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Company Blogs: Why are you blogging?

April 8th, 2010 | Small Business | No Comments »

Pretty much everyone on theKikScore team takes a turn at blogging — we do it every day and we create a lot of content.  In putting together the blog, we’ve reviewed other company blogs and compared notes.  There definitely seems to be several takes on why they blog (not necessarily all of which we subscribe).  Interestingly, this blog best describes the different view on blogging.  I’m going to discuss a few of them below.  

But before I do that, here’s a good question — should your own people be in charge of actually creating content?  We’ve heard from several companies that they outsource their social media effort.  The upside:  time savings and, if you find a good third-party, access to a lot of content.  The downside seems bigger:  you’re not authentic and seem not to be in control of your own brand and messaging.  In case you’re wondering, we don’t outsource and, for good or bad, our company messaging rests completely on our shoulders.

Ok, now let’s discuss a couple of the top reasons why companies blog:

1.  Improve SEO:  It’s inarguable…if you blog regularly, your content will be recognized and ranked on important search engines.  But there’s a catch…not all of your content will be actually relevant to your traffic.  For an example, I’m known as the “empty calorie” blogger at KikScore.  I write about American Idol and the new Karate Kid movie (I actually haven’t yet, but I will…I’m pumped about it).  I usually tie it back to a relevant business topic, but we have traffic from sources looking for opinions on American Idol.  I’m glad our traffic increases due to the blog, but is it the right traffic (assuming there is “the right” traffic).

2.  Become a Thought Leader:  The more you publish content on a particular topic, the more links will appear with your byline (and the more other bloggers will cite to  your content).  Whamo…you’re a thought leader.  But does that mean your thoughts are worthwhile?  I mean, if I kept publishing posts on how Earth is the center of the Universe, I become a Thought Leader — unfortunately, my thoughts are completely useless.  Don’t you have to be right too?  This is really the Old Media’s main argument against bloggers and social media.  Old Media might have a point.

3.  Get to know your customers:  There are definitely instances where you can get valuable insight from your customers on your blog (and you can respond.  But some of this seems to be taken over by Twitter, Yelp and…ahem, KikScore(where you can collect and respond to customer feedback).  More often than not, when we get a new comment, it’s a fake name and desperate attempt to have us post their link to some third party site. 

So, if you’re not some weirdo spammer, please share with us in a comment why your company blogs.

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