Writing a Blog Simply Takes Too Long! – Not!
Whenever I recommend to someone that they utilize blogging as part of their social media marketing plan, their eyes get wide, they suck in their breath and exclaim that they definitely have no time to write a blog. Blogging does not have to take a huge amount of time and you don’t have to be an expert writer. The average blog post is only about 300-400 words – so you don’t have to write a novel! If you can get past the immediate angst when you hear those words and think things through, you will realize that there are creative and easy ways to write a blog without spending hours typing. Here are a few suggestions:
- If your business is some type of consulting, training or other content heavy occupation, you likely have more than enough materials on hand to repackage that won’t require writing new material in the short term. Go through your reports, presentations, workbooks, etc. and pull out short nuggets of information, do a little editing and pop them into your blog. You can even pull out several all at one time and schedule them to post at specific times in the future – a whole month’s worth of blog posts queued up at once and you’re done ’til next month.
- Blog posts could be short daily or weekly tips – such as a “how to” or “did you know?” These are great for business-to-consumer companies because it allows you to highlight your products/services and show your customers new and better ways to continue being customers.
- Use guest bloggers. Find collaborative partners whose businesses compliment yours and who have the same target market. Allow them to write blog posts on occasion as an added service to your customers and readers to introduce other things that may be of interest. Even though it’s not promoting your business directly, your readers will remember that you were the source of the information. One note of caution, when you do collaborate in this way, be sure that there is some agreement as to how you will be able to get exposure to their customer base.
- Use video blogs. Video blogging is the hot thing right now. So, if you’ve got a video camera, would rather talk than type and are comfortable being on the screen, simply jot down some bullet points, get in front of the camera and talk!
- Hire someone to write it for you. You may be surprised to learn how many blogs are ghost written. It’s a common service offered by social media companies and freelancer writers. I even ghost write blogs. To find a blog writer, you can check out places like the Virtual Buzz Assistant Network and eLance.
Why is blogging so important? The big reason is that people see blogs as trusted information and they don’t see them as sales tools. However, when used correctly, they are very valuable sales tools! You don’t sell directly on the blog, but use the blog to drive traffic to your website or to product/service specific landing pages that are your sales portals.
So give it a try! Blogs can be set up for free, so you can try it without any financial investment. What do you have to lose?!
There is another aspect of having a blog that is significant if you are in direct sales. It’s a way to contribute value to your clients/customers, outside the sell/buy interchange. Starting a blog this spring made me examine what it is that I really have to offer. I’m not just selling beautiful home entertaining products, I’m providing a way to improve quality of life, to build memories, to make ordinary events Occasions. When I realized that, I found I had plenty of post topics to write about, hardly any including overt references to my products, but almost all sharing a way to build a memory, to make an occasion special.
I recently started a blog and LOVE it! It has provided me with a way to communicate with the women I serve in a more spontaneous, casual way, while also delivering something of real relevance to help their business. Your prospective and current clients will appreciate it because they get a better feel for your personality and you as an individual (not just a business owner). Try also audio blogs. I haven’t experimented with it yet, but I understand audioblog.com is supposed to be a great , relatively user friendly tool. Thirdly blogs are FREE to use – blogger.com and wordpress.com are great providers. Happy blogging!!!
Blogging also builds ranking and if done for keywords in niches can give you another high page “hit” on a Google and other search engines.
Cool site, love the info. I do a lot of research online on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read…
- Bill Bartmann
I recently started a blog and LOVE it! It has provided me with a way to communicate with the women I serve in a more spontaneous, casual way, while also delivering something of real relevance to help their business. Your prospective and current clients will appreciate it because they get a better feel for your personality and you as an individual (not just a business owner). Try also audio blogs. I haven’t experimented with it yet, but I understand audioblog.com is supposed to be a great , relatively user friendly tool. Thirdly blogs are FREE to use – blogger.com and wordpress.com are great providers. Happy blogging!!!