As part of our social media training, we suggest that every business set up a blog that will serve as their central hub for all social media campaigns. There are so many reasons to blog; however, before you start a company blog, you need to determine which blog strategy fits your marketing needs. Here are some of the most common blog strategies.

Thought Leader

If your main purpose behind blogging is to become a thought leader in your industry, then you need to put a lot of research and time and energy into your blog. You’ll need to keep up with the latest news and trends in your industry...and develop a solid basis of informational posts on your industry. You might want to use a third person and a more formal writing tone for this strategy.

Humanizing your brand

Some businesses go into blogging purely to put a human face on their brand and to give their company a voice. The more consumers connect to and relate with your brand, the more likely they are to think of you when they need your products or services. You’ll want to write more casually and in first person, making sure to identify and post photos and short bios of your writing team.

SEO

Blogs are excellent for SEO goals. Search engines love fresh, quality, and consistently updated content. You need to write relevant info using specific key phrases that you’d like to rank for, and then you definitely need to share through other social media channels in order to attract inbound links. You’ll want to comment on other industry blogs and submit your blog to blog directories, and be sure to leave comments in discussion forums.

Leads

If sales and leads are the driving force behind your blog, that’s natural—but don’t give in to the temptation to write purely sales-driven blog posts. Write informational posts on how your company can help consumers...share stories about how your products or services have helped other consumers. A second person, professional tone works best here.

Do any of these strategies sound appealing to you? Maybe all four? It’s important to figure out what you want out of blogging before you start. Blogging can be an integral part of your marketing campaign once you set the right strategy. How does blogging fit in with your goals?