The New Rules of Marketing and PR, 6th Edition

15Blogging to Reach Your Buyers

Blogs are now a mainstream vehicle for organizations to get their ideas out into the marketplace. The readers of blogs view the information shared by smart bloggers as one of the few forms of real, authentic communication. Audiences consume advertising with skepticism and consider pronouncements by CEOs to be out of touch with reality. But a good blog written by someone within a large or small company, a nonprofit, a church, or a political campaign commands attention.

Blogging is a great front door for any individual or organization because it is real estate on the web that you can own. If you use a content tool like HubSpot or WordPress and have your own domain URL, your blog is yours. Search engine traffic goes to you. You can create a blog that showcases your brand. Contrast that with social networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+. All are good, but you will never own your real estate there.

At the same time, the term blog carries a negative connotation with some people who believe the content contained inside is frivolous. The best marketing and PR strategies must include creating your own content. If you are creating valuable information to market your business, don't let someone's anxiety with the term blog hold you back. Or maybe its best to not use the “b-word” at all. For more on this discussion about the term blog, please refer back to the section in Chapter 5 called “A Blog (or Not a Blog).”

This chapter sets out the ...