Blogging for Business: What Changed?

Business owners must utilize blogging for growth and success. Marketing your business online can be seen as a challenging, time consuming task, but effective if done correctly, and worth the effort. With so many avenues available to small business owners, today, the possibilities of growth and finding your market are still very much there, if you know what you are doing.

With over 10 years of success in web design and online marketing, at Trimark Group, we are always happy to share tips and news on marketing as you can see in our blog and on our social media channels. In this post we focus on the shifting trends in blogging.

Blogging today remains an inexpensive and effective way to bring attention to your business and what you offer to consumers. It is no longer something one does as a hobby. In 2016, bloggers list it as work experience on their resumes.

Blogging for Small Business Success

With content creation claiming its rightful place in the spotlight, more so than ever, creating relevant, quality content that promotes, and engages your audience is key. Your success in this section of online marketing can translate into new and returning customers. So here are key new trends in blogging.

The Rise of Influencers

Don’t call them bloggers anymore. Today, they are known as influencers of brands, causes topics they want to be known for. Be it the business owner or the associated blogger (or content creator) the content is measured by the overall online clout and the type of engagement and following it attracts. It is not just the blog post that matters but the types of resources (images, video, social media) pulled together that count. That’s because these individuals are not solely blogging, but rather combining their words with other online items, visual and otherwise to enhance the quality of the experience. Creating an effective, strong avenue to bring your message to users and followers is valuable to them, and rewarding when this audience (your market) responds to your posts, and ultimately your brand and its offerings. You are now an influencer. Blogging is one important way of achieving this position.

Bigger is better! Be Gone Click Bait!

Longer posts, in-depth, substantive articles of value are what users are looking for. Sure, not all of us have the time to read hours of lengthy posts while searching for what we want, but when we do, we need our time to be spent on something that teaches us, informs us about something or entertains. The days of the 200-word posts, touching just the surface (if that) and not sharing much of anything are over. In 2015 people used more time reading longer articles that proved relevance and value to them. Think about writing posts that go above the 200-250 word count. See how you can tell your readers about the topic you are writing about, where you are going with it, make your point. Ask yourself what your post offers to the readers and how important it might be to them.

Google, Facebook Microsoft and other search engines are putting an end to the Click Bait technique and are filtering content that are of low value to readers.

What’s Click Bait? It is the type of content, sensational or provocative in nature that tries to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page by clicking on the link item.

Think about what you are sharing with your readers, what you are offering to them and how relevant, informative, and engaging your posts are. After all, in the commerce world these readers can either be your current customers, or prospects, and you want them to return.

No More Comments

Why? Because comments are not what you want to spend time managing. For most part it is not where readers and consumers want to have a conversation. There is Facebook, Yelp, Twitter and other Social Media channels where you can respond to opinions and posts by people about your business. This is the good news for small businesses. You can move those efforts to social media and follow the conversation there, unless you can assign a person to keep track of comments and correspondence on your company blog. This way the conversation still continues just not in the form of comments on a blog. So, don’t discount your social media efforts and be attentive to what people are saying about you on Facebook, Twitter and other places where you have active profiles.

Make it Visual

The type and quality of the graphics and images you attach to your blog posts are important. Stop thinking about blogging in terms of text! What accompanies the article is not only added-value, but it helps strengthen your presentation, especially to people who tend to respond to visual items better than to text. Use high-resolution images, infographics, logos, and make sure at least one or two of the images are social-media-friendly. For example, note Facebook’s 20% text rule on images, especially when you want to boost your posts. Same advice applies for videos you add to your blog, and if embedded, are they easily viewed?

Engagement is What Counts

The traffic to your blog is no longer as crucial, not if that’s all you think it is for. Metric wise, the number of unique visitors and page views were all the rage. Growing your audience matters, of course, but it all comes down to being worth something to readers after you catch their eyes. The online bait and trickery creating large number of traffic and site visits don’t matter if you don’t bring your market something they are searching for. Think retention! Serve the need of your readers, your audience, and the reward will follow. Because a share by your readers, on Facebook, and Twitter, and the organic way they send it out into the world can speak volume for your brand and business. It can result in re-post, retweets and start an online conversation, creating a buzz about the topic, your products and services.

In short, Blogging is here to stay. You must contribute the time, and a strategy and the consistency it requires for it to grow in size and audience. Create a loyal following of people who return to it for dependable, useful information. Stay on topic. Pay attention to the interaction of fans and followers. It is a powerful tool and it will remain as one in your online, digital marketing box.

Our marketing blog offers lots of wisdom on what you can do to help your business grow and we do our part in sharing such knowledge and help today’s entrepreneurs and business owners.  

The team at Trimark marketing is also here to help and add fuel to your marketing efforts. We are more than happy to help you promote and expand with marketing techniques that have proven results for over 10 years. Contact us and let’s strategize a plan to help your business.