encourage readers to interact with you through comments and email.  Listen to what they say and respond intelligently.  Your blog should be a place to have a conversation with your customers.
  6. Be Helpful – Related to #5, anywhere you see a question you can answer, answer it.  Help people out with problems and concerns, not just on your blog, but anywhere you see people post their issues.  If it’s something you can write about on your blog, you’ll also help out others who may have the same problem.
  7. Market – Add links to your blog on your website, your business card, your brochures, your email signature, and anywhere else you can.  You’ll need to let customers know that you have a blog.
  8. Be Social – Join social networks and socialize with the members.  Most social networks will also allow you to link to your website and blog.  Some will even automatically import posts from your RSS feed.
  9. Blogosphere – Read other industry blogs and comment on their posts.  Link to posts you think your readers would be interested on.  Write opinions about posts on your own blog.
  10. Keywords & SEO – Don’t go overboard trying to get keywords into your posts, but do take good SEO practices into account.  Knowing the keywords you want to target can help you incorporate them into your posts.
  11. Patience – It takes time to grow a readership on a blog.  It can take over a year to get a decent following, so don’t expect your blog to take off right away.  It takes a regular commitment to great content and a lot of patience.

Do you have a business blog?  What tips can you share for getting readers?

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(photo by pedrosimoes7 @ Flickr CC)

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Think Like a Publisher, Not a Marketer

You have to stop thinking like a marketer, an advertiser and a communicator and start thinking like a publisher. Create information your consumers want, and they will share it, this is the idea behind creating the World Wide Rave content. “On the web, you are what you publish.” – Online Marketing Blog – The New Rules of Marketing & PR

fallsmandj98

Sound familiar?  Customer-centric design is about creating a site that works for your readers/customers.  Content is one of the most important aspects of a successful online presence.  Branding is now influenced by everything that is said and done by your company online (and said about you).

There are many opportunities for good content online:

  • Information about your products and services
  • Customer service frequently asked questions
  • Discussion boards
  • A company blog for continued education of your customers
  • Interaction with your customers
  • Social media
  • Commenting on other blogs and websites
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Photos

Keep in mind that content online doesn’t always mean formally written articles for your website.  Content can be more informal with blogs and social media.  Content is also interaction with customers on social networks and discussion boards.

What content do you provide for your customers?

(photo by mandj98 @ Flickr CC)

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Marketing hasn't always been social?

It took thousands of years before people who had no useful skills realized they could earn money by wearing nice clothes and designing deceptive brochures.
–The Joy of Work by Scott Adams

If the corporate world ran as Scott Adams described it to me (and I’m still convinced it does), the Marketing Department would have to be the most social group in every company.  A place where ‘people’ people engage in study groups discussing how their company’s products can make your life fulfilled.  This is where social got is legs, where the idea of a conversation with the customer was invented.  This is where the consumer is king and their voices are heard.  At least, that’s what the marketing textbooks say.

So why do I get the impression that few people, myself very much included, really understand what Social Media Marketing is all about?  Thankfully Ajit Jaokar has an article that has started me on the journey of understanding by framing some of the things I know I don’t understand.  I will admit, it took me a couple reads to absorb what Ajit is saying here, but it was worth the effort to get my head around it and to see things from his perspective.  Here are some of my takeaways

  • Social Media Marketing is not the same thing as Social Media Advertising.  The latter is placing ads for the social community while the former is starting a conversation with that community and seeing where it is going.  SMM can and will have a SMA element, but SMM is far more ambitious and advanced.
  • You can’t translate traditional ideas like CPM into Social Media Marketing, they just don’t apply.  You need to find new metrics to judge when you are succeeding and when you are missing your targets.
  • The idea that someone could sit on the sidelines and monitor all the little feeds of information in a social graph for a brand, even potentially alter the conversation’s direction, is wicked cool.  I wonder how close some of the huge brands like Coke or Nike or Apple are getting to doing just this kind of work.
  • A brand can serve the conversation by giving it focus.  Three ideas for this are listed as ‘Information’, ‘entertainment’, and ’cause’.  I’ve seen all three of these methods used in social advertising and never realized it at the time.
  • You could do some amazing things with the right data and a rapid response cycle.  Just imagining the short side potential of keeping advertising tied to Social Media’s latest feedback would be enormously effective.  Every ad would hit the right message, every campaign would be topical and fresh.  I’m sure there would be times when this would backfire, but the upside is enormous.