How do you classify your new business blog?
If you’re like most of the clients at GBW, you’re looking for content to grow your business through discovery. You want your target audience to discover the blog content via search and social, get these folks to subscribe to your list and eventually turn a percentage into customers.
Not all GBW clients view blogging as such (some are looking to provide additional value to existing customers), but the majority do.
The one area I see a variety of businesses missing slightly with blogging is how they classify blogging. There are some companies that do a great job with various projects. They have research projects and implementation projects. Most projects are geared toward growth. Others are geared toward efficiency.
I think it make sense to view your new business blog as another project. I think the blog should be viewed as a long-term growth strategy; one that brings in new customers over the long-term.
An article on Inc.com referenced a few key points of project management and in particular referred to setting expectations.
From Taking On an Ambitious Project? Be Honest:
It’s far better to be honest about just how difficult and scary the project is. That way you can inspire people to grow and develop–something everyone wants to do. And it makes you look like you know what you’re doing.
Please take two minutes to read the entire article. It is worth the time.
The idea of setting blogging expectations is something we’ve touched on before here at Ghost Blog Writers.
See those articles here:
I would like to expand on the idea of expectations, though, to give you a better understanding of how you can ensure the best chance of success for your own blog.
Creating Blog Expectations that Inspire
The Inc.com article linked above focused on how some managers can make things seem easy when it comes to big projects. I think the same can be said of a blog.
Whatever the reason for starting a blog, it’s important to set the right expectations. This makes it easier for you and your employees to understand the work that will be involved. I’ve seen a few examples of digital marketing projects where managers expect things to be easy. It happens with designers. Business owners expect a designer’s job to be easy (just make something pretty). I see the same thing with blogging (just jot down a few thoughts).
The reality is that blogging takes effort. It takes research and revision in order to get a post that is valuable to a target audience. It’s also difficult to find new ideas and to find the time to write the post. It’s a struggle to fight blogger’s block when you’re just staring at the computer screen wondering if you’ll meet your deadline.
Go into your new business blog with the expectations that it will be more work than you think. If you’re new to digital marketing (social media, blogging, video, websites, etc.) then it’s likely you have heard people say that it’s all easy. I’m not sure where the perception started, but it exists.
The misconception that blogging might be easy is one of the main reasons many blogs go dead after a few months. The expectations were that little work would be needed to generate results.
That’s not the case.
If your research shows that blogging offers opportunity for your business then it makes sense to start the project.
Set the proper expectations for the blog. Make sure you realize how hard it will be especially if nobody at your company understands blogging right now.
As the Inc.com article states above, tell your employees how hard it will be. Make sure they know that you know it will be a challenge. Let them know it is Ok for them to try new things and learn. The learning will be important and it will take time.
Invest in your blog’s future and give it a chance to succeed.
It starts with the proper expectations. Blogging is a project. It’s something that can improve your business.
You just have to give it a chance.