If you are starting to use social media to promote your business and attract new customers, it is vitally important that you start writing a blog. In fact, your blog should be an integral part of your business website and the cornerstone of all your social media activities. Why is this so?
- You need to build your credibility on the Web. This is tied to the amount of content you provide, using a good mix of keywords relevant to your industry or service, that will attract the attention of the various search engines. Generally speaking, the more content you provide in your blog the higher it will be ranked by the search engines and the more traffic your business website will receive as a result of its high ranking.
- Searching for answers is one of the main reasons why people use the Internet. This gives you a great opportunity to use your blog to provide the answers to the most frequently asked questions relevant to your business. If you can build a reputation for doing this, it could lead to a lot more people visiting your website.
- The structure of a blog can make it very easy for visitors to find what they are looking for. By organizing your blog posts into categories and using appropriate tags your visitors can find exactly what they want in a matter of seconds. If the structure of your blog gives visitors an enjoyable experience they are likely to return and tell others how they felt.
- Blogs make it very easy to interact with visitors and all other forms of social media. There are a huge number of plugins and other applications that facilitate this interactivity.
- Anybody who uses the Internet can read your blog and interact with you. Other social media networks require you to join in order to access their facilities and can restrict such things as the size of your posts or the number of your ‘followers’. Hosting your own blog means that there are no such restrictions.
- A blog gives you the ability to post comprehensive information on the Web, instantly. Other social media networks are usually restricted in some way whereas a blog post can be as comprehensive as necessary.
These are the reasons why your blog should be the most important part of your social media strategy. Make sure that all your social media activities link back your blog, which in turn should be regularly updated with fresh information. A blog that is ‘dead’ is no good to anybody!