Business blogs can fulfill many corporate goals. With the help of well-organized corporate blog, companies can:

• position themselves as experts,
• increase their reputation towards customers and partners,
• serve as an important resource for customers and targets,
• boost customer loyalty and engagement,
• support lead generation and conversion,
• and make a significant contribution to SEO and website traffic.

Why blogs are important for your business

Blogs can help you establish your business as an industry thought leader and they can play a major role in lead generation, conversion, and customer loyalty:

• 81% of businesses reported, that their business blog is useful to critical for their business.
• 71% of business bloggers report, that they have increased their visibility within their industries.
• 69% of businesses attribute their lead generation success to blogging.
• The average company that blogs, generates 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages.
• 56% of bloggers who maintain business blogs say it has helped their company establish a position as an industry thought leader.
• Companies that blog get 55% more website traffic.

(Source: IMPact)

However, the success of business blogs often falls far short of expectations for many reasons.

Why corporate blogs fail

Many business blogs struggle with low reader interaction.

• 64% of corporate blogs have no comments at all.
• 5% of corporate blogs have three or more comments per article.

Mayor reasons for low interaction on business blogs:

1. Low content relevancy: an insufficient focus on relevant topics for the target audience.
2. Inconsistency in publishing.
3. Lack of content distribution and promotion.

The mismatch between content and marketing

Low content relevancy is caused by content which is not adapted to the interests and the search behavior of potential customers who are looking for information on common business challenges. While 75% of business decision-makers are looking for substantial ideas and inspiration, 93% of marketers continue to communicate content directly related to products and services.

Business customers are particularly interested in:

• Tips and advice (90%).
• Checklists or instructions (88%).
• Industry reports, studies, and trends (81%).

47% of B2B buyers tend to read 3-5 blog posts or content pieces prior to talking with a salesperson (Source: DemandGenReport). However, if you don’t have a content marketing strategy, your content is likely to miss the target.

If a business blog is set up as the center of corporate communication, it cannot serve only as a content outlet. It can be THE base camp for content creation, content distribution, and social engagement. Used in this way, it will fuel your content marketing strategy and even save time, money, and resources for content creation.

Content is King

A content marketing strategy for corporate communications needs to shift the focus from content directly related to products, services or the company itself, to content that customers and prospects are actually searching for.

The purpose of content is to pull and not to push customers and prospects towards a product or service.

Content has also become a key factor for search engine optimization (SEO). With the growing complexity of search engine algorithms, the visibility of content primarily depends on the individual search behavior and current interest of users. Optimizing content for each customer’s search behavior must play a vital role in the content creation process.

A sustainable content strategy will provide a valuable resource of substantial, helpful content for customers and prospects. Content that contains:

• Answers to key questions (i.e., issues coming up in sales and support).
• Solutions for common problems and challenges in the industry.
• Insider know-how, tips, and case studies from other customers.

Frequency matters!

Consistency in publishing new blog posts is key to increase blog traffic and retain reader:

• 24-51 posts will make your blog traffic generation start to grow. 52 or more blog posts will increase blog traffic by up to 77%.
• Companies that blog more than 4 times a week see the biggest increase in traffic and leads.
• Businesses who blog 16 to 20 times per month get over two times more traffic than those who blog less than four times per month.
• 89% of companies that update their blogs multiple times a day have acquired a customer from their blog.

Source: Dan Zarrella, The Science of Marketing

Timing is Honey

Most blog readers are “morning people” and tend to read blogs early in the morning. If you publish your content during AM hours, you have good chances of getting more attention for your content.

Dan Zarrella found the following patterns about blog publishing and sharing.

• Blog readers are 79% more likely to read in the morning.
• Blog reading peaks around 10 am.
• The best time to blog for pageviews is Monday between 8 and 11 am.
• The best time to blog for increased engagement is Saturday between 8 and 11 am.

Blog marketing and blog promotion

The easiest way to promote your business blog content on the internet is via social media. There are social media marketing and automation tools and plugins to link your blog directly to social media, so that you can distribute the content to social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Successful social media marketing is not just about pushing your content out into the world, but also taking time to engage with the social communities actively. Even if you share the same content across multiple channels, you have to address each community in a slightly different way to encourage feedback and interaction.

Make sure you remember these essential criteria when selecting your social media automation tools. Each network provides different options for presenting content, and every community reacts differently to specific content and formats. Setting up a social media cross-promotion strategy can help you work out the best way to encourage engagement across all social channels.

Sharing your content skillfully across multiple channels helps to increase its reach and lifetime considerably. Furthermore, social media, in particular, is also a valuable feedback channel and source of current issues and discussions, which in turn can serve as input for new content.

Summary

Successful corporate communication with corporate blogs can play a pivotal role in establishing a company’s position as an industry thought-leader. A successful corporate blog will attract more website visitors, generate more leads, and convert new customers. Corporate blogs with a solid content marketing strategy can also create more inbound links and more indexed pages for increased visibility on the net.

Further readings for your blogging success

However, a corporate blog needs to be set up as a strategic content creation lab and resource center, as well as a central hub for social engagement if it’s to become the primary hub of your corporate content marketing strategy.

Melanie Tamblé

Melanie Tamblé is co-founder and co-CEO of Adenion GmbH. She is an experienced expert in content marketing and social media.
Adenion GmbH specializes in online services and tools for bloggers, businesses and agencies of any size to support their online marketing and content seeding tasks on the web.

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Der Beitrag Business Blogs: Why Blogs are Important for Your Business erschien zuerst auf Blog2Social Blog – Tips for social media marketing, sharing, scheduling, cross-posting.