Understand the steps needed to blog for business
Business blogging is more than typing out your ideas and clicking the “publish” button to share them with the world. Before you start blogging, it’s essential to know the full scope of a successful blogging practice.
Things to know or have before you ever launch your blog
- Know your blogging objectives — Are you blogging to gain credibility or make money? Is your blog primarily a marketing vehicle or a tool for customer service? You must first know your goals because everything else is done in service of those objectives.
- Know your desired audience — What are their wants, needs, issues, and interests? How can you attract them to your site, not once, but repeatedly? Knowing (and continuing to learn about) your audience is key to developing a successful ongoing relationship with them.
- Know yourself (or your team) – Are you truly committed to blogging? Do you feel confident in your skills or your ability to learn? Set yourself up for success by creating a realistic picture of what’s possible based on what you’re truly committed to doing.
The actions that go into the blogging process
I break the blogging process down into three basic areas of activity. Many beginning bloggers get so involved in area #2 that they often forget there’s more to blogging than just typing and publishing their ideas.
- Researching and planning
- Writing and creating content
- Promoting and connecting
A short-cut for remembering these three blogging phases is to think before, during, and after. In other words,
- research and planning happens BEFORE you write,
- blog posts are created DURING the writing and creating phase, and
- AFTER you’ve clicked “publish” it’s time to promote your post and connect with others in the blogosphere.
Make sense? In future posts I’ll break the three phases down even further, so stay tuned (via RSS).
If you have another take on this topic or want to concur with my ideas, please join the conversation.
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