When writing a business blog, one area to be considered when designing your posts is the balance between posts which are non specifically appealing to a wide variety of potential viewers, and posts which will target a narrow slice of the population. Wide appeal can help spread your message further, and potentially introduce your brand to a huge number of people. Targeted posts that might only appeal to a specific audience lack the potential to spread, but can have a much greater impact on their targets. Properly understanding these tools will help you to engage people and spread your brand.
Broad, nonspecific posts are sometimes a good choice. Additionally, they are fairly safe. In these posts, subject matter is not particularly important. While it should still be somewhat focused on topics somewhat related to your business, pick something that you can explain or talk about to a layman. Someone who has no knowledge about your products, business model, or the jargon of your field should be able to read and understand your article. More importantly, it should be interesting to them. This is much more easily said than done, as clumsy attempts at humor or levity can alienate rather than engage your audience. A skilled writer with a strong and personable voice may not be easy to find, but their skills will be invaluable. The key element of this type of post is the charisma and accessibility of the writing.
Targeted posting is appropriate when looking to directly drive sales or engage niche customers. These posts will not have the widespread appeal of a broader post, but come with the benefit of allowing you to develop a much more powerful knowledge based rapport with your user base. The point of a detailed and targeted post is to appeal to a certain subset of the population who will potentially be interested in a service you provide. Therefore, obtaining and understanding reliable information about the demographics of your customers can be a critically important tool when looking to create a post like this. One major thing to avoid here is the appearance of pandering or patronizing. If your users feel like they are being pandered to or looked down on, they will easily become angry or resentful towards your brand. Therefore, the writer should ideally be quite familiar with or immersed in the culture of your target demographic. Taking the time to properly identify which type of post best suits your needs at the moment will be a powerful step in increasing the effectiveness of your blog.
