Do you ever ask yourself “why blog”?
I used to take singing lessons. I went for 5 weeks and due to reasons I won’t go into here I had to stop. I had recorded each session and throughout the week I would playback the lesson and practice with the tape. My instructor kept saying I was getting better even though I couldn’t tell the difference.
Well, after I stopped taking the lessons, I was so disappointed I stopped practicing. Over 6 months after I stopped, on a whim I started practicing again. I made it through two lessons before I was completely winded.
What does this have to do with blogging?
Why do you blog? Why did I want to sing? Because when I sing in church (out with the congregation) I want to sound the best I can. In order to achieve that I had to practice singing correctly _consistently_ or the lessons were a big waste of time. If however I did it on a dare, or just to try it out, then it didn’t really matter how often I practiced.
Do you blog just to get your thoughts out? Then it doesn’t really matter how often you blog. Do you blog to share relevant information, like for a fan club? Then you’d blog however often you found out something new, but you wouldn’t want to wait until it was old news, you’d want to blog about it right away.
Do you blog to attract traffic or build your business? Then you need to blog regularly and frequently. Some people say every day, others have said a couple of times a week. My recommendation is, “when you have something worth sharing”.
For a business you can’t afford to just blog on a whim. Though there’s nothing wrong with sharing a certain amount of personal information, this is your business, not your diary. You don’t want to air your “dirty laundry” you want to share things that will help people who are interested in your business topic.
If your business is selling pet poodle supplies, then your personal information should have something to do with poodles in one way, shape or form. Your fellow poodle enthusiasts are there for poodles, not you.
I shared about singing because I learned (was reminded) about something and it is both relevant and worth sharing. I learned that if I really wanted to improve my singing then I must, must keep practicing even though I only have 5 lessons. I can’t afford to let my personal disappointment stop me, I’ll never improve that way.
Quite frankly, I was embarrassed to the point of feeling ashamed that I ran out of air so quickly. But that’s what’s going to happen in your business if you don’t blog the way you should. If you blog really infrequently, you won’t gain much business and you may lose some. If you blog a lot, but it’s more along a personal line than along your business you also will not keep business.
You need to be on a constant lookout for relevant information to blog about or find relevant articles to put into your blog (please leave the resource box with the article).
Be honest. How serious can you be about your business if you aren’t constantly learning or searching for things to improve your business? Whether it’s to learn a new way of doing something (or at least learn about another way how NOT do something) or increase your database of frequently asked questions or checking out the latest and greatest gadget you should be active in your business.
Blogging is all about sharing what you learned. If all I wanted to do was check out what singing lessons were like, then it didn’t matter that I stopped. If I wanted to improve, or at least maintain the level of proficiency I had reached, then I had to keep practicing.
So why do you blog?
Once you have answered that question for yourself then you will know how important it is (or unimportant) to blog regularly, frequently, and relevantly.
There’s no one answer, it all depends on the purpose of your blog. But if you want to talk about personal stuff and business stuff then do yourself a favor and have two different blogs. After all, your business and personal life should be separate.
Keep doing what your business needs and pretty soon, it’ll be singing those high notes.
– Jeffery