Dolphins are really smart – if you haven’t had a chance to check out the new show Life from the Discovery Channel you’re missing out.  There was a recent episode that did a segment on dolphins who lived in a really shallow area in the ocean.  The dolphins would purposely stir up mud in a circle around a bunch of fish.  The fish would see the mud as an obstacle and jump over the mud…right into the waiting mouths of the rest of the dolphins!  Lunch delivered!

What does that have to do with blogging for business?  Technically not much other than blogging for business is also a really smart thing to do…and I bet if dolphins could type they would have blogs for their businesses!

Still not convinced?  Well here are 5 great reasons why you should have a blog for your business:

By the way – when I’m talking about blogging for business, that covers pretty much any kind of regular content creation.  It could be a podcast, a video blog or the old fashioned run of the mill blog that you just read!

1. Educate clients and prospects

Regardless of what business you own, you would benefit substantially if people considered you to be an expert in your field.  Now you and I both know that simply writing a blog post does not make you an expert, but if you consistently write good posts that educate people on your stuff…then you’re an expert!

Take Jason and Garret at BridgeBuilder as an example:  They are estate planning attorneys here in Kansas City and part of their mission is to help people understand how Estate Planning really works and how it might impact you – here’s a recent post answering questions that clients have been asking about Estate Planning law changes.

2.  Great for Search Engine Optimization

Search engines love content!  Google is like the world’s biggest librarian and the more relevant (and fresh) content the search engines can find, the higher your site will move up the search engine results.

Check out Signal Integrity.  Colin Warwick is a product manager at Agilent and his product is all about improving Signal Integrity, which is a term Network Engineers have to worry about.  Last year, if you went to Google and searched on Signal Integrity (which his potential customers were likely to do) his product’s page was 5 pages down in the search results – no way they were getting found!  Colin decided to start a blog, he called it Signal Integrity and began to write about Network Engineering topics that his prospects would be interested in…a few months later he was on Page 1 of the search results!  Here’s a more detailed write-up of how that worked for him.

3.  Start a conversation

One of the reasons that blogging and social media work so well from a marketing perspective is that they open the door to interaction and conversations.  Most people (your customers) are burned out on traditional 1 way advertising and being told what to do.  Blogs enable you to tap into what your customers are thinking, get feedback, get ideas, all sorts of great stuff that come from having a discussion.

One of the best blogs I’ve seen in terms of generating interesting comments is Awake @ the Wheel by Jonathan Fields – here’s a great post and example of a conversation:  Be your own guru.

4.  Show your personality – be a person

People want to do business with other people, not with a nameless, faceless corporation.  Although it’s generally important to be professional, it’s just as important to have some personality and let people know that you’re real.

A blog gives you the opportunity to show who you are as a person…it’s a business blog, so it’s 80% to 90% about business topics, but even there you can demonstrate some personality and let people get to know you.  This example is putting the bar pretty high – but Seth Godin does a great job of letting you know what he’s all about – here’s a post on Exposing Yourself!

5.  Gently….sell stuff

I hesitated to put this one on here because it has to be done the right way.  In my opinion, the primary purpose of a blog is to educate with a dash of entertain and a healthy dose of putting yourself out there so people can get to know you.  However, as long as you’re doing all of the above, it’s perfectly fine to occasionally slip in a soft sales pitch.  After all, people are looking to you for answers, and if your business can help address their problems – it’s your job to let them know about it.

The writers at Copyblogger are masters at this selling process.  Copyblogger is one of the best business blogs in the world – if you ever have a couple of hours free, you will learn more from Copyblogger than any number of business books you could find out on the shelves today.  And while you’re learning, you’ll have an opportunity to buy some of their products!  Take a look at this post on Social Media Marketing to see what  I mean!

What else am I missing?

You’re a blog reader (otherwise you wouldn’t be here…) and maybe you have a blog of your own – what are some of the other great reasons to blog for business?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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I had a great discussion this morning with an entrepreneur that’s still in the start-up phase for her new business.  We talked about what her approach is, how she’s going to be different than the competition and ultimately where she wants to go with her business.

She’s in a very conservative / old-fashioned industry that isn’t doing much with websites so one way she’s looking to stand out is to incorporate social media into her marketing mix…and she’s also planning on starting a blog…maybe.

A lot of what we talked about was whether a blog made sense, what she might blog about, how to make it work, etc. 

The case for Blogging for your Business

Blogging isn’t a cure-all, but it can be a powerful marketing and customer service tool that allows your prospects and clients to have a direct line into who you are and what you do.

There are several different ways to use a blog to help with your marketing and customer service efforts – here are just a few thoughts:

1. Blogs are great for telling stories and sharing case studies about your clients – this becomes a great way to illustrate the overt benefits your clients could expect from you.
2. A blog is a great way to establish yourself as an expert – you know a lot more about your industry and customer problems than anyone else, share that knowledge and set yourself apart
3. Your blog can be a platform that allows you to share what’s really going on in your industry or even within your company – a great opportunity to present without a media filter or press release.
4. A blog can be a great tool to educate your current customers on what you’re doing as a company and the best ways to work with you
5. A blog can be a great way to get feedback and ideas from your customers – what they want, what they don’t like…make them part of the process!

Blogging is essentially free (someone has to take the time to write it, but there generally aren’t hard dollar costs).

Blogging doesn’t require any deep skills – if you’re interested and passionate about what you’re doing you can write a worthwhile blog.  You will get better over time.

The case against Blogging for your Business

There aren’t a lot of great reasons to not blog – it will take time and commitment – if you think you can’t stick with it on a regular basis, then you’re better off not getting started.

Time – it’s perfectly fine to only post once or twice a week – or to share the burden across multiple people if your company is big enough.  (You could also consider getting some writing help if you really don’t have time!)

Commitment - you need to commit to marketing activities to succeed in the long run anyway, blogging will just become a more visible commitment than most.  Once it becomes part of your routine it’s not that big of a deal.

Technology expertise – the initial setup of most blogging software can be daunting and probably outside the capabilities of a lot of people, but once you’re set up it’s really not any more difficult than writing something in Word.

Should you Blog for your Business?

As mentioned earlier, blogs aren’t going to be a cure-all for your marketing, but a good blog can become the foundation for a lot of other marketing efforts and a place to send people that want to learn more about you.

However there are a lot of things to keep in mind – here’s an article about 10 Harsh Truths about Corporate Blogging that does a nice job on what to expect and what not to do to create a successful corporate blog.  It will take a long time for your blog to really take off (think a year or two) and it will open you up to comments and inspection from your competition – but in the long run that’s a big part of what will set you apart from your competition.

If you’re like most small business owners, your competitors aren’t blogging (and probably aren’t even looking forward) – this is great opportunity to set yourself apart and get ahead of the curve.

Should you blog for your business?  I say absolutely – but if you’re like most business owners you’ll find all sorts of reasons not to!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on blogging for business and any examples of where it’s working really well.  Share your comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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• Discover the Real Reason you should Blog for Business

I’ve been really busy the last few months (which is a great problem to have these days), but it’s been challenging to keep up with all of the great stuff that’s out on the internet.

I pick up a lot of ideas for articles and blog posts from Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) when I get the time to surf a bit – or if I’m doing research.  I also have a lot of blogs set up on various RSS readers, on my Yahoo home page, my Google home page and even some just tucked into odd corners.

I also follow blogs from a variety of local folks that I see around Kansas City that I think are very good – here’s a few – Sarah at Dog Eared Pages of course.  Although I haven’t met him personally, I like Sam Meers at Smoke and Meers and a couple that  new to blogging,  Tara Renze at Prospects to Partners and Jason Terry (of the upcoming Blue Gurus) are going to be good reading.

On a national level, there are just a few blogs that I value enough that I sign up for their email feed – several of them because they have good content, but more importantly because I just enjoy reading them.  These are the kinds of emails that you look forward to reading – a treat to look forward to.

Here are 4 of them that add a real splash of color to my inbox!

Naomi On IttyBiz

In the professional world, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world is a colorful place and that not only is it okay to be  yourself, but sometimes being  yourself can make all the difference – of course it helps if you are genuinely funny, demonstrate that you care about the people you are writing to, give valuable advice and ideas and…have a mouth like a truck driver.

Here’s a recent post from Naomi on How to Become Rich and Famous on the Internet that will give you a pretty good idea of her style and substance.  She makes great points, but she’s also consistently very funny!

The Wealthy Freelancer

I haven’t been following this blog quite as long as the others, but I have found myself reading, saving and occasionally forwarding several of his posts (which is fairly rare for me).  There’s a lot of great information here for any business owner (not just freelancers) and he has a good voice / writing style.

This post on using an effective pick-up line is very good.  I love the simplicity and the practicality of the approach, well worth the time.

Jonathan Fields – Awake at the Wheel

I’ve never met Jonathan, but he has a fascinating story behind how he got to where he is today – the typical former power lawyer in New York that burns out, starts a Yoga clinic, figures out how to make it insanely popular, sells it for a lot of money and becomes an author and respected thought leader / blogger all in a few years.  It happens all the time…!   

Seriously – I would challenge you to read his blog for a couple of weeks and not be totally impressed by how much he’s just himself.  He’s a huge success story and he’s more concerned with family, friends and posting interesting and insight articles.

This is an older post from last year on Slogan Train Wrecks – very funny, insightful and overall a good read.  Jonathan has a lot of variety in his posts (which is hard to do) and he shares my joy of finding the right image to lead with.  Check him out.

Brian Clark and the rest of Copyblogger

There may very well be better blogs out there than Copyblogger – but if so, I don’t think I’ve found them yet.  Copyblogger started with Brian Clark recognizing a need to instruct all of the would be bloggers on how to bring copywriting skills to their blog.   Of course he writes about much more than copywriting, but most of the topics tie into that theme in some way.

Brian also has other Copyblogger writers – and all of them are excellent (I especially like a lot of the stuff that Sonia Simone at Remarkable Communications writes).

Here’s a post that I think will give you an idea of what you’ll find at Copyblogger – Ernest Hemingway’s top 5 tips for writing well – maybe it’s because I’m not a writer, but I find almost every post I read on this site (and there are a lot of posts) to be really helpful, extremely thoughtful and generally very entertaining – it’s the best of the web as far as I’m concerned.

What are your favorite blogs?  The best of the best?  Share your ideas here – I’d love to hear them and add some more color to my inbox!

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business CoachSimilar Posts:

• 5 Great Reasons why a business blog is smart
• To Blog or Not to Blog – that’s the question
• Discover the Real Reason you should Blog for Business