Another way that blogging can help to drive your brands success is by cultivating an online platform such as a blog where you can interact with your customers, both indirectly and directly. This platform allows you to test the waters about potential directions for your brand, and also lets you see which ideas take off. You often hear about bands with an incredibly popular single song, but who don’t see much success from their other work. Sometimes these singers view this negatively, feeling that their other work is underappreciated. As a business owner, it is your job to completely avoid such feelings. If something is popular and wanted, latch onto that! Make that the core of your strategy, and use that product or service to be profitable.
That’s where the blog comes in. If you are looking at your own work from your own perspective, you might not necessarily understand how your customers feel about a product. Some CEOs and leaders have hurt their company badly when they refuse to listen to what the people want, and instead insist on telling them what they should want. In other words, don’t trust your own intuition and experience too much. Sometimes, despite our experience and training, we are simply wrong about what services will be popular.
A blog lets you measure reception to ideas and services. If a blog post about a potential service goes viral, you can be pretty sure that there is interest. You may have never known how popular something would be had you not given people the opportunity to vote with their clicks and shares.
Aside from this indirect method of gauging customer response through clicks and shares, you can also get a good idea how they feel through feedback. A blog creates a forum where the public can communicate directly to you. Take advantage of this resource.
However, I must caution anyone looking to use a forum for engagement that you will need a tough skin and the utmost professionalism. The internet can be an unfriendly place where online “trolls” seek to cause discord. Generally speaking, look at trends rather than individual comments. There will always be people willing to voice a negative opinion. Look for the consensus of opinions rather than being afraid because of one (potentially dishonest or confused) reviewer. In this situation, forum moderation can help, but beware of creating an echo chamber where you will not get accurate feedback.
