7 Blogging Mistakes that Small Businesses Make: 7 Sins of Business Blogging
1. Bad Writing: This one really shouldn’t need an explanation. Poor writing, if displayed in a public setting like a blog, looks even worse. Whether grammatical, punctuation, usage or even spelling errors, there’s a good chance that if the blog isn’t written well, your customers won’t come back. This is an easy problem to solve: no matter the size of your company, the chances are pretty good that someone on staff knows how to write. This is why opening the blog up to different employees and letting them write under their own name could be great. It gives your blog itself different voices for customers to relate to and also makes the employees feel better about themselves and their overall contributions to the organization.
2. Presenting Instead of Conversing: Good blog posts are those that inspire conversation and drive readers to comment, share, or engage with the content. Rather than thinking about a blog post as a dissertation, think about it more as an opinion on a hot topic. Stick to that one opinion or point of view and defend it, then open the floor to readers to respond.
“The thing most people don’t understand is that the difference between a blog post and a magazine article is the difference between conversation and presentation,” notes Strauss. “If I were giving a presentation on a stage behind a podium, the expectation is that I’m going deliver a fully developed idea with everything tied up in a bow and a potential Q&A at the end. In blogging, it’s important to blog about a particular topic without being complete. If it’s conversational as a blog is supposed to be, you get a chance to say one thing or one idea, and then it’s your customers’ turn to talk or respond.”
