8 Blog Goals to Consider
When it comes to blogging, many companies and bloggers feel that they can just wing it. Think again!
Blogging requires a lot time and personal investment. Therefore, it’s a good idea to develop strategies for your blog. The first step in creating your blog strategy, a plan of action often using one or more tactics to achieve specific objectives, is to determine your goals.
Here are the major eight goals for blogs. (If you’re having trouble, check out With 74,583 New Blogs in the Last 24 Hours, Who Needs Yours? as a starting point.)
- Make money. For many bloggers visions of working in pajamas and having money automatically go into their bank account is their number one goal. But, before you quit your day job, take a look at Technorati’s 2010 State of the Blogosphere to see if blogging will yield sufficient revenue.
- Build a brand. This can be especially important for a company with a limited budget to help enhance its reputation and to expand its reach to new prospects. Stacks and Stacks, a Container Store competitor, uses its Clutter Control Freak blog to attract new customers by supplying information about its products.
- Provide product support. Give consumers additional information to help them use products better. While most often created by manufacturers and retailers to attract new customers, avid fans or related organizations may also supply this content. Two Peas in a Bucket supplies lots of content and also ties in users’ blogs.
- Create thought leadership platform. Often used by senior management, professionals and consultants to share their insights on topics related to their area of expertise as well as life in general. This type of blog positions them in their special field. A VC, Musings of a Venture Capitalist by Fred Wilson of Flatiron Partners is this type of blog.
- Share knowledge. These are blogs where experts write with the aim of distributing their wisdom on a specific topic. Having acquired their training via a variety of ways, including the school of hard knocks, they seek to be recognized as the leading authorities in their fields.
- Extend your media reach. While many companies consider blogging as a means of getting their message out, this goal generally applies to media entities that leverage blogs to interact with readers on a related platform. Additionally, there are media entities that are blogs, notably Gawker and TechCrunch.
- Form a community. Using comments and having multiple authors enables a blog to create a sense of belonging. Fiskars, the scissors company, developed their Fisk-a-teers website along these lines.
- Add your personal perspective. In old-fashioned book terms, it’s similar to a personal memoir. This comes from a desire to share your views on a specific topic or insights based on something that’s happened to you or someone close to you. It’s important to realize that, without promoting your blog, you may have a limited readership.
For a new blogger, determining your goals may seem daunting but it’s useful and gives your blog a sense of purpose. Additionally, you should examine your goals on a regular basis, generally once a year to ensure that they still make sense.
If you have any other suggestions to add to this list, please include them in the comments section below.
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
Tip of my hat to Mack Collier and the member of Blog Chat for inspiring this blog post.
Here are some related articles on blogging
- 7 Points to Create Your Blog’s Personality
- 12 Suggestions to Overcome Blank Blog Post Syndrome
- How to Generate Blog Posts Without Really Trying
- 12 Ways to Grow Your Blog Audience – Flog Your Blog – Part 1 of 2
- 15 Ways to Expand Your Blog Audience – Flog Your Blog – Part 2 of 2
- What Desperate Housewives Can Teach You About Blog Comments
Photo credit: Lululemon Athletica via Flickr
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