For many companies, their blog is a vital part of their social media strategy. Blogging allows a company to educate, entertain, and engage with their audiences. It can be a place for them to more fully tell their story and with some guidance, it can be a way for employees to lend their voices. In many ways, blogs act as a bridge between a company's website and their social media accounts. Housing content that companies can share in posts, which in turn drives traffic back to its website. By the end of this video, you'll know the difference between a blog and a website, blog best practices and how to set up blog guidelines to help employees share perspectives, organizational and industry news, and invite commentary. Blogs are a type of website and although they can sometimes stand alone, they are most often a part of a company's traditional website. But there are some differences in the nature of the content you'll find on a website versus a blog. A website's content is static, it changes infrequently. The writing on websites is typically more formal or professional, and the content tends to not be interactive. For example, you cannot comment on everything you read on a website. Websites often let to you transact or in other words, you can buy products and services on some websites. Blogs on the other hand, are more dynamic. New content is added all the time and content on blogs is organized in reverse chronicle order. So the most recent posts or articles appear first. The content is typically also a bit more informal and it's meant to engage and readers are encouraged to comment or share the content. Blogs themselves are not focused on selling products, or at least the actual transaction typically does not happen on a company's blog. The bottom line is that a company's website and blog go hand in hand. Websites tend to focus on commercial functions. They are used to generate leads, sell products, or present information about a product or service to consumers. Blogs are inherently social. They encourage conversation and interaction. With these social sharing benefits, a blog can help a company to expand its audience and start a dialog. Here's an example of a company blog from Teleflora. Teleflora is an online flower business. They use their blog for anything from tips on how to arrange and keep flowers, to how to unwind at home, to gift ideas for Father's Day. The blog content is meant to engage readers and taking comments and share. As you can see, you cannot buy flowers from the blog page. That's what a website is for. One of the big advantages of having a blog is that you can add content to it without the need to know how to code. Tools like WordPress or Medium for instance, are easy to use and they let you write and publish your personal or business blog posts in minutes. Now let's talk about the benefits of blogging for a business. First, blogging can be a way to make your brand's personality shine and make authentic connections with your audience. Companies who use their blog to lift the curtain on the people and stories behind their products are able to connect at a deeper level with their audience. Customers want to know and love the brands they do business with, and blogging is an excellent way to let them get a glimpse behind the scenes. This helps them get a clear sense of your corporate standards, business identity, and the vision of the company. Second, blogs can help nurture relationships with new and existing customers. Blogging not only provides the opportunity to attract new customers, who may look to a company's blog to learn more about the products they're interested in. It may also reengaged existing customers who already know and love the brand and value the content they find there. In addition, the ability to read comments from blog visitors and respond is a great way to build trust and learn about your customers. Third, blogs let you expand your content's reach. One of blogging's most noteworthy benefits is the opportunity it creates for others to share links to your blog posts on numerous social media platforms. When others share your content on social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, it can amplify your message and send visitors your way. So not only does a blog serve to provide original and engaging content for all of your social platforms, but it also helps drive traffic back to your website and could lead to exponential business growth. A fourth benefit of blogs is that they help with search engine optimization. Search engines like Google rank contents for quality, length, relevance, and recency. Blogging is an efficient way for a business to give these search engines what they want. When a business creates quality keyword rich blog posts frequently, it gives search engines fresh content to add to its database and that will help boost the company in search results pages. Businesses who are skilled at inserting keywords that matter to them into their posts are likely to rank higher and improve their chances that their posts will show up in relevant search results. A final benefit of blogs is that they help build credibility. Businesses can use their blog as a platform for sharing their expertise and establishing themselves as thought leaders in their industry. This not only builds trust with customers and potential customers, it can lead to important networking opportunities and improved search engine optimization as other blogs and websites share your posts and link to your content. Done consistently, posting valuable content helps elevate a company as a trusted resource within their industry, leading to more visitors, more potential customers, and more sales.
