If there’s one thing and one thing only that you need to know about social media, it’s this: social media is not about hard selling to your customers. Once you’ve got that rule in place some people tend to become a little bit unstuck – so what are you supposed to talk about on social media if you’re not shouting about what you’re selling?

Good news – this is where blogging comes in! Blogging gives business owners a platform to tell their customers about a wider range of things which might be useful, interesting or relevant to their business. So why is blogging so important?

Consumer behaviour has changed a great deal in response to the rise of the internet and social media. People are bombarded by constant advertising and as a result, the transparency of a hard-sell ad can be tuned out by the masses. To get in front of your customers and to be remembered it’s important to adapt the way you market and focus on building a relationship with the customer, rather than just focusing on a single transaction.

Social media is great for this and blogs are even better, because they allow you to share more with your customer than just the latest products and offers. Blogging lets you put your knowledge out there and attract a customer more likely to buy because they are interested in what you’re saying and in the people behind the business. In addition to this, social media is a great way to boost the interest and traffic to your blog – a short, eye-catching post with a link to your blog is ideal.

After all, building a relationship with the customer has to be a main goal on social media. Every follow and ‘like’ you receive on social media does not belong to you forever – behind them is a person and potential customer who will become bored if your social media strategy is too focused upon selling. In order to make the most of your social media connections, there need to be tools in place to attract customers to your website via social media platforms. Blogging on topics that will interest your customer and keep their attention for longer are more likely to do that.

To make sure your blogging and social media activities are effective make sure you’re measuring traffic on Google Analytics and on the in-built analytical tools on the social media sites you use. This will help you to gauge how many people are interested in what you’re saying and help you to tailor your blogging content for your audience, so that you can give them more of what they want in future. Give it a go today!

What do you think? Let us know in the comment box below.

By Harriet Thacker

Harriet is a marketing expert and social media enthusiast.

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