A while back, I wrote about some of the wrong and right reasons that companies blog. Some of wrong reasons are using the blog to post thinly veiled sales brochures, trying to make the author sound smart or intellectual, or simply doing it because a post is expected every week. On the other hand, using your blog to demonstrate thought leadership and provide useful information fosters more engagement with your readers. And by using the appropriate keywords, it can help visitors find your website in the first place, thereby building your site’s authority and trust.
For your blog to be effective, though, you have to be in it for the long haul. Consistency is more important than frequency, when it comes to providing readers with new ideas and insights—and even the occasional surprise or two to delight them. One of those surprises, however, shouldn’t be going completely dark.
But what if you haven’t the time to pen a post this week, or if you simply feel you’ve nothing to say? Don’t beat yourself up over missing an occasional post, but do realize that it’s all too easy for one week to turn into two, three, or even longer. What happens when your being “busy” makes your blog go Missing In Action in your customers’ eyes—and what can you do to prevent it?
When your blog goes dark, so does customer engagement
I’d lay odds that few bloggers actually intend to go missing in action. I know I don’t, nor does anyone else here at Idea Grove. It can happen to any company’s marketing team, of course, which is why many of Idea Grove’s clients hire us to maintain their content calendars and blogs.
Busy or not, though, once you lose momentum, it can bite you. Life can throw a monkey wrench into even the best laid content calendar. As I said, you might be able to get by missing one week’s post, but miss a second one, and it’s amazing how quickly you can build negative inertia. Before you know it, your customers and prospects are wondering what happened. Where did you go? Worse, because they’ve stopped receiving emails of new posts, they’ll visit your site less often. With less reason to engage with you frequently, you can end up losing a potential sale.
Just remember the purpose of your blog is to engage prospects and nurture a long-term customer relationship with them. If that engagement slows or stops for extended periods, so might your chances of keeping those relationships alive.
Preventing your blog from going M.I.A.
Is your blog calendar and cadence in danger? Here are some tips to ensure one missed post doesn’t land you on the missing in action list.
Yes, as busy as today’s marketing teams are, keeping a company’s blog from going M.I.A. can be a tall order. However, with a little planning and innovation, you can do just that. Using these tips can make it easier to keep up the momentum and keep your online presence fresh and engaging.
Join the conversation