The Best of Business Blogging: Learning From These Examples
Business blogging is a delicate balance of self-promotion and helpful information: Companies that focus too much on promotion aren’t able to capture the attention of readers, yet without promotional elements blogging can be an exercise in futility.
If you’re struggling to meet this balance with your own business blog, here are three great examples to learn from:
Prove your expertise: Zillow Blog. Zillow is an online real estate valuation website whose blog does an excellent job of providing helpful information to a particular target market. Their blog readers are either looking to buy or sell a home, so the blog focuses on the latest real estate news. From reviews of new APR rates to in depth pieces of specific investment areas, the Zillow bloggers stay on top of information that relates to buyers and sellers. This makes Zilow’s blog a destination for all real estate-related information and does a good job of showcasing expertise through that information-giving.
Highlight your community: Flickr Blog. Flickr is a photo community and it uses its blog to draw attention to the photo submissions of the members. Although most companies don’t have photo content to work with, they can still learn from this example. Getting your community involved by encouraging submissions like questions or surveys is a great way to bring new fans on board and keep them there. You can answer community questions on the blog or display the results of the survey. The better your relationship with your audience, the more they’ll contribute and the more content you’ll be able to highlight.
Stay conversational: Dell Blog. Dell’s corporate blog is tightly focused on news related to the company, but the computer giant maintains a conversational voice that engages readers. The company breaks news on the blog and responds directly to customers in the comments. This level of engagement is handled by a team of bloggers, but they manage to all have the same friendly tone in their writing. Their regular posts and tone keep readers coming back for more.
