If you are not writing a blog you are missing a trick. Blogging, video blogs (or vlogs), podcasts, Google+ hangouts etc are what businesses are using to communicate with potential prospects and clients alike. I am going to lump them all under the blog heading for the purpose of this discussion.
Research from Google shows that potential buyers look at a business 9 times or more before they actually decide to enquire. What are they looking at?
Prospective clients are checking out what you stand for. Do their values and your values seem to align? Are you well regarded? Does your way of doing business seem to make sense? Does it match with what the client perceives to be their issues? You can a get a flavour for all of these things online.
Blogging is how businesses communicate their style and their values to potential customers. If you have a blog you get to communicate the stuff that people are looking for in this ‘checking-you-out’ phase. You can blog regularly to a huge potential audience. Once your material gets posted online you never quite know where it might end up (and that’s good for your exposure and marketing presence).
The beauty of a blog is that you get to explore some more detailed ideas or examples than you can do by just having a billboard website. If you build a collection of regular blogs, visitors to your website can see instantly that you have something to say (that’s also good) and can work out if what you say aligns with their view of the world. If it does, you can do some business. If it doesn’t it is better for them and for you that they go elsewhere.
How do you do it?
Finding blog topics is easy once you get in the mindset. Just go back through the conversations you have had with clients in the previous week and think about the issues or questions they were raising with you. If it applies to one client you can bet it applies to other clients and thousands, or millions of potential prospects.
For example, a client calls and says, “Should I buy gold in case Greece defaults?” You can now write a blog explaining why this is a good or bad idea, depending on your own point of view. Readers of your blog now obtain some feeling for your investment thinking and can either identify with it or not (both of which are great outcomes). Another client says “I hate pensions” and you can write about why they are right or wrong in their thinking.
In your blogs you can be you. You can also be opinionated. You don’t need to deliberately create controversy but if you speak your truly held views and there is a little controversy even better.
Getting started
To get started, try doing a monthly blog. However, once you build some muscles you want to be aiming for something weekly to provide a regular flow of great information for your clients and prospective clients.
If you are looking for ideas or topics, try subscribing to someone like Chris Brogan at www.humanbusinessworks.com. Chris provides a great weekly email to help bloggers find ideas and inspiration (to go straight to his blog topics service click here).
Take action
If you want more direct assistance with this or any other aspect of your social media marketing drop me a line at [email protected] or give me a call on 0333 939 0027.
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