5 Pitfalls of Business Blogging
| Diane Vautier October 29, 2009 |
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In the last post we looked at the benefits of blogging, and it was pretty optimistic. In fact, it appeared there wasn’t a downside at all and that your company would be crazy NOT to blog.
So you might be wondering “If you think blogging is so great, why the heck are you writing a blog post about the pitfalls of Business Blogging?”
The truth of the matter is that despite the benefits of blogging, it just isn’t the right choice for some individuals or companies. For every benefit of blogging, there is an equally compelling pitfall just waiting to ensnare an eager and naive blogger.
Pitfalls of Business Blogging
1. Blogs don’t produce immediate sales results. You may find you’ll need a more reserved expectation of their sales performance. The difference is that you’re building reputation and trust, not putting the cold hard sales spiel on them. It takes time to pay off.
2. Blogs demand manpower for scheduled updates. Customers expect that your online presence will be informative, and regular. Scheduled updates require man hours. Man hours you may not have, especially if you’re a small business and already have a closet full of different hats that you wear throughout the day. You’ll have to think of what to write, how to write it then post it, and monitor comments. My rule of thumb is that if you’ve had a hard time publishing a newsletter regularly then you may want to rethink blogging, or consider hiring someone to help.
3. Once posted, Blog posts are forever. Sure you can delete them or edit them, but somewhere there’s a copy of that one line of text that you wrote when you should have just stepped away from the keyboard. Always follow good blog etiquette.
4. Poorly written blog posts can hinder perception. Let’s face it not everyone can be Shakespeare or even Charles Schultz (of the Peanuts comic strip fame). If you can’t write well, consider video blogs or having someone help you edit your content.
5. Beware of blog backfire. Here’s the scenario. You start a blog, you get busy, you don’t add new posts or check for feedback. The result; you lost a huge account because your customer had a serious issue, contacted you via blog as a comment to a post and they were ignored. Or worse yet, you receive a negative comment that starts a negative discussion about your company or products. If you start a blog, make sure you listen, respond and interact.
In the name of fairness I identified five pros and five cons of blogging so you can see that there really is room for opinion about whether or not blogging is the right path to take. Personally, I think the pros far outweigh the cons, but only you can figure out the right approach for your business.
Marketing, social media | Diane Vautier | 
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