7 Tips to Help You Face and Conquer Your Blog Content Fears.

Recently I spoke at a major small business conference about building a celebrity brand.  During my remarks, I covered myriad tips and tricks to establish you and/or your business as the “go-to” expert in your community or field.  Afterwards, however, the questions I received most concerned blogging.

While the majority of the SMBs in the audience recognized the value of a blog, the most common excuses for not having one included:
*  Want to, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet,
*  Started but I can’t stay motivated so I’ve let it slip, and
*  Started but I honestly don’t know what to write about.

Do any of these excuses sound like you? If so, stick with me for a couple of minutes while I try to give you the confidence to stop making excuses and start building a successful business blog.

  1.  Make a Commitment.  Ideas without action mean nothing.  So stop talking about your blog, and get started instead. To avoid feeling overwhelmed make a commitment to once or twice a month and put it on your calendar.  Then stick to your schedule.
  2. Find Your Voice.  What is it you have to say to your audience? What expertise do you want to be known for?   If you’re like me, you have opinions about many topics.  But before you use your business blog as your personal journal, think about what will benefit your customers the most and share your knowledge.
  3. Write About Topics You Know.  Because you’re experienced in your field, I’m sure you have a significant amount of knowledge stored away.  However, you may be thinking where do I start.  An easy first step is to consider the normal questions you get from your customers.  Use those FAQs as the beginning of your blog content development.
  4. Write About Topics You Don’t Know.  You may be thinking this tip is counterintuitive to what I’ve already said, but it’s not really.  If there is a subject you’d like to know more about for your business, I’m sure your readers would be interested as well.  So do some research and share what you learn.
  5. Sing Someone Else’s Praises.  Use your blog to highlight a great customer success story.  It builds rapport with your customer and gives you good content too.  Additionally, if there is a particular product, book or service you like, share it with your audience in your blog.
  6. Go Online for Additional Resources.  If find yourself suffering from writer’s block, you’ll find a wealth of ideas online.  Visit online forums to see what is on people’s minds.  Sign-up for Google Alerts using keywords relating to your business to see what’s happening in the news.  Quora.com is a site where people ask open-ended questions and you can sign up for alerts there as well.  Personally, I like to use keywords in social media platforms to see what is trending.
  7. Spread the Word.  Don’t expect that when you start your business blog they will come.  Be sure to spread the word via social media and email marketing.  A business blog can be an excellent business building tool.  I hope I’ve helped you conquer your content fears so you can get started today.