BLOG

By Maggie Markert, Senior Strategist

In today’s digital world, it is no secret that social media is a must-have for businesses. A 2018 report from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that an overwhelming majority of Fortune 500 companies agree that social media is extremely important, with:

• 98% of companies using LinkedIn
• 91% of companies using Twitter
• 89% of companies using Facebook
• 63% of companies using Instagram

What’s important to note about the use of social media among Fortune 500 companies is that they provide great insight into what trends we’ll likely see emerge among other companies. One of the trends that we’ve seen gain more traction in business – more than it has ever before – is blogging.

According to the report from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, corporate blogs are becoming increasingly more prevalent. In fact, as of 2018, 53% of Fortune 500 companies now have corporate blogs, including companies in insurance, banking, healthcare, financial data services, and more. This is an 11% increase from the prior year.

What’s Causing the Increased Emergence of Corporate Blogs?

In the past, for some companies, blogs were just another way to share their important news or other self-promotional content such as philanthropic initiatives. But, today, more and more companies are realizing the important benefits corporate blogs have for their businesses.

Two of the key benefits blogs provide are:

1. Improved SEO

Having and regularly maintaining a blog on your company’s website can provide an advantage when it comes to SEO. By using the right key words on your blog page on your website and throughout your blog posts, can boost your standing in search engines when individuals (potential prospects) look for specific information related to your area of work. Ultimately, if done the right way, blogging can help drive traffic to your website and covert leads for sales.

2. A Platform for Thought Leadership

A corporate blog is a great way to showcase the expertise and knowledge of your executive team and employees on particular topic areas related to the service or product your company provides. Whether it is reacting to a current event that could impact or have implications on your industry or explaining a certain topic (For instance, if you’re in financial services, this could be discussing the affect artificial intelligence could have), a corporate blog can be used to position your company, executives and employees as the experts on the topics that are most important to your business, customers and prospects. This also lends itself to SEO. The more you are regularly discussing topics that are in line with keywords customers and prospects are searching for on the internet, you could see an increase in website traffic and potentially leads.

Given the significant benefits corporate blogs can provide, companies should consider adding it to their overall social media strategy or improving their blog practices.

However, it is important to remember that for blogging to be successful and provide the benefits discussed earlier in this post, companies must:

• Dedicate a considerable amount of time and resources – primarily talent in marketing, social media, and writing – to the process for strategy, research and development.
• Be patient and give blogging a chance, as success won’t happen overnight.