At various workshops and meetups, I field a lot of questions on why someone should blog. They simply don’t see the point.
For me, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t maintain a personal blog. It’s a great way to highlight who you are, participate in the digital mindshare and it’s basically free to get started.
Here are my simple talking points for reasons to publish a blog:
The practice of blogging help you become a stronger, faster writer.
It’s like exercise for your brain. The more you blog, the easier it will become to write, edit and identify new post ideas.
Writing a personal blog is probably one of the easiest ways to get into blogging as you’re simply just writing a public journal. Speak your mind, share your ideas and use this platform to learn and build upon your content marketing strategy. Don’t worry about what others think at this point, they will provide you free feedback if nothing else.
A blog provides a platform to showcase your work.
With this site, you can lure people into digital space to showcase your knowledge and position yourself as a leader (or emerging leader) within your industry. It’s also an opportunity to convert them into an email subscriber, user or point them to another product or service you’re pitching.
By not blogging, I see it as major opportunity lost.
Without a coordinated effort, over time you’re losing a no-cost opportunity to reach new connections and engage existing, own more real estate in the search engines and attract new social followers! Many marketing departments pay big bucks to achieve the above.
I wouldn’t personally call a blog “no-cost” just because it undervalues your time. But still very cost effective.
Another thought that crossed my mind is that you can get to know someone a lot deeper by reading their personal blog than their professional work. I’ve looked up job candidates before their interviews and had no way to really grasp who they are as a person unless they had a blog.
Really excellent points Chris. Thanks a bunch for sharing.