One of the questions I’m often asked, by potential clients and current ones, is whether blogging and social media are necessary for their businesses. The answer is yes, and no…
A blog is a great way to keep the content on your website fresh and updated. Blogs are an excellent opportunity to alert your potential and current clients to specials, promotions, and new services that your company is now offering. It can be a great way to communicate success stories and helpful information. But it will not, in and of itself, bring you more customers.
At this point you may be asking yourself how often you should update your website’s blog. Well, in general, the more frequently the better. Most industries do not change often enough to require daily blogging (tech, sports, and news would be the exceptions), and most business owners are too busy to blog on a very frequent basis. But you don’t want a blog section on your website that hasn’t been updated in a year or two. That gives off the appearance that you don’t have any news to report, and that you don’t care what user experience your viewers enjoy. As such, we counsel our clients to update their blogs at least once per month. That gives your website new content 12+ times per year, without adding too much to your already full plate.
In a similar fashion, your company’s social media pages (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) can be an excellent way to spread your message to the world at-large. You can think of your social media pages as an extension of your blog. In fact, we advise our clients to post their new blog updates to all their social media pages at the same time they are updating their website. But you don’t have to wait until you have a new blog entry to post a social media update. The more frequently, the better.
Blogging and social media outreach will not grow your business by themselves, and truth be told many successful companies do not blog or update their social media pages on a regular basis. But they will help to increase your brand awareness and engage potential and current clients. So long as you’re not posting anything offensive (and why would you do that?) there is no downside to getting your company’s name and message out there for everyone to see.