Blogging for Business Simplified
You have all heard me talking about John Paul and Deb Micek tons of times, they are the epitome of great business people that engage and “get it”. (follow them on twitter: @JPmicek and @coachDeb). They are the authors of Secrets of Online Persuasion and have a blog called Tribal Seduction. The reason I follow them is because I have learned so much from them and find them to be a wealth of knowledge that have helped my business.
Blog Content Creation Question
Just this week, JP announced a new blog series he is writing for Entrepreneur.com about Blogging for Business – go read Part I …..I’ll wait
2 things stuck with me from that article, JP’s quote from his mentor: (which needs no follow through explanation)
“Always look at where the person giving advice is at in their life. If their lifestyle and achievements are what you’d like to aspire to, then take their advice in to consideration. If not, then ignore it.“
And the never ending, controversial question about BLOG AUTHORS and CONTENT CREATION that we have discussed here many times. Do you sign your name to something written by someone else? Do certain types of business allow for others to write your blog-copy? Would your business benefit from someone else blogging for you?
Don’t do it – It’s bad business – is it?
I know what the consensus here is: It would not be honest, it could hurt your business, blogging is about engaging and putting your personality out there….etc, etc. But then a light-bulb went off. Of course we are going to think so here – we all like blogging, we are all doing it for business, we are getting results!! We are preaching to the choir….but we may be a bit close minded (read what follows)
I decided to ask JP in the comment section about face-to-face businesses like Real Estate and what it would mean for someone else to write your blog for you. Mr. Persuasion went out of his way to respond to me in another blog post (JP and Deb are just too cool) – Content Creation and your business blog:
Well, Ines is absolutely right! IF a person has the time, talent and desire to create content for their business blog — they should. Especially in a professional sales situation where direct face-to-face selling is going to take place (like you as a Realtor.)
In these cases it is essential for building rapport and closing more sales. But that still doesn’t mean you need to do it all yourself. More on that dichotomy in a minute. But first let’s clarify what makes content creation for your business blog easier if you are going to do it yourself.
Authentic Blog Copy
He goes on to talk about communication style, personal content creation as a “motivational killer” and how blogging services can make content “authentic” (I confess I’m still a skeptic, but it makes sense for certain types of businesses and different levels of business as well).
Bottom line is that there is not right way or wrong way. You need to do what feels right for your own business and that fits your personal style. The answer may be guest authors or supplementing your articles or even as simple as getting a virtual assistant to do your market reports and listing posts for you. I would never sign my name to something written by someone else, but that’s MY choice and it doesn’t mean it’s the right way. And then I found this to be genius:
We match the client’s Communication DNA with a member of our team who has as close a matching communication style as possible. And finally we choose a channel (written, audio or video) to match what would be expected from the actual person.
So as a skeptic, my curiosity has gotten the best of me and I will follow the rest of the series – I am sure I will learn something and will be able to apply it to my business. They never disappoint, that’s for sure!
**original article on AgentGenius.com **