Eight reasons why ‘blogging’ still remains critical for entrepreneurs

Blogging is a great thing to do for entrepreneurs as it connects with many others in the blogosphere such as professionals, practitioners, researchers, customers and also other like-minded entrepreneurs, whilst it is also a activity that will increase many skills on a personal perspective; this is of course something that shouldn’t be missed out especially at the ‘early’ and the ‘during’ stage of your venture.

It is also an activity that could satisfy your personal ego. Most start-ups claim that blogging is a very critical component that plays a major role in growing their businesses. Let us have a look at the reasons and benefits

1. It increases your writing and knowledge skills

You get great in your writing skills when you start to blog and keep on blogging, and you will want to write contents that people will be really looking out to read. Being entrepreneurs, it is also important to be an excellent copy-and-creative writer. When you start practicing this, you will find yourself mastering the art of writing very effectively and efficiently. By doing so, you tend to increasing and enhance your knowledge.

You will tend to opt-in to other blogs to read about various other industry sectors, what their latest trends and happenings are, how they work, what are their future situations, and so on. This is really what entrepreneurs need to get doing as constant seeking of knowledge and skills in other areas are also a must to be successful.

2. It increases your research skills

A majority of the blogs are backed up by some sort of research. All the posts that are fresh and evolving in thinking of course needs to be formulated and developed based on some research on that particular area of interest or topic chosen. Many entrepreneurs love to do this as they could gather a whole lot of value and insights into various topics that could be utilised in their venture whilst a few may not like to do this as they will think that it is a waste of time hence missing out many important research that is useful for their venture.

My piece of advice here is that just get into blogging, and eventually you will get great at doing researching. You will turn out to be a great researcher which is a must-have skill for all entrepreneurs especially those in the services and knowledge based arena.

3. It gives you recognition

The more you post up excellent fresh articles on your blog, the more people get to know you better and closer. Blogging gives you the opportunity to connect to other potential bloggers where you could share and exchange knowledge, skills, discussion and viewpoints. Your blog or post followers tend to quickly grasp out what your passions and goals are, what are your likes and dislikes, what type of personality do you hold, and so on.

Many of those successful bloggers become an expert in the field or topic they write about, and what happens here is that expertise brings in a lot of recognition and fame towards your name and blog, and you will keep getting many followers who will turn out to be strategic subscribers of your blog. It is also important that you increase your name recognition that will be great for yourself and also to your venture as it builds that credibility around it.

4. It gives you real-time discussions

The best intangible value of having to blog is that you tend to engage with your followers or readers on a real-time basis. You will tend to be indeed very lucky if your blog post is something that is a brand new, fresh one which has not been published elsewhere in any other media hence giving you a first mover advantage.

You will have information and insights way before the newspapers or magazines get it, and this gives an opportunity to be get immediate feedback and responses in forms of questions, thoughts, ideas, suggestions, and other viewpoints that will drive in an effective engagement on your blog.

By being proactive on blogging, you tend to create many back-links which connects with many other entrepreneurs and other business partners that has or share a common interest or goal.

5. It increases your IT literacy

By having to create and manage a blog on your own, you will learn certain things for yourself that are technical and become more literate on IT. Blogging uses automated blog software that gives you a very easy way of getting to know and managing the technical aspects so that you do not have the hassle of mastering web designing or development in that case.

Further to this, blogs tend to be a best way of Content Management Systems (CMS) as it makes you life really easy when uploading any video or audio file, image, document, etc by just some clicks. Many of it uses WordPress which is one of the foremost preferred choices of almost all of the bloggers as it gives you the ease and simplicity of publishing a post all by yourself.

6. It increases reputation and gives competitiveness

In today’s world, many brands and organisations are highly concerned about managing their reputation, and many of them already have a formal reputation management framework where the online reputation process is a critical part as the medium tends to be more user-controlled. Just like those big brands, entrepreneurs could also use it for a first move when it comes to taking early steps in practicing and managing reputation. Blogs tend to be a neutraliser if there are any negative comments or feedback you will face with your venture.

Many entrepreneurs do not realise the power of this tool and activity. So if you are one that does realise right now, you will be ahead of your competition. It gives a more friendly way of telling all your prospects, customers and various other stakeholders the goals of your venture, what it offers and serves, what are its’ unique selling propositions, and how it is differentiated beyond the average offerings in the marketplace.

7. It gives a boosting presence

Blogging gives you a more visible presence over the web and does great on all search engines if you keep on posting up fresh articles on a daily basis. Many entrepreneurs are very keen and attracted towards fighting out the competition and getting their venture’s name or brand up there on those search engine rankings as search engine is still a very effective and evolving way of grabbing traffic to your blog or maybe a website if in case you could afford to purchase, design and maintain which is rather better to just have a blog as it’s important for entrepreneurs to keep down unnecessary costs down in the beginning of their venture. Search plays a major role and is increasingly grabbing a share of the whole online marketing domain.

 8. It increases relationship marketing and social media integration

Having a blog is an excellent practice to win customer lifetime value by engaging and getting closer to them; it may not only be customers as I have said previously but also various other stakeholders. It tends to catch the trust and credibility from the readers hence spreading the word across and driving your venture’s name forward. This is something that money cannot put value to.

Increasingly, with the emergence of all those popular social networking sites, bloggers are integrating and making use of social bookmarking very effectively through those social buttons. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg, StumbleUpon and so on give the opportunity for that blog post to be shared across and spoken about; it spreads very amazingly if the content is really powerful and fresh. The more the blog posts get into these networks, the more you will get visitor traffic from these sources and of course enhance your presence in these platforms.

Another great benefit of blogging is the publicity connections you will receive which will be greatly a use for you and your venture. You will also be an expert in public relations.

(Thanzyl Thajudeen is a professional marketer and visionary strategist. He is also the youngest global member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, UK. Tweet him on @thanzyl or email [email protected])