One question that gets asked a lot by new clients is “Should we start with a blog or should I start with building social media profiles?”
Some social media experts say this is a bad idea because a blog is worthless without a network to read it. They argue you’ll get more eyes by guest blogging on a bigger website. They’ll say that you need to develop relationships with “influentials” or “A-List” bloggers.
And they are right…
I do agree you need to work on building a social media network. I do agree you should guest blog. I can’t agree more that it takes a lot of time to get serious blog traffic.
That said, I disagree with putting off blogging for several reasons:
1. Getting your organization on a cadence to keep up with posting new content is hard to do and takes time to get right. The first 90 days of blogging rarely are the hardest. It’s hard to get used to having something to say every day. And it’s hard to find the time to say it.
2. You need more than a few articles to be credible. People know what they are getting when they go to a blog with two posts. And they leave. And they don’t comment. And they don’t “reblog”.
3. Getting the message right on your blog takes a little time. You have to learn how to converse with your readers. It’s hard to learn to converse with your readers if you don’t have anywhere to talk. I’ve seen it take days and I’ve seen it take months for conversation to develop. Once it does, though, it’s amazing what happens.
Which leads me to the great chicken and egg of internet marketing:
Content doesn’t work without traffic.
Traffic isn’t useful without content.
You have to have both content and traffic for a website to work. Blogs are no exception to this.
Good post, Mike.
As someone who has coached professional writers and community members on best practices for blogging, the “constant stream of ideas” seems to be among the biggest challenges.
For us, we’ve kept bloggers focused on a specific topic. Instead of a blog about sports, we’ve sectioned it into high school sports, Purdue football, Purdue men’s basketball, Purdue’s women’s basketball, etc.
I think businesses can follow the same type of reasoning to narrow down the scope of a blog. Who is my audience? What type of content do they value that I can provide? How do I use the blog to market what I can deliver/provide/do best?
Just my two cents.