4 reasons you should still be blogging Facebook. Instagram. Snapchat. LinkedIn. Twitter. Tumblr. Giphy. Vimeo. YouTube. And a blog? Sometimes it feels like there are too many content engines and not enough hands on deck. You’re probably asking yourself, “Do I really need to maintain a blog to stay competitive?” The short answer: Yes. You do. If you’re looking for a little more depth and insight to really convince you, look no further. While a blog might not be for everyone, there are huge benefits across your marketing board to make putting in the effort worth it.
1. Credibility
Positioning yourself as a credible industry expert is clearly a huge value proposition. It leads to more customers, more revenue, and more opportunities to diversify. PR and word-of-mouth are two incredibly powerful tools on the path toward widespread credibility, but if you really want to double down on your efforts, maintain a blog. When you’re putting out content chock-full of insights, research, and information, you are taking steps to position yourself as an expert in the industry. Who do you want to work with? A brand that puts time and effort into presenting their savviness to the world, or the brand who stays silent on all fronts? We are going to choose the former.
2. Get Wordy With It
The thing with our shiny, new world is that it’s incredibly fast-paced. Everything is written for the sake of brevity. Optimal length of a Facebook post for the best engagement? 40 characters. Tweets? 70-100 characters. LinkedIn? 25 words. But, blog posts? 1,600 words! Brevity, outta here. A well-thought-out and reasoned blog post is easily achieved in 1,600 words and, as we talked about earlier, can be extremely helpful for boosting your credibility.
3. Play Nice With the Search Engines
No, we aren’t telling you to use your blog as a way to stuff keywords on your site. However, updating content often and consistently gives the bots a new page to crawl and index. It shows you’re up-to-date. It shows you’re creating more content. It shows you’re relevant. Web crawlers love all of these things when ranking pages.
4. Provide Value
Providing value basically dances with credibility: Your credibility is determined by the value you are able to provide. If we are thinking in terms of customer journeys, let’s go back to the scenario we mentioned earlier: Who would they rather give their business to? A business they trust because it has consistently established itself as a valuable source of information? Or a business that constantly asks for their attention but gives nothing in return? One thing we believe above all else is the power has shifted. You are competing for eyeballs against cat pictures and videos of women in Chewbacca masks. You better believe your audience is not going to stick around if you’re not giving them anything in return for their attention. Go in with a strategy. Think about what your core audience wants to learn, know, or hear about, and get to work. If you’re a destination hospital for children with world-renowned oncologists, write a blog to support parents of kids with cancer. Different ways of coping. Different programs the hospital may have. Find their pain points, and assure them that you are the right choice. In the end, let empathy be your guide:. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, and get writing. Happy Blogging!