SMMS Blog and Blogging

It's time to Blog

Once you are comfortable with Social Networking it is time to start a blog.

To carve out a niche for your company in Social Media, you need to Blog. Whoa! I can hear everyone yelling at me – I can’t write! – What would I write? – Who wants to read what I write?

Readers come from a number of places. Customers and prospective customers, vendors and colleagues may well be interested in your perspective. Blogging about business is a strong way to increase the visibility of your company and make it seem more human and therefore more accessible. As we all know; people buy from people.

The psychology behind it is that after reading a blog for a few weeks, readers begin to feel as if they know the author – personally. That relationship can translate into sales when they are ready to buy…that is if the author has built a solid relationship built on trust. Consider a blog as a way to reach out to clients, vendors and your community. Chris Brogan and Julian Smith co-authored a book called Trust Agents where they define what a Trust Agent is, and the steps it takes to become Trusted. Here I am offering only the first few baby steps.

As a business owner, I can bet that you have strong feelings about how you conduct business. You passionate about quality, customer service etc? Blog about your ideas on your industry and your business. Blog about what you believe is the right way to run a business in your industry and why. Provide information on what is happing in your industry: regulation, automation, threats, innovation. Describe a time where you helped a customer save money or showed them an easier faster way to do something. Not only is that an informative blog post, it builds your reputation as a trust agent.  Be curious - ask you readers what they think – start a conversation. Be generous – offer useful information – answer questions. Be real – use your own voice – write as if you are in a conversation. And, you only need to write a few hundred words about as long as this page or less and add photos.