Hubspot as an example plans for a methodical path and even break out their blogging into 4 or more parts!
Groupon started out as a blog and became the app/platform that is now common.
Blogs can be powerful, but they can also be an albatross.
The power lies in the long term view of indexed information about your company or business. The more you put into the SEO and links and unique search terms for your business, the easier you will be found. And your blogs live forever, or at least as long as you keep them online.
The albatross which people don't think about upfront is the "I need to write a blog post now/today" nagging in their head. So many more important things to do, it will wait. NO, it won't!
But one day rolls into two and then three. Before you know it, a week has passed, and then another, and your blog is like a ghost town. Where will your magical viral audience come from...if no one ever hears about you?
In no specific order these are the usual reasons startups do not blog:
- No time busy writing it or manufacturing it or building it
- No resources (hint: early on it should be from the founder because no one else has their vision or passion for the project) available to write it
- Language barrier for non-English speakers
- What platform should we use (analysis by paralysis)
- No money to hire marketer
- Poor English grammar
- No idea what to write
- We will, later on (after what?)
- That is the CEOs or marketing role
- Our product speaks for itself (I hear this one a lot)
- We pay for ads
There a tons of reasons not to do it, few of which have any merit.
Why should you be blogging and telling your story, in your words?
Some basic reasons:
- The difference between manual actions and automated ones is not obvious to people.
- You love your app, but no one uses the best part (in your eyes).
- You built the app for teachers, yet corporate HR is using it more than teachers.
- If people like what you are doing, they will read your posts (blog, newsletter, email, tweet) and give you feedback.
- Get on people's follow/email/RSS/ lists
- Content is king
- It lives online forever
You want PR, you need customers, you want people to find you and love you....but you never write, you never care, you just sit there and wait for them to come to you. Never going to happen.
Stop Tweeting, and Facebooking, and just get writing.
