You’ve made the decision to add a blog to your internet marketing toolkit. Well done! You think you understand the importance of a blog from all the reading you’ve been doing online. You believe that having a blog will:
- Help you be seen as part of the conversation online
- Help you over time be known as helpful and as an expert in your industry
- Attract more traffic to your website
- Help build trust in those who are evaluating your product or service
You are convinced, but nervous. You are already incredibly busy and are wrestling with where you will find the time to write. You recognize that ideally you should be writing 500-600 words at least 2-3 times a week and that you have to do it on a weekly basis for a number of months to really begin seeing results. You know this requires persistence and patience.
How can you be successful and not fall into that large group of companies who start well with blogging, and then simply let it die because they cannot find the time and space to write?
If you are a company of more than one or two people, then we want to suggest you consider a team approach to blogging. If you are the owner or CEO of the company, perhaps even the one who started the company and knows everything there is to know about your industry, then this can seem like a scary suggestion.
How can you let others in your company write with you or for you when they don’t know as much as you do? How can you maintain quality and control if you aren’t doing the writing?
Let me tell you a story.
Five years ago we started a blog here at Half a Bubble Out. The only author was Michael and he wrote when he felt inspired to write. It was great stuff but his plate was full and there weren’t enough hours in the day to run the business and write. He asked me to help but I was busy also and not yet a complete convert to the world of blogging.
Needless to say, the blog was limited in quantity and had no consistency.
Eighteen months ago, Michael made a shift in how he approached this world of blogging. He decided that consistency and quantity mattered if we were going to make a dent online, and he realized that he needed help. We are a small company, just 6 of us and some interns, but writing a blog post every week became part of the job requirement for every person in our company. It became a TEAM project.
Quality control was assigned to one person, our content editor. She makes us look smart and ensures nobody posts anything crazy, but everyone contributes.
As the co-owner of the company all I can tell you is that letting go and bringing the team into the process changed everything for us. When you make it a part of someone’s job requirement, they are amazing at making the time. This matters because too often as owners, we struggle to write regularly so without them we would still be struggling with being inconsistent.
Does it work? Yes. Our traffic has grown 400% in the past 14 months. We are having more conversations and more opportunities to gain customers. It works.
There are a lot of strategies for establishing and maintaining a successful blog and you can read about many of those in other blog posts. For today I just want to encourage you to rally a team around you and share the responsibility. You’ll be glad you did.
Related Articles:
15 Internet Marketing Tips to Help You Write Your First Blog Post
Internet Marketing Tips: Secrets of a Killer Blog Post [Infographic]
