I remember when blogging became popular. It started as like an online journal –people telling their stories or sharing information about hobbies. It wasn’t long before blogs began to be monetized. Companies were finding value in the audiences of these personal journals and hobby sharing as a way to jump on an unsaturated platform with the endorsement of source that was already liked, known, and trusted by that audience. For example, beauty bloggers with large followings began to endorse beauty products and paid by the companies that manufactured them. Quilt makers started endorsing sewing, fabric, and other related companies on their blogs.
Once that well began to run dry or start to charge too much for their influence, companies reversed the process. They started their own blogs that gave tips and share valued around related topics to their industry or products. For example, Kraft started sharing recipes that included their food products. By giving you multiple ways to use their product in the convenience of easy to use recipes, their sales increased. The beauty industry started to give their own beauty tips from professional make-up artists and used professionally create looks to showcase new products.
All of that was primarily done by big businesses. However, small business and Entrepreneurs got onboard. We realized that we too needed to give value to attract the attention of potential clients. There are very few business websites that do not include a blog posts on their home page. Still fewer businesses have websites that do not include a blog at all. With potential clients using keywords in search engines like Google, to search for information to solve their problems, blogs of companies with the solutions to those problems should still utilized blogs to connect those keywords to their products and services.
If you haven’t gotten it yet, the answer is YES –blogs are still very much relevant. How do you know what to blog about in your business? I created a pretty cool FREE resource for your called Your D.I.Y. 1-Year Blog Strategy & Plan. Get yours HERE.