Incorporate Blogging into your marketing mix or fall behind your competitors
Blogging provides a medium to communicate with clients instantly and from wherever you happen to find yourself with your mobile phone or laptop.

A ‘weblog’, or blog, is an online diary which allows you to post your thoughts for a public audience.

Getting started

Starting a blog can be as simple as registering with a provider and typing your first message. Google’s Blogger is free and good. As one would expect it is pretty efficient from a search perspective as well. WordPress.org, is also free but will require you to download software onto the server that already hosts your website if you want to integrate it directly into your site. Alternatively you can host it for free on the WordPress site and link it to your own site.

We are integrating blog content straight into the news section of our client’s websites and linking content to Twitter.

Finding your audience

There are literally hundreds of sites and portals that want to host your content but it is easy to fall into the trap of becoming a user of too many different sites and end up failing to update any of them. If you are in the property industry there are two or three networks such as Property Week’s Network and Reorb that have the critical mass to make them of value so stick with them to start with. Don’t try to be everything to everyone or it will fail.

Search engines are very important for attracting new business, and blogs are search engine magnets. Google loves fresh content and new links. (see our thoughts on Google Buzz)

Writing your views

When writing entries, avoid marketing and sales messages. Blogs give you the chance to talk subjectively, as you would offline. Your readers will get to know you and the company, and they won’t be presented with a grey façade.

Think about what is happening in your sector and what is affecting business in general. What trends are emerging? What challenges are you facing as a result of, for example, new legislation? Can you take inspiration from news stories that your readers might have read elsewhere?

Whatever you write, be prepared for responses, some of which might be awkward to deal with. Markets are now about conversations. If people disagree with you, you have the chance to learn from and answer criticism.

The future

The next generation websites will still contain the “brochure on line” experience but users will become increasingly demanding for up to the minute opinion and content. That content will take the form of Twitter type updates, blogging type opinions and personal interview type video.

Watch this space!