How to Blog Part 19: Should Your Business Have a Blog?
By: Lorelle VanFossen
Tags: agency blogging, blog, blogging, business blogging, chris brogan, how to blog, instant pot, passion, should you blog, writing
Category: How to Blog
The question before us today is a business blog. Should your business have a blog?
Remember, a blog is a website with content displayed in reverse chronological order. It is the author behind it and the content that makes a blog special. Still, should your business have a blog?
In “Nobody Reads Agency Blogs – Or Why You Need Skin in the Game” by Chris Brogan, he says that no one ready agency blogs because they are boring, so why should you blog?
An agency should blog about the space it serves, in some regards, but along with that, an agency (and YOU!!!!) should blog about those things you’re passionate about. My dad is passionate about poker. My mom is passionate about proving you can do it if you try. I’m passionate about keeping “human” in the digital business channel.
Write about passion, but write it in service to others.
If you did only this, you’d get more attention, more readers, more connections via your blog. What people want is to feel lit up, to feel like you and they are on the same page, like they can run with what you’ve shared, or they can add to it, or they can bask in it and feel it.
Instant Pot is a pressure cooker, steam cooker, and crock pot in one, plus more. Created by Dr. Robert Wang of the Canadian company Double Insight Inc., this cooking tool is computerized and designed to cook healthy meals fast. The latest version links to a smart phone with recipe instructions for a variety of meals. You would think that a company making such a device wouldn’t blog. They have an active blog with many comments on most posts. In addition to the typical announcements and general news, tips, and information, the company actively promotes and shares posts from their favorite bloggers covering cooking techniques with their Instant Pots, but also tips, recipes, and techniques in general for pressure, steam, and related cooking techniques. A cooking tool with a social and social media conscious. Perfect for today.
Examples of their popular recent posts include How to Clean the Bluish Marks at the Bottom of the Instant Pot Inner Pot, The Benefits of Electric Pressure Cooking with Laura Pazzaglia of Hip Pressure Cooking and a book of the same name, Electric Pressure Cooker Benefits Infographic, What is the iPot made for?, and Spring Electric Pressure Cooker Recipe Contest.
While Instant Pot is featured on Amazon.com and promoted at tech and cooking events, word-of-mouth is spreading and people are actively endorsing the cookers, coming to the blog and participating actively in the conversations. Instant Pot’s Facebook page has over 4,000 likes and thousands of followers.
Dr. Wang made his passion work for him through the blog. Chris Brogan would admit that this is an agency passionate about its products, generating enthusiasm in their customers, turning them into fans.
Brogan explained that it took him eight years to get his first 100 readers:
They saw me transition from someone writing about myself to someone writing ideas that would equip people around me to be successful. That was the nugget. That’s when things started taking off. That’s when I realized that I could write almost every day and have something to say, because people are always noodling over some part of the problem.
Thousands of blog posts later supporting hundreds of thousands of fans, Brogan knows of what he speaks. A company that gets that point, that a successful site is one with a clear purpose and focus, one that helps people understand, and one that shares their excitement and passions, that is a company that should blog.
If you aren’t in this with all of your passion, talking about the passion, helping others find and live their passion, stop now.
Blog Your Passion 
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