Blogging may be a great way to expand your influence. Blogging is an activity that many home business owners are involved in because blogging helps them establish their expertise and promote their products.
1. Definition of blogging
Blogging is a form of marketing that usually means writing an article for a page on a website and then publishing it online.
The people who succeed at blogging are the ones who do it consistently over time. Consistency is key. You will build up momentum if you post regularly and stick to topics you know well.
When blogging for your home business, think about how it can help you do the following:
- Establish yourself as an authority in your field
- Build rapport with potential customers
- Sell products and services to new customers
- Generate leads for your business.
2. How blogging can help your marketing
If you want blogging to help you succeed at marketing, be sure that it has these qualities:
- It’s interesting to others (not just you)
- It’s helpful to other people (include tips and resources) (make people feel like they are learning something – giving them value)
- It’s easy to read (use short sentences and paragraphs) (write for the online community, not academia) (use an engaging tone; create a story around your blogging topics).
Other ways blogging can help you increase your brand awareness include blogging before and after an event, blogging about an upcoming event, blogging at events, blogging on
3. Other ways blogging can raise your profile
As long as blogging is fun, interesting, informative, or helpful to others, it will work on some level to make your business more visible.
Blogging is definitely something that can help you increase your brand awareness. It’s helpful if you do it consistently over time. Keep in mind that blogging isn’t just for people who are very serious about it; even small businesses can benefit from blogging.
4. The qualities that make blogging work towards building influence
Blogging is not that hard. It does require some time but it can be quite simple to do if you follow these guidelines:
- Be consistent with your subject matter
- Write short sentences and paragraphs that are easy to read and digest
- Make your writing engaging and fun
Establish yourself as an authority in your field by writing about how-to tips, resources, industry news, events, etc. (be relevant)
Use blogging for good. Find a way to help people by sharing advice or information. This will help build rapport with future customers. If you are able to establish boundaries around what types of questions/topics you are willing to address in blogging activities, it will help you avoid disputes.
When other people comment on your blog post consider responding even if it’s just to thank them for their input.
5. Topics that can help to expand your influence
- Blogging before and after an event
- Blogging about an upcoming event
- Blogging about products (review)
- Blogging about how to do something in detail
- Blogging to share your experiences in solving a problem
- Blogging on research you have done on a topic
- Blogging to share useful information
6. Different types of blog posts
There are many different types of post. Here are a few:
- The List Post – A list post is a type of article that is formatted as a list. It contains reasons, tips, techniques, shortcuts, secrets, types, and trends. In terms of social media shares, the list post follows close to the infographic as the most popular. They provide an overall view on a subject in list form.
- A Review Post – These articles are meant to have a long shelf life and continue drawing people to your site over time. They’re typically lengthy, text-based pieces that explore a certain topic in further detail. Because reviews are inherently evergreen, review blogs make for excellent evergreen material.
- Long Form “how to” posts – Long-form material is any piece of writing that lasts longer than 2,000 words. A 3,500-word blog post, a 10,000-word white paper, or a 15,000-word ebook are examples. This kind of content can cover anything including how to do a specific task in detail.
- Story post – If you want to use a story in your post, make sure it’s relevant to the message you want to share. Stories are entertaining and easy to read, but they can only be effective if they have real meaning. Every tale has a lesson to teach people about something that you want them to learn from that particular account.
7. The qualities that make blogging work towards building your business
Have a voice- Having your own voice is the most important thing. Your blogging activities should be brought to life by who you are, this will enable people to relate to you and trust you.
Don’t just focus on blogging. It is important that blogging doesn’t consume your life or take over what you do. While it can help expand your influence, it’s also vital that you add value in other ways such as offering useful information in:
- social media posts/tweets
- regular email and phone communication
- providing solid advice in presentation materials so people walk away feeling like they received something of real value.
8. The benefits of blogging
Blogging provides many benefits for people including:
- SEO boost – blogging activities are considered quality content, they give your site more unique pages to submit in search engines. These pages are related to the topic which is highly important when it comes to SEO.
- Expand your influence – blogging is one of the most powerful ways to build trust with potential customers and establish yourself as an authority. It shows that you’re engaged with them and can be trusted, which builds their loyalty towards you.
- Exposure – blogging enables you to reach a bigger audience by expanding your reach through others sharing or re-blogging your posts. This will help you connect with new audiences that may not have known about you otherwise.
- Grow connections – blogging allows for two way conversations which is beneficial for you. These conversations can help you learn more about who your audience is and what they want, which will help fuel future blogging efforts.
- Networking – blogging allows people to contact you via social media or comment on the post. This also enables people to find your website or blog if they are not already aware of it.
- Business ideas – blogging helps with brainstorming business ideas by encouraging creative thinking and analysis of various concepts.
To Expand Your Influence, Blog Consistently
Consistency is key to effective blogging. This can be done by blogging once a week, twice or even three times a week. To build up your content, you should be thinking of blogging daily.
Blogging will work to expand your influence if you do it regularly over time, just like other marketing activities that expand your reach including email marketing and social networking.
Don’t overwhelm yourself! You don’t need to blog about everything. Choose one thing you’re passionate about to write about first before branching out into other subjects which you feel may interest people.
Focus blogging on subjects that are important to you and what will help build trust with your audience. Building trust will probably mean they return consistently to read more of your blog posts.
Being consistent will give you a good standing in the search engines. When your content grows, you will be able to revise your content and update accordingly. All these things matter.
You will benefit from repurposing content over time. If you have a blog post that proves to be popular, you could turn it into a video to get in front of a different audience in your niche.
All these things will help you to expand your influence while blogging. Your business will benefit greatly if you can build up a following and readership. Being consistent and ready to engage more with your audience can have a positive affect on your business too.
