
Blogging for your business is worth it even if you get no traffic - robfitz
http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/2011/12/blogging-for-your-business-is-worth-it-even-if-you-get-no-traffic/
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danhodgins
Video blogging is still an untapped opportunity.

Most people either think it's too much work, or they cannot commit to doing
video blog posts that take 15 - 20 minutes, and put you on any mobile/laptop
screen where an existing or potential customer, joint venture partner, blogger
or reporter might wish to find you 24/7/365.

The idea with blogging is to start a data-driven feedback loop that you can
fine-tune 'on the fly' similar to the following process the author outlined in
the article:

* Capture every idea * Don’t wait for good ideas – shipping regularly creates quality * Don’t obsess — publish posts on the 2nd draft * Watch realtime analytics and heavily polish only the posts which start to take off

Of course some types of startups enjoy viral growth through
invites/recruiting, so perhaps blogging is less important for them.

For many startups creating compelling content, syndicating the heck out of it,
and connecting with as many people as possible are core drivers of organic
traffic growth.

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danso
I guess I'm old fashioned but I almost never look at video blogs...for
informational value anyway. It might be a great way to communicate the
personality/likability of the blogger, but it seems like a really inefficient
way to communicate ideas compared to static graphics and well-formatted text.

Imagine if HN were a discussion board filled with youtube embeds for web-cam
comments.

~~~
danhodgins
You're absolutely right that video blogging is not for everyone, and not for
every startup. I also agree that HN would not work as a web cam comment site.

For the right startups and founders with a certain type of DNA video related
content (with transcripts and time-coded key points) can be an excellent
marketing tactic. Just look at Gary Vaynerchuk - his videos are far from
polished, but they are entertaining, and get the job done.

~~~
robfitz
I've been trying to start on videos[1] because I also feel it's got a lot of
potential reach. Even though the view numbers are significantly lower on my
videos than my blog, I get many more emails and comments about the videos. I
guess people respond better to a face and a voice than to text.

It's definitely something I'll be putting significantly more time toward
exploring in the new year.

[1] About 30 videos up so far at <http://youtube.com/robfitzpatrickable>

~~~
danhodgins
SOME people respond better to a face and voice on video. Others prefer any one
of a kaleidoscope of possible engagement methods. That's why it's important to
try lots of approaches and see which ones resonate with your market.

Use your creativity folks - your videos CAN and WILL rank on page one with the
right SEO (assuming there aren't already 1,000 videos targeting the same
keywords).

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rgrieselhuber
Great post. You mentioned using real time analytics to polish your articles.
What tools did you have in mind?

~~~
robfitz
Hey Ray, thanks. I've tried chartbeat, gosquared, and google's realtime.
They're all fine, but now I mostly just get it via twitter.

It's not "analytics" per se, but the first 10 minutes worth of retweets is a
better indicator of whether a post has legs or not than anything else.

With the proper realtime tools, I would basically just watch for irregular
spikes after I pushed a post. The actual numbers never really mattered.

A quick SMS saying the post was doing better than 80% of my other posts would
do the trick too.

~~~
bravura
How do people know about your blog posts initially? A tweet by you? Anything
else?

~~~
robfitz
Yeah, I tweet it and post a subset (maybe 1 in 5) to HN if I think it's good
and relevant to most people.

I haven't really dug into RSS metrics, but you get those in realtime via
feedburner, so that could be another valid source.

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JS_startup
Blogging has its place in a lot of startups but is hard to justify for ours.
We're selling a purely commercial product to technologically unsavvy clients
who expect a professional public face.

It's a triple whammy. Very few of them follow blogs (you're lucky if they own
a smartphone) and any posts come off either as tacky schilling or
unprofessional commentary. That being said, we still blog for the purpose of
content and keywords for SERPs.

~~~
robfitz
Hey JS, I think you've got two fallacies baked into your perspective.

First, that blogs have to be unprofessional. That's simply not true -- for
more "serious" industries, you can treat the content like mini-whitepapers or
slices of a conference presentation.

Second, that non-technical people can't appreciate and share good content.
They can, although it goes through email rather than rss. If you provide the
mini-report and analysis which helps someone win an intra-management dispute,
you're going to have an evangelist forever.

The less your industry does it already, the more value I see in you breaking
the mould. Which supplier are you going to pick up the phone and call? The one
you've heard very highly of, or the one whose report you just spent the
morning poring over?

~~~
JS_startup
Good points Rob, and I can see what you mean about breaking the mold in an
industry where blogging isn't common.

My comment on the blog posts appearing unprofessional just meant that I can't
take a casual, conversational approach to blogging which makes posts a lot
easier and more fun to write. Everything has to be written from that anonymous
company-as-a-person perspective so the resultant posts are dry and difficult
to write.

I like your idea about providing thorough technical content though, I'm going
to keep it in mind the next time I write one.

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timjahn
Agreed. Blogging can be great for building awareness and credibility, which
can create financial rewards down the road.

