The Strengths and Weaknesses of Blogging as a Marketing Tool

·A blog is particularly useful pull marketing tool through the use of search engine optimization, companies can use numerous keywords in a blog for their product which in turn will push them up in the SERP and generate more traffic to their site which in turn should hopefully lead to more sales.

·You can push blog content on social media, so if a reader finds a blog to be worth their time and feel it can be beneficial to others, they can easily share it on other social media platforms, creating even more traffic.

·A blog is a good way to build customer and brand loyalty, blogs don’t have to be professional, they can come as casual and relate to the customer on a human level while also being informative and give them the answers they are looking for, this can keep customers engaged and coming back to a company's blog page, creating a sense of community around the brand.

·Blogs are also a good way to start experimenting with a product or services advertising without putting too much expense into it, a blog simply requires a web domain and the know how to set one up, and should a company know how to utilize SEO, then a blog can be a cheap and effective way to test the waters with something.

·However blogging also has it’s disadvantages, for example, it can be time consuming, blog’s need to be written carefully, whether casual or professional, a blog needs to hook it’s customer and needs to be concise in its information, a customer isn’t going to read a ten page blog to find out if a product is for them or not, it needs to packed full of information and keywords in a relatively small article, this can take time to draft and publish.

·A blog needs to remain consistent, it isn’t a good look for a company if a blog hasn’t been updated in a few months or even a year, if a company is going to commit to a blog and try and gain an audience, then they must do so for the long haul or else take down the blog entirely, even if they have published some good content on it.

·Differentiation from the competition is hard is the blogging space, lots of companies are using blogs now to garner a community and thus, the keyword and SEO techniques are becoming more and more difficult as every company is looking to reach the top of the SERP.

·Like other e-tools, companies and entrepreneurs must be open to negative feedback about their blog and their product, particularly when it comes to blogging where someone is trying to engage with their customers and interact with them more personally, getting negative feedback can be disheartening for some.