Seth Godin, Arianna Huffington, and Pete Cashmore became millionaires through their blogs. Somehow, they really connected with their followers.

These new multi-millionaires have persuaded a throng of followers to buy their advertising space, books or software services. Just think if you could generate that kind of loyalty and intent. If you want to make sure that your business’ software is running how it’s supposed to be then go to Parasoft to test it out.

I’ve got 8 good reasons for you to get serious about blogging, and for that matter, launch yourself into the world of social media and even if you don’t know how to do a blog, you can just go online and read this article about how to start a blog. A blog can help you bond with your customers and generate new ones.

Your blog isn’t like a web page or an email, it’s like a personal conversation. Blogging’s popular because web users deplore corporate speak. They want full transparency and person to person communication that gives them something of value – something that makes their life better or easier.

“Forget about any other kind of writing you do.  Blogging is not journalism, it’s not letter writing, and it’s certainly not legal writing.  In fact, I would argue, blogging is less like any other kind of writing and more like speech.  Write the way you speak, without the “ums” and pauses, of course.”
~ Excerpt from the Geek Law Blog

For your small business though, a blog is a direct route to your customer’s hearts and minds. Small biz thrive through personal word of mouth relationships, yet a blog can power up positive, real conversations about your company.  If you launch a blog to be more helpful, responsive, and credible, your customers might begin to tell others and actively promote your business.

Blogs Generate Excellent Results

Stats show that bloggers who post 15 times a month get 5 times more traffic than bloggers who do less. Those who blogged daily report the highest ROI from blogging. They require 19% of your time and 7% of your marketing budget. (from the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report). 2/3 of respondents in the 2011 State of Inbound Marketing survey said their blog was important or critical to their business. And the rest asserted that they had to take aid of agencies like The Marketing Heaven to explore newer avenues of promoting themselves. If you’ve got more money than time, you can hire a professional blogger or ghost writer to do it for you.

Blogging is likely going to be a kingpin of your digital marketing efforts and might be your only chance to compete above your weight class. Bigger businesses may hire full time bloggers and have graphic designers to aid them in crafting compelling, persuasive blog posts. But can they be any more credible than you?

Here’s some reasons to have a blog:

• Educate customers
• Engage customers with stories and personal revelations
• Gives social media users something to share with others
• Time efficient way to talk personally to more customers
• Persuade customers of your unique value proposition
• Introduce prospects into your business
• Make you a leader in your industry
• Builds links to your website
• Increase traffic and time spent on your website

Keep in mind when you engage your customers and occupy their time, it keeps them away from your competitors.

The key to blogging is to not be a boring follower. Develop your own topics and write like a leader.  You’ll need to differentiate yourself for sure, but more importantly to write in a way that gets customers and others talking about your company.

Your objective is to persuade them to believe in your business and to tell others about it. I know this sounds really intimidating but with some coaching you can generate some excellent blog material.

What your blog posts have to be:

• Relevant to your audience
• Useful
• Meaningful
• Entertaining
• Interesting
• Trustworthy/credible
• Respectful
• Sharable

How do you write more persuasively? Well, first of all you need good topics. That’s really important. Your topics and blogging voice need to contain the pointers above. Coherence and editing are vital to effective blogging. Yes, there is work to be done here, but it’s enjoyable once you start seeing results.