Caffeinated ideas and views on marketing communications

value of blogging

Yes, there’s still value in blogging

Blogs / By / July 9, 2020

It’s been a while

I haven’t written a blog post in months. It’s been hard to concentrate, and it’s been even harder to find something to talk about when we are all consumed by the pandemic and its effects. But this morning I got a comment on a blog post I wrote well over a year ago. The post was about bad email marketing practices, and the comment came from Eddie in New Zealand, who’d been targeted by the same spam marketer I referenced in the post. Eddie wanted to share his similar experience, and how he dealt with it. I assume he did a search about that particular spammer, and found my post, and then found the post to be relevant to him.

So thanks Eddie, for sharing your thoughts, but also for giving me an idea for a new blog post: the value of blogging.

Blogging = being found

Blogging consistently about the stuff you know best results in your website (and, by extension, you or your organization) being found when someone is looking for information on a specific topic. This is the theory behind inbound marketing.

Why I blog

I have been writing this blog for nearly twelve years  for two main reasons:

  • It provides an outlet for my thoughts on marketing communications
  • It helps me to be found (and may lead to business)

Two things you absolutely must have to be found

Writing a blog is one of the most effective ways to boost your ability to be found, and to establish your particular expertise. There’s almost no need for tinkering with your SEO if you are writing about you know, using appropriate tags, and including specific keywords.  However, to really reap the benefits of blogging, you have to fulfill two things:

  1. House your blog on your own website. Do not outsource it to Medium or any other third party.
  2. Write what you know, and/or what you think (in other words, be original and authentic by providing something from your own perspective and experience).

Bottom line:

If you’ve ever doubted the value of having a blog, don’t.

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About Deborah Brody

Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.

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Is blogging dead?

Blogs / By / June 10, 2014

This past Saturday, I attended WordCamp Philly. There were four tracks: User, Power User, Designer and Developer. With sessions in the User/Power User tracks such as “BuddyPress: An Enterprise Solution” and “How I Spent the Last 5 years playing with WordPress and building PewResearch.org” you can tell something is up. It’s not really new, but more and more organizations, from nonprofits to multinationals like Coca-Cola, are using WordPress not as a blogging platform, but as a Content Management System (CMS).

W shaped pretzels at WordCamp Philly
W for WordPress Philly Pretzels

A few weeks ago, a well known social media marketing guy posted on Twitter that the effort involved in blogging was too large in relation to the return on investment (ROI).

Many organizations have BINOs: blogs in name only. They don’t update them frequently or haven’t even posted in the last couple of years.

So is blogging dead? Should you give up your blog and just use WordPress to be your website platform?

No!!!!

Blogging is not dead. Blogging still provides many many benefits, not the least of which is making it easier for people to find your organization when they don’t even know it exists.

How many people don’t know Coca-Cola? Coke doesn’t have to do much to be known. But a small organization that works on historical restoration or a business that helps people in a specific area get organized has to work a lot harder.  Small businesses or nonprofits have to provide information that their potential customers or supporters need and want. One of the best ways to provide a constant stream of information is blogging.

Call it content marketing if you must, but blogs are an easy and flexible way to provide opinions, analysis, information, graphics or even podcasts to your audience.

Blogs are social. Blogs let your audience share content easily. And blogs are a way to interact with your audience through the comments. And you can extend your blog’s reach by enlisting guest bloggers.

Even though WordPress is a powerful CMS and even though consistent, quality blogging does take a lot of effort, blogging is still worthwhile.

Are you still blogging? If you have given up, please tell me why in the comments. If you have seen value, give me an example.

 

 

 

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About Deborah Brody

Deborah Brody writes and edits anything related to marketing communications. Most blog posts are written under the influence of caffeine.

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