Four years ago, when blogs were a twinkle in the web’s eye, David Moore published an article in our features section titled Why blogging matters.

For me, the highlights from Dave’s article are every bit as relevant today, in fact even more so. Here’s why…

Dave wrote,

The best blogs are perfect examples of why good content is so crucial online: they offer timely, well-written information targeted at a particular audience

But blogs’ challenges are also those of content as a whole – they have to be interesting, well-written, focused, and updated regularly. There are thousands of blogs that don’t make it past the third issue, or are little more than the blogger talking to themselves.

Does blogging matter?

Now, more than ever, the answer is a resounding yes. Why?

Here are three of reasons, some of which came from a podcast on corporate blogging linked to from Irish Eyes (Bernie Goldbach’s blog)

1. Blog to get found

Put most simply, blogs are an excellent SEO tool but only if they meet the criteria that Dave mentioned above.

2. Blog to influence people

Blogging provides a welcome alternative to slick ads, corporate jargon and allows companies to get closer to their customers than ever before. However, it needs to be an authentic conversation between the company and the customers, unlike the recent WalMart fake blog case. Transparency is a really important issue in business, and blogs can certainly help or hinder in this regard.

3. Blog to be human

Blogs can slash the corporate feel of a company and make them feel human. How? A blog is essentially an interactive website. If you allow critical comments on your corporate blog and address them, it shows that, as a company, you are responsive to your customers. You will actually gain credibility, rather than lose it as it shows that you’re listening to your customers rather than merely paying them lip service. Potentially, blogs could reshape the whole customer service landscape. Take a massive company like Dell, who announced their battery recall program through their blog.

So does blogging still matter?

According to Debbie Weil, author of The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right,

the real question is no longer why you have have a blog, but rather, why you don’t.

The risk of not having a blog, for any organisation, is that you can’t respond to criticism or engage in meaningful dialogue with your customers.

About this post

This is the first in a possible series of “From the Archives”, a reflection of what we published previously and an examination of whether it still applies today.