Small Business Blog Tips and Tricks That You Need to Think About

If you think blogging sounds like a great idea for your company, you’re right: It can transform the way you interact with the public. But you need to execute it right to turn that great idea into a successful communication tool for your small business. Here are some essential small business blog tips and tricks to get you started or improve your current efforts.

Why You Want Your Company to Blog

Many companies want to blog to become thought leaders. When a potential customer does a keyword search, they want to rank high in the results. Those are fair reasons, but a blog can go even further. Consider Southwest Airlines and its “Nuts About Southwest” blog. Its role in Southwest’s business is to offer travelers a glimpse into its operations–a look at the people who make Southwest more than a match for the legacy airlines. It turns every employee into a brand advocate. Nuts About Southwest is also at the forefront of how the airline handles crises, from gaffes by its pilots to annoyed celebrities to delayed flights.

What can you learn from one of the most successful business blogs that you can apply to your small business? Get employees involved, be honest, and be timely.

How Much You’re Willing to Commit

Ask blogging experts, and they’ll tell you that an underused blog doesn’t help. It makes potential customers think you don’t have anything interesting to say, and search engines will crawl it less. Businesses neglect their blogs because creating fresh content involves hard work. You need a blog management plan that involves brainstorming content, establishing an editorial calendar, creating posts, and outlining a review process.

Your company blog will not write itself. Avoid the pitfalls of a disused blog by making it a priority. Give it the resources it needs to succeed.

Managing Your Blog

Publishing a blog can be a full-time job. Rarely does a day go by without a new post on the Whole Foods Market blog. You’ll see a number of different bylines on the posts, too. It doesn’t stop at writing the content, either. Many comments deserve responses.

Do you have the staffing resources to handle the responsibility? And do you have people who truly understand search engine optimization and the to-the-point style of blogging? Even if you’re a start-up that hasn’t yet acquired the resources of a brand like Whole Foods, you can still be successful blogging. You might need to work with an outside agency, but it’s still within your reach. And you can scale blogging to your company’s situation by starting with a lighter schedule and working toward publishing more as your procedure and resources allow.