Ray Guluck recently up a useful post on Social Media Today, What Kinds of Businesses Can Benefit from Blogging? He asks three questions and I agree with all of them. Below I repeat them in his words followed by some of my comments.

Are your customers searching online for your products/services? This goes way beyond low-ticket consumer items. A recent survey by Tech Target asked the question. “In the past three months, which of the following information sources have you looked to for information on a new product or technology that your company is potentially going to acquire or implement?”

It yielded these top four results: Search Engines—66%, IT Publishers – Websites—58%, IT Vendor Websites—50%, IT Newsletters—41%. Blogs play to the number one source, so by increasing the effectiveness of the blogs and taking more of your content into a blog format you can be a better player in the top two sources. So recommenders, influencers, and even buyers look to the web for information on high-ticket IT items.

Is there expertise or a knowledge base that you could share, and is it knowledge or expertise that your customers would find useful? Many firms already have much the content for a blog. They just need to fit it into this channel. But they need to make sure they are more conversational and not simply giving out PR materials.

Do you like your customers? If you do not like your customers you should not be in business. But the point here is whether you also like to communicate with them. Which should also be a prerequisite.

Ray asks if there are any other questions. I would add:

Do you like to write?

Can you make the commitment for a consistent publishing rate?

Can you be open, spontaneous, and informal in your communication?

Do you want to add others?


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