There is a little bias in this analysis.
Leave now if you can’t handle it. I realize this blog isn’t for everybody. But if you’re seeing colleagues and fellow business owners have success with blogging efforts than stick around for five minutes and give this post a chance.
A new study from the Content Marketing Institute surveyed about 350 or so online marketers. These folks gave their thoughts on a variety of topics in the online marketing world including their use and thoughts on blogging.
I’ll use the original post – 2012 Digital Content Marketing Survey [Research Report] – for a few posts this week, but for today I’m focusing on one of the key findings I feel will be important for you.
Online Marketers Use Blogging
The basic point of this post is found in this excerpt:
Q: Which forms of online content do you use?
75% answered blogging
That’s a huge number. Even in the online world I thought it was a high number. I didn’t realize that the number of online marketers blogging was quite that high.
I was not surprised that 90% of online marketers surveyed in the study use some kind of social media to market their business. There is so much press around the various social channels that it seems like every business feels the need to have a Facebook page and a Twitter account and most recently a profile on Pinterest.
I feel there is opportunity in each of these channels if their audience fits your business’s target customer. But I feel the opportunity is to attract people back to an owned channel such as a blog or website. I don’t believe in yielding entirely to Facebook or a similar social channel.
My view is that you need to own the conversation to a point. Using a blog allows you to own the channel. You control what is being said to a point. You then use social channel as one way to bring traffic back to your site. You then work to earn the opt-in or permission of people to your e-newsletters or similar devices. From there you work to turn those subscribers into customers of your business.
It looks like the folks in the survey done by the Content Marketing Institute feel the same way. Many are using social media, but there are still 75% that are using blogging as a way to drive business.
An interesting follow up question would be how often these folks are blogging. A common issue with blogging is for online marketers to understand the reason for blogging – generating new subscribers – but then giving up before really giving the blogging strategy a chance.
Blogging is a long-term strategy. It takes an investment of time and resources to really go with a full blogging strategy. I think it’s Ok for a business to just get their feet wet with a blog and feel things out. There is nothing wrong with that. But the strategy will eventually need full attention in order to see return in the form of traffic, subscribers and customers.
Stay tuned this week for more insight into the study. It’s a good one so be sure to check it out for yourself to find your own takeaways.