Building a blog to engage your target audience
By Gary Bowerman
"Blogging is not writing. It's just graffiti without punctuation." Elliott Gould's scathing put-down to Jude Law in the movie Contagion has set the blogosphere ablaze. The debate about blogging’s true purpose in an expansively proliferating world of online content continues with vigor.
A great movie line creates plentiful reactionary online theorizing. Check. But what does this have to do with the travel industry? Well, every travel business has a blog now, doesn't it? But, are we just creating online graffiti for people who stare and move on, or can blogging be an effective, measurable tool that adds value to your marketing mix? And if you don't have a blog, should you be concerned?
The answers to these questions are to be found in your own approach to marketing, because blogging is a very flexible communications platform. Successful blogging is really about creating a piece of online architecture – build it robustly, utilize its full range of functions, and watch its value to your business rise.
If you have a blog or are planning to launch one, the critical issues to consider are: what are the objectives (always think plural) for my business of creating a blog? Who am I targeting with my blog content? And how do I ascertain whether the objectives I have set are being achieved? For now, put aside bewildering phrases like blog software and templates, plug-ins, hosting and SEO – that can come later.
Okay, Question One is easily answered. Business blogging is a promotional tool, and should be integrated into your overall marketing strategy. It is not a fun thing to have or a place to put stuff we don't use elsewhere. Make it more tactical. Posting photos from family trips with amusing captions may raise smiles, but what value does that add to your business? Leave that stuff to a personal Facebook site.
Instead, think of a blog as a multi-layered, professional publication, which you can use to build an exclusive connection with a captive audience (ie, your readers). Blogging is not an instant route to riches, however, so plan carefully how to leverage that connection – in tandem with your existing promotional channels – to deliver your marketing goals.
That process will lead you to Question 2. Once you have positioned blogging within your marketing mix, you need to allocate sufficient time, energy and resources to conceptualize and manage (never 'maintain', that makes it sound like a chore) the blog that your business requires.
Who are you targeting with your blog? Existing clients? Potential leads? Previous customers? Suppliers and industry contacts? Your competitors? Determining this will help define the types of content you post (never be too restrictive or narrowly focused – a blog, after all, works most efficiently when used creatively). How about casual online visitors in countries who do business while you are sleeping? And the media?
The latter is an important point. Several high-profile travel industry consultants are prolific bloggers, who carefully target their content to engage media researchers. This helps raise the visibility and profile of their business endeavors through online profiles and articles being written about them (always reference and link to these in your own blog postings), invitations to speak at conferences and seminars (ditto) and enhanced traffic to their own website.
Understanding the audience you wish to engage will influence your own thoughts about the blog's content mix. A successful blog is not simply another surface to publish press releases and marketing texts distributed via other channels. Be more imaginative. Establish an impression among readers that this is an exclusive location for exclusive content.
Readers will be engaged if you demonstrate your expertise, comment on key issues, objectively review products and services and showcase your own research and market intelligence. How about using guest bloggers whose knowledge and expertise complements your marketing objectives? Consider creating regular themed posts on niche issues. Publish reader feedback in a constructive manner within blog posts to build participation – and further augment that all-important connection with your audience.
Think about this aspect from a user's point of view. Visit business websites that interest you, and see how they use blog content. And learn the tricks they are missing in informing and engaging you. What frequency of postings do they use? How do they combine comment, images and statistics? How much of the content is simply brand building, and what practical 'takeaways' are there for visitors? Do you feel as if the blog is talking to you, or aimlessly flushing unpunctuated graffiti into the ether?
By now, you might start thinking about the positioning of the blog on your website. Is it just a clickable menu bar item, or should you insert a visible 'blog window' with your latest postings onto the website front page? Or both? [My own website –www.scribesoftheorient.com – was built to incorporate both options, but the blog window is by some distance the most clicked.]
So that's the simple stuff. Approaching Question 3 means getting technical – because we are now talking 'optimization' and 'deliverability'. Both are big words ubiquitously proffered during brainstorming meetings – but behind the verbal largesse is the core to making the blog work for your business.
There are some simple basic steps. Directly connect the blog to your company Facebook and Twitter accounts and post immediate links to new posts to generate traffic. Insert key words and URL links into your blog text. Learn about Permalinks, Pingbacks and Meta Tags and the frequently overlooked discipline of Search Engine Optimization (this is a very useful quick guide for WordPress bloggers: www.viperchill.com/wordpress-seo/. To learn about optimizing your content headlines for search engines, Huffington Post offers a daily masterclass).
You will also want to measure your traffic. Google Analytics is a popular tool. Your serving company may also have a bespoke measuring system that can subdivide blog traffic from your general website visitors. GetClicky.com is another useful measuring tool that offers some useful real-time features.
Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this particular blog post is that it is – necessarily – incomplete. Integrating a successful blog into your marketing strategy requires considerable research time and planning. But, hopefully, we all now agree that blogging isn't just graffiti when it is well produced – and perfectly punctuated. If not, click away now.
This blog has been commissioned by AmEx.
About Gary Bowerman: Oxford-born Gary Bowerman has travelled the world in search of a good story. After cutting his teeth in legal and tax publishing in London, Gary moved on to edit international business and travel titles before relocating to China in 2004. Resident in Shanghai, he has recently been a contributor to CNN Traveller, Business Traveler,CNBC Europe Business, New York Times, Travel & Leisure and South China Morning Post. Editor of the Singapore Highlights and Beijing Highlights guides, Gary is also one of the founders of Hong Kong and Shanghai-based media and marketing communications agency Scribes of the Orient.
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