{"id":2005,"date":"2011-09-01T02:05:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T06:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=2005"},"modified":"2011-09-01T02:05:23","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T06:05:23","slug":"to-blog-or-not-to-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/to-blog-or-not-to-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"To Blog or Not to Blog?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Social media is becoming an integral part of the 21st<\/sup> century. \u00a0Customers expect business owners to use social media marketing tools such as blogs to promote products and services.\u00a0 In fact, 50% of global companies implement blogs into corporate communication and about 12% of larger Fortune 500 companies blog.\u00a0 While there are many advantages of blogging, business owners must have the time and energy required to maintain a blog, otherwise it\u2019s a lost cause.<\/p>\n

Blogging is an increasingly popular way of maintaining relationships with existing customers and attracting new sale leads.\u00a0 Perhaps the greatest advantage of blogging is being able to keep customers in the loop of the daily operations of a specific company.\u00a0 Whether providing important customer updates, details on special promotions for first time buyers, discount information for existing customers or just random ramblings too read for enjoyment, everyone with a garnered interest appreciates being kept informed.\u00a0 Companies that open their doors and share experiences via blogging are more often than not repaid with customer loyalty.<\/p>\n

Blogs are also a great tool for building and strengthening business relationships.\u00a0 Not only do blogs allow customers an insight, but also encourage them to participate in blogging by leaving comments and feedback regarding specific products or services.\u00a0 Many blog administrators find it helpful to enable the comment feature on blogs to allow visitors to post comments and replies.\u00a0 This is especially helpful when soliciting customer feedback.\u00a0 Although most feedback is extremely positive or negative, each individual feedback response is vital for continuous improvements of product quality or services<\/p>\n

Blogs also help to generate traffic to a particular website.\u00a0 An increase in blog activity is typically a good indicator of increased traffic; thus more traffic means an increase in potential sells.\u00a0 While it\u2019s important to keep in mind that not everyone visiting a blog will make a purchase; however, blogs are a great marketing tool to fish for new sale leads.<\/p>\n

Disadvantages of Blogging<\/strong><\/p>\n

The greatest drawback of blogging is the time it requires.\u00a0 Depending on how often a blog is updated dictates how much effort is involved with maintenance.\u00a0 If a blog is only updated once a month, bi-weekly, or weekly, the time required isn\u2019t too demanding; however, for those requiring everyday entries, the task may become daunting.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to post scheduled blogging entries; old and out-of-date entries are a sure way to tarnish one\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

For blogs requiring daily entries, often the task of posting entries is outsourced to a third party.\u00a0 While smaller companies may not have the resources to hire someone responsible for blogging, larger ventures find that having someone to handle the blog a worthwhile investment.<\/p>\n

Spam is another disadvantage of hosting<\/a> a blog.\u00a0 While it\u2019s not nearly as much of a nuisance as it was just a few years before, robots and malicious users continue to thrive on posting spam and other annoying posts.\u00a0 The good news is that blog administrators have more control over blogs, especially when it comes to thwarting spam attacks.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The decision whether or not to blog depends on the size of the company and available resources.\u00a0 Even though most blog web hosting<\/a> packages include a free blog, the amount of time and effort required to maintain a functional blog is often too much of a strain on smaller ventures.\u00a0 Mid to large-scale companies with a sizeable customer base, however, reap the most benefits from blogging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social media is becoming an integral part of the 21st century. \u00a0Customers expect business owners to use social media marketing tools such as blogs to promote products and services.\u00a0 In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[611,1239],"class_list":["post-2005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cms","category-seo-sem","tag-blogging","tag-social-media"],"views":85,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}