Blogging Your Business

The new generation of web users expects more than just a digital brochure. They – we – aren’t even satisfied with a reasonably attractive site promoting a reasonably useful product. The internet has evolved into a community-based entity. It’s not enough to be user friendly. You’ve actually got to be friends with your users.

Enter the business blog, in all its shiny Web 2.0 goodness. Blogs give a much-needed friendly face to the anonymity of the internet. More importantly, they offer a connection. Which would you rather read – a polished press release, or a note from the CEO? I guess a better question would be: a note from the CEO, or a play-by-play by the chick in cubicle 6? Because maybe you wouldn’t want to buy something from the CEO, but that chick sounds just like your best friend from high school, and she just said the funniest thing about her boss, and hey, there’s an RSS feed. And viola – the seed is planted.

But how social is too social? At heart, I’m still a 90s sort of girl. Keeping a blog where clients can see it? What if I get Dooced? (Then again, Dooce now supports her family with her blog, so maybe that’s not so bad.) No one wants to click on a company blog and hear about someone’s sick grandmother or latest trip to the mall – yet, surprisingly, some businesses blog about just that.

Here’s the thing: there’s human, and then there’s too human. Learning about the inner workings of a company is interesting; learning about the inner workings of someone’s love life is voyeurism. (Unless you’re blogging about a dating service; then it’s interesting and voyeuristic.)

Finding the right balance of personal and professional is hard. You’ll hear all sorts of advice about identifying your target audience and using the blogging phenomenon to market your business, but if you’re thinking in marketing terms? Your blog will most likely fail. People know when they’re being solicited. A blog isn’t the right place for a sales pitch. Talk about your what you do, sure, but save the selling for the product page.

Readers of your blog are looking for one of three things: information about your product or service, information about your area of expertise, or entertainment. Of the three, entertainment is the hardest to achieve. Don’t try to be clever. If witty repartee doesn’t come naturally to you, stick to what you know. Write about what your product does. Write about what your product doesn’t do. Write about the day-to-day operation of your business, or the cool new thing you’re working on, or the problem you’ve just solved. Respond to feedback and leave feedback of your own.

Above all, make your readers feel like they’re part of the experience. People are much more likely to use your service if they “know” the people behind it. It’s all about connections.