The topic at the Micro Focus group meeting on 10 April was blogging. Was
it worth having a blog for your business? What can a blog do (or not) for your
business? What were your experiences with blogging? What advice would you give
about blogging? Was it worth having a blog?
About half of us in the Microfocus group had a blog (including myself),
which led to very enlightening discussion of the pros and cons of running a
blog. And one of the biggest pros we found in having a blog was bringing out
our personas. This is particularly so in cases where you run multiple blogs;
one for business, one for personal, one for hobbies and so on. This is
particularly useful if, say, you want to post your cat pictures, but they would
not be suitable for a blog that promotes your business. Or if you have so many
things you want to share about so many different topics that could range from
your business to drawing for comics.
Is it worth having a blog at all? Interesting question; we found there were
no clear-cut answers. One member was on the verge of canning her blog, while
another was worried about blogging being overtaken by social media such as
Facebook and LinkedIn. Were they overtaking blogging? The question of Facebook
was mixed. Apparently people “are running away from Facebook”, partly because
of the perils of “click on” sites which can lead to malware. On the other hand,
a lot of businesses are using a Facebook page instead of a web page. I’ve seen
plenty of them myself. So perhaps it’s a matter of Facebook complementing
blogging rather than overtaking it. What about LinkedIn, then? Unfortunately
that will have to wait until next month, when LinkedIn will be the topic of the
meeting. But there was one other thing worthy of noting: one of our members has
found blogging very useful in using in lieu of a newsletter. This was because a
blog takes less text than a newsletter. It must take less time to read as well.
By far the biggest problem we found with blogging was how to keep it running
at quality output. Time and energy, how to keep regularly updating your blog,
but not to the point where you look like you’re a slave to the jolly thing who
is only putting up entries because it’s your duty to keep the blog regularly
updated. But by far the biggest problem was finding topics to write about, and keeping
up with writing topics. Well, we can’t be the only ones with this problem. So
what do you do if you have a blog but are stuck on topics? One member came up
with the idea of going down to the public library, grab a book on, say, instant
cashflow, and hunt up the content page for topics. Just that – the contents
page. Another member said she regularly used the newspaper for topics. I myself
suggested seminars, talks, and events like the Business Expo as places to find
topics. And of course there must be the good old fashioned brainstorming.
One thing I’ve read, and wanted to discuss at the meeting, is that blogging
is one way to make money; some people have made fortunes out of it and there
are plenty of ebooks and articles on the subject. But how can blogging raise
money? We found several ways:
1.
Have people subscribe to your blog.
2.
Monetise the blog with click-on ads. Plenty available
from Google Ad.
3.
Take your blog tips and write a book out of them.
4.
Set up as a blog writer. Plenty of freelance websites
advertise jobs where companies want people to write their blog entries for
them.
But you won’t make money if your blog has no entertainment value.
That's our biggest piece of advice about blogging: a blog must be
entertaining. And it must reflect your personality. One
of our members found that people kept coming back to his blog because
they
found it amusing. They didn’t care so much for the information – it was
the entertainment
that scored the hits. That’s one reason why blogs on cookery are far
more
popular than blogs on technical tips. So if you can make peat moss
entertaining, and keep it entertaining, you can run a very successful
blog on
it. But if your blog on how to raise money is as dull as ditchwater,
people
won’t stop by, no matter how useful your tips are.
Now your blog’s entertaining, it’s got personality, and it’s monetised,
but there’s one more thing – how do you get it out there? Suggestions we came
up with were: comment on other blogs and put a link back to your blog; links on
Facebook and other social media websites; have a link on your website (which is
what I do); a link on your email signature; and a link on your business card
(recommended only for a regular, constantly updated and well-loved blog).
