Why You Should Utilize Blogging & Bloggers

By Lauren | June 30, 2015 | 0 Comment

With more than half of internet users claiming they read blogs, and blogs being the third most influential digital resource when making overall purchases, it’s evident that blogging and content creation is key for brands and companies. But it’s one thing to have your own blog, and a whole other ballgame to work with external bloggers as a brand or company to get outside people talking about you. So what is the value in not only just starting a company blog but actually working with external bloggers?

It puts a personality behind your brand

Putting a face behind your brand is crucial nowadays. Your consumers want to know that there are real human beings sitting behind those computer screens, so many brands are trying to showcase and develop personalities, ones that people can relate to and feel like they’re building a real relationship with. Bloggers can help add personality to your brand. If you are a brand that wants to be one step ahead of the companies that are still sitting back and riding the old fashioned train, utilizing bloggers in your content and public relations strategy can be a great way to show people that you have a personality behind your brand, and you’re confident enough in your product or services to have other people promote them for you.

Keep in mind, it is one thing to work with external bloggers to spread the word, but it’s another thing to make sure the bloggers you are working with are completely in line with your brand. So for example, if you’re a tech company that specializes in software that helps businesses manage their financing, getting a lifestyle blogger to talk about you probably isn’t going to be the best fit.

Outsides opinions are more valuable

You can talk all day about yourself, but is it really that valuable? There are really only 12% of consumers that don’t turn to reading reviews or blogs before deciding to buy in to a product or service. Now I don’t know what the age demographic is for that stat, but I’m going to say it’s probably the older generations that aren’t as savvy with technology and the Internet.

92% of consumers have more confidence in info found online than they do from sales people or other sources, if that’s not a good enough reason to turn to bloggers, I’m not sure what else you need. Teaming up with bloggers can be an easy way to develop a partnership and relationship with someone who will promote your brand, and show it in a new light, without coming off as a sales pitch. Bloggers can offer their honest insight and opinion, and whether you’re paying them or not to talk the talk, it doesn’t necessarily need to come off that way to readers. Leveraging a blogger/brand relationship is a great way to have brand ambassadors that live and write outside of your company, giving a new perspective, and a trusting source for your potential consumers.

Content is key (not traditional advertising)

You’ve probably heard that content is king, and that saying is completely true. Conversion rates for brands using content marketing is 6 to 7 times higher than those that don’t, and content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads. Content is key to business success, because consumers don’t want to be directly sold too they want to receive valuable information (aka content).

Billboards, magazine, and TV ads don’t stand out anymore, no matter how creative they are, they aren’t going to be the enticing factor for a consumer to actually buy your product or service. 90% of consumers find content useful and 77% believe that a company that shares custom content is interested in building quality relationships, not just interested in selling. But with content marketing being so important, not everyone is thinking strategically about the content they are putting out. Many companies aren’t realizing that in order to deliver great content, you need to have a strategy and plan behind it. For some companies that plan may only consist of themselves blogging on their website, for others that may include their own blog, guest blog posts and working with external bloggers to spread the word even further. Also, getting your content out in different ways, through different people is great for your SEO (search engine optimization), aka Google will like you more!

Utilizing bloggers and blogging for your business can be one of the best things you do for your company in this day and age. So are you going to sit back and let your competition take over? Or are you going to start generating content?

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