Organisations that engage in business blogging have a distinct advantage over their competitors. Some of the advantages are listed below:

• Word of mouth – In a recent survey, 80,000 blogs are being added on a daily basis to a total blog population of nearly 14 million. There are approximately 50million users of blogs, of which about 30 per cent are blog readers. Just imagine the potential exposure your product will have if it is advertised through a blog. Information spreads quickly as a result of the internet, especially if there is a glowing write-up about your product. This could have the effect of this being passed onto countless number of potential customers.

• Awareness and loyalty – a culture of transparent dialogue with your customers enhances the trust and loyalty that they feel. Having a presence and being responsive to their enquiries will lead to them wanting to sample your products and your services.

• Feedback – Blogs can be used for product research and reviews. It provides the opportunity for you to improve your products by observing and researching what it is that your customers are thinking and what their patterns of behaviour are. You can then take immediate remedial action, if needed.

• Community halo-effect  – Those who blog are very friendly and helpful and you will find that they would be willing to write and blog about your product. All you need to do is to take part, become involved and watch as your product gets put onto everyone’s shopping list.

You can boost your marketability by promoting your business blogs and submitting the blogs to blog search sites and directories. Ensure that you paste your URL to the blog and that the blog contains exclusive information that is always updated. This way, readers will be sure to constantly review your blog.

Using a blog is like setting up a stall at the biggest trade fair in the world, on a daily basis! The opportunities are endless and are waiting to boost your sales!

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are useful and should be utilised together with your blogs to ensure maximum benefit. You can ensure a high ranking status in search engine traffic by using certain effective keyword phrases. This will have the benefit of increasing the exposure of your website and increasing the traffic to it. This will potentially lead to an increase in sales.

RSS should be used for up-to-date news feeds and these can be read through RSS reader applications. This has proven successful for business and internet marketers.

Should you already be satisfied by the advantages of business blogging for marketing and targeting sales increase, you and your company are nearly ready to start blogging. To start, you will need to know your company’s business objectives and be comfortable that blogging will assist you in achieving success.

You can read up on the do’s and don’ts of blogging. Make sure you do this and include within it blogs that are consumer-based.

If the test was successful, you are ready to start setting up your own blogs!

Other steps you can take include:

·       Studying the blog design. Templates can be provided by the blog hosting service, but if you are using a paid blog service you should be able to ask your artist to create a website design and layout for your blog site that matches your organisation’s identity and needs.

·       Select a topic. It is wise to be prepared with a series of topics you want to blog about, but do make sure that they meet your business objectives.

Remember the following measures:

1.   There are legal issues to take into consideration. It is always safer to point out any disclaimers and limitations of liabilities.

2.   It is the responsibility of the corporate communication and legal departments to educate senior management on the effects that a blog may have on the business.

3.   Make sure you have policies on blogging and that limits are set on who can blog and what can be discussed on blogs.

4.   Avoid making the marketing aspect of the blog too obvious, otherwise you will alienate your readers.

5.   Update the content on a regular basis and make sure that it is relevant.

6.   The company’s values must be emphasised.

7.   Encourage your employees to use the blog.

Before you start internet marketing, try and complete about 20 posts on a blog. Monitor the traffic to the blog on a regular basis and measure the results that you get.

You can amend the blog if needed, adjusting the designs, as long as the design maintains the company’s identity. Maintain consistency with your topics at all times and schedule times during which you will update the blog. To maintain a general and broad appeal, you can have unrelated topics on the blog.

Having done this, you will enjoy the benefits of business blogging.