A Blog is for Life, Not Just for Christmas - Blogging for Creative Businesses

Blogging for Creative Businesses

Mark McGuinnesswww.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog

A talk for Create KX (www.createkx.org.uk)

at the British Library Business & IP Centre

(www.bl.uk/bipc) 8.5.07

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What is a blog?

• A website with entries (posts) displayed with (usually) the most recent at the top

• Easy to update

• Easy to search - runs on a database

• Readers can interact via comments + links

• Readers can subscribe to receive latest posts

So what is a blog?

interface

Good News

Ken McCarthy’s Formula

Online Success

Traffic+

Conversion=

www.kenmccarthy.com

Main Sources of Traffic

• Search engines

• Links from other sites

loves blogsGoogle

The best £8.57 I ever spent on marketing

Why Google loves blogs

• Fresh content (regular updates)

• Relevant (keywords)

• Authoritative (links)

Bloggers love links

• Bloggers link generously

• A link from a top blog will help your search engine rankings

• It will also send you quality traffic - people who are interested in your topic

• You gain status from having an influential referrer

Conversion

Visitors to your blog can:

• Subscribe - via RSS or E-mail

• Leave a comment

• Refer other readers (word of mouth)

• Link to you (digital word of mouth)

• Buy! (maybe, eventually)

MoreGood News

Raise Your Profile

• Establish yourself as an authority

• Let people get to know you

• Build trust

• Develop your network

• Learn from readers, bloggers, customers, prospects and competitors

Networking on Steroids

• Networking is key to success in the creative industries

• Blogging connects you with many more people than you would normally meet

• Combine online and offline networking

It’s Cheap!

• Most blogging software free or low cost

• Lots of free blog templates available

• Start out low-cost - upgrade when the blog is earning its keep

A Window of Opportunity

• Small proportion of UK businesses blogging

• Lots of niches up for grabs

Fun!

Bad News

A blog is for life not just for Christmas

Criticism

• People WILL criticize you

• You are expected to engage with them

• Sometimes it gets personal

Technical Knowledge

• It’s a lot easier than building a website

• It’s a bit harder than using Word

The Legal Minefield

• Blogs have same legal status as magazines and other publications

• Libel and defamation

• Copyright, trademarks

A blog is not enough

Good Blogs

Be Yourself

Don’t Sell

Be Patient

Good Business Blogs

• Focused

• Original

• Generous

• Useful / Educational

• Entertaining

www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/kx

• All the links from this talk

• Information about blogging software and other tools

• An explanation of RSS!

www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog

• More about creativity and creative business

• Free updates via E-mail or RSS

Mark McGuinness

I’m a poet and a business coach specialising in work with creative professionals and their managers.

My blog about coaching, creativity and business is at www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/blog

and this is my poetry blog - www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/poetry

E-mail: wish@wishfulthinking.co.uk Web: www.wishfulthinking.co.uk