Business Blogging Isn’t Dead: 4 Reasons Blogs Are Critical To B2B Social Media Success
By Kipp Bodnar
Mon, Oct 12, 2009
The coolest thing to do on the Internet, in case you haven’t noticed, is to “kill” something. You see articles each week that declare an application or online practice “dead” because some new shinier application has hit the street to grab all the attention. Most of the time these articles are pure hype designed to drive more traffic to the sites on which they appear. Over the past few months, I have seen too many of these articles, as well as messages on Twitter declaring that blogs are “dead”
I am here to tell you that I think all of those people are wrong, especially when it comes to B2B. In fact I think that the application and implications of blogging for B2B organizations is nearly limitless. However, for today, I am going limit myself to sharing four reasons why blogs are critical for business-to-business organizations.
For B2B organizations Blogs Can:
1. Create An Organization’s Public Hub On The Web – To have any type of communication, either internal or external on the web, you need a hub of information. This means, one place where your thoughts, insights and expertise exists in its most complete form on the web. For many reasons this hub needs to be a blog. Ask your self these questions. where am I going to send people from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks who want more detailed information about an issue? The answer is your blog.
2. Allow Organizations To Have Ownership – In the world we live in, power and income is directly related to the things we own. The social web is no different. Having a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a Twitter account etc is like renting an apartment. When you rent an apartment, you have a safe place that is worry-free and you get to spend time with people near by, but ultimately you end up paying for someone else’s building. That is what you are doing for those other services, helping them make money. You are giving up your control. You could be on Facebook for a year and then they could decide to remove your account. It is their right.
Having a blog on your company Web site is like owning a home. You have complete control of what it looks like, the features it has, and most importantly, the information posted to it. You own it and every day you are getting a direct return from your investment. You are seeing an increase in your search traffic and page rank because of the blog, seeing direct lead generation and you have complete control over the site’s analytics. So would you rather rent or own?
3. Make Your Company Human – One of the things I hear most when it comes to social media for B2B is that organizations say: “we are a manufacturing company, we make X product. Nobody cares about us.” That statement can be perfectly true, but it has nothing to do with the products you make. People don’t care because you haven’t given them a reason to yet.
Part of the way to get people passionate about your company, is to get them involved and show that they have a stake in the final product. That they as customers have a role in making the product better. They want to be connected to your staff and get an inside look at what you do. A blog can be the window into this world. One that you customers may not even realize right now that they want.
4. Facilitate Direct Lead Generation – At the end of the day you have to move the needle and make sales. On the social web blogs provide the best opportunity for lead generation, again because they provide complete control. For example if someone subscribes to get updates from your Facebook fan page on their phone, you can’t send them a message outside of Facebook. This is because Facebook doesn’t give you their number, it sits in Facebook, but can be integrated into your lead generation funnel.
Do you want this? No. Through search traffic and control of actions available on a blog it is possible to generate better quality and more complete leads than through other social platforms.
Blogging isn’t right for all B2B organizations, but it is far from dead.
What are other reasons you blog?
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Kipp,
Thanks for your post. Not only is blogging not dead, it is still the ONLY social media being used by the majority of B2B companies. According to Forrester’s Social Technographic profile’s 2009 data for B2B customers, 69% read blogs and other social media content, while the next highest SM tactic was 37%. My colleague blogged about this same topic on 9/23, “Is Blogging Dead?” http://blog.schubert.com/2009/09/23/is-blogging-dead/ His point is more about using this type of tabloid headline for borrowed interest, but for the reasons you cite and others, blogging is certainly not dead.
I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you Kipp. Content and blogging are the backbone to a successful social media campaign. Great article.
Kipp – am also in complete agreement. 2 points to add though:
1. Apart from the control issues you raised about owning the space of a company blog compared to the rented space of a Facebook page, it also makes things easier to explain. You start with the blog. It is the cornerstone of your social media strategy. You can then reach out using whatever tool you want, but the thing that actually adds value, ie your expertise, is there on the blog. It may be replicated elsewhere (and that is what social media is great at doing) but the source is there on your server, and that helps clients to understand the whole thing more easily.
2. There is a motivational aspect. If you want to get maximum quality content, you need to get your company’s experts interested in contributing. The company blog can quickly become seen as a showcase. It has great internal visibility and gives internal kudos to those involved. They are often daunted but, given the right support, people want to get involved with a blog. This is less easy, and even more daunting on an external social media space.
Nice post, thanks. John
John,
Great additions. Thanks for your thoughts!
Kipp