Marketing With Blogs - Part 3

In earlier articles in this series on marketing with blogs, I discussed the reasons why blogs are excellent tools for marketing, and provided some tips on using your blog to sell your products and services online.

This article continues with more tips on using your blog to brand yourself and boost your reputation online.

• Use Your Blog To Inform, Share and Entertain

The reasons why they read your blog is because they want three things.

1. They want information

2. They want to be entertained

3. They want to get to know you better

The reason why blogs are so popular with internet users is because they allow us to combine all these possibilities in a single medium.

Use your personality, opinions, expressions as a way of drawing readers to your content, and create good information to keep them coming back.

Multimedia blogs are especially good for this purpose - because they entertain and that adds a viral component to your marketing.

Remember to always be yourself. Don't put on a fake persona. If you hire someone to blog for you be upfront about it.

• Become A Source Of News In Your Industry

Blogging culture thrives on linking to others blogs or news sources.

If you want to be part of that culture, benefit from it and grow with it, you need to listen to what others are saying, form your own opinions and comment on that.

Your readers will start looking to you as a resource of news and opinions about the industry you represent and that builds your brand equity.

But always remember to give proper attribution to your sources and be clear when you are quoting from someone or you could get into trouble.

• Use Your Blog To Network

Networking helps you build up a list of people who know and trust you enough to refer business to you.

By linking with others, whether A-list bloggers or your own peers, you can build your own influence and reputation in your blogosphere.

In the next article, I provide tips on using your blog help you boost your marketing ROI and visibility online.

Priya Florence Shah is a former journalist, editor and online publisher and content marketing consultant. She runs a business blog consulting firm that offers blogging services to help you brand yourself and your business online.