How to Start a Business Blog, Part 1

This is the start of a new series on how to start a business blog, and is aimed at businesses of all sizes. In these articles, I’m going to address business-specific concerns and requirements for business blogging.

UPDATE:

Let’s preview the entire series:

1. Part 1 covers the basics and benefits of starting a business blog
2. Part 2 is on determining the purpose of a business blog
3. Part 3 is about choosing authors for a business blog
4. Part 4 covers policy-making for business blogs
5. Part 5 is about blog platform and website/blog integration
6. Part 6 is a continuation of blog platform and site integration
7. Part 7 covers business blog design considerations
8. Part 8 is about how to choose blog categories for a business blog
9. Part 9 tells you what you need to know about creating initial blog content in the pre-launch phase
10. Part 10 was a very interesting look into business blog crisis management planning and its importance

Businesses of all stripes and sizes are taking the plunge into business blogging. Business blogs need to be treated differently than personal or professional blogs (where the blog itself is the revenue-earning vehicle). Let’s take a look at how to start a business blog and highlight what’s different from personal blogs.

Step 1: Understand Blogging in General

A business would be ill-advised to start a blog without understanding what blogging is all about. Blogging might seem strange and foreign to a more traditionally-inclined businessperson. Some people in the company might know about blogging, read blogs daily, and have personal blogs. Others simply haven’t a clue, and may not care about blogging. If you’re contemplating a blog for your business, chances are you already know about blogging. You will need to help others understand what is a blog, and why you should have a blog.

Step 2: Know the Benefits of Blogging for Business

Blogging offers some compelling advantages for business. If it didn’t, nobody else would be doing it. But every day, more and more businesses have blogs. Here are some of the benefits:

• Attracts new customers from new demographics than your company has previously serviced. People who read blogs generally spend more money online than people who don’t. Helps you answer the question: where are my next generation of customers coming from?
• Provides your existing customers with a new window through which to see you–and through which you can see them, via visitor statistics and/or comments.
• Provides an additional tool alongside more traditional marketing methods such as press releases, and yet also lets you bypass traditional news media so that you can speak in your own voice directly to your audience.
• Increases your company’s presence and placement in search results. Blogs constantly churn out new content full of keywords your potential customers will using to search online for products and services related to your company.
• Puts a human face on an abstract entity such as a company.
• Provides your company with the best possible crisis communications channel available.
• Less expensive and more effective than traditional methods of marketing and public relations.