Should your business have a blog?

There's a lot of good reasons your business should have a blog if it doesn't already have one. In fact, I'm going to go as far as to say that you cannot afford not to have one. Big business or small, it doesn't matter, they are simply to powerful of a communication tool that you can't ignore them.

You obviously know what a blog is since you're here reading this post. I'd be wasting both our time trying to go into all the boring little details of what exactly blogs are and what a phenomenon they've become. What you might not understand are the reasons why your business should have one, and all the potential benefits you're missing out on if you don't.

The first thing I would like to point out is that blogging can really make a positive impact on your search engine rankings. With all the fresh content and links pouring from one blog to another they are natural search engine magnets. The search engines love them and can't get enough. With that being said I come from the mindset that blogging for the sole purpose of seo is a bad thing.

Blogs are a great way to communicate with your customers. Because blogs allow comments and trackbacks you're allowing customers to participate in a conversation with you. They can offer instant feedback, suggestions, or ideas that can prove critical to your success. Remember, it's a two way conversation. Acknowledge and respond to comments.

Information spreads very quickly through the blogsphere. Your blog will be a great place to announce company news, product updates, and other information that you want to offer instantly.

Through your blog you can effectively build a community of loyal evangelists. These are exactly the kind of people you want reading your blog. The early adopters that spread the buzz.

Blogs are a great place to kick-start marketing of new products and services. Because of they way information spreads through the blog world your marketing message can be more effective. Leverage the fact that you've built a loyal customer base who love to hype your business.

Blogging is not as easy as it sounds. You're always in danger of facing the possibility of backlash. Blogs can be very tricky to manage and write. If you do it wrong and you could embarrass yourself or even worse, your business. You could also bore or alienate your customers and prospects. You could potentially even wind up on the wrong side of a lawsuit. Worst of all, you could get on the bad side of the blogging community itself.

Successful blogging requires a well thought out strategy. Who should write the blog? Who is your target audience? What is the topic of your blog? What are the goals of blogging? What needs to be restricted? Why are you blogging? These are questions you need to ask yourself before you start blogging.

If done right, a blog for your business can make a huge impact on your bottom line. But it needs to be done right, or it will have the opposite effect.

For more information on starting a blog, check out this blog, it is written by the authors of Naked Conversations, a book about blogging. The book has a lot of case studies on company blogging.

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pawel ksiezyk, August 16, 2006: Thanks for interesting intro to company blogs. Especially for publicly traded companies blogs are very tricky as there are very strickt rules for confidentiality of information. You need to be in line with company messaging and e.g. not anounce things to early. Some more on this in my article on business blogging.