A friend recently asked me if a blog could help his online business. I explained in great detail how he could develop more effective partnerships, increase the number of repeat customers, and turn his best customers into a tribe.
The next day, he came back and announced to me, “I’m having someone build a real website instead of just doing the blog thing.”
I urged, pleaded, begged and even sent him my interview with Chris Garrett. When that didn’t work, I decided to start a weekly series of “Blog vs. Website” video tutorials (inspired by my son’s obsession with Transformers - 
).
Round 1: Building Relationships With Customers /Connecting With The Tribe
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One-Way Versus Two-Way
- A traditional website offers very little opportunity for two-way conversations.
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Your Customers Want To Give You Their Love
- Blog facilitates the increasingly desired dialogue that your customers (or donors) want to have with you.
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Your Customers Want To Love Your Community
- A blog offers huge value to your customers by providing a venue where they can connect with folks that share the same interests. Traditional websites have no tools to nurture a tribe.
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Your Customers Want You To Let The Love In
- A blog will embolden your biggest fans to link your business or non-profit to other communities on the web. Finally, as you develop your blog, you will develop partnerships with other bloggers.
What crucial blog benefits did I miss? Will Optimus Prime defeat the evil Megatron?
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Great video, you have this stuff down
Community, engagement, permission - all going to be crucial over the coming months and years. Long term value. Nuff said.
The main reason I have seen businesses switch is the SEO benefit. I can’t count the number of times people have said “this internet stuff doesn’t work, I paid $x and got a ‘professional’ website and nobody visits” - if you can stop yourself telling them exactly how professional their site likely is if they get zero visits, then you can usually win them over by showing how even beginner bloggers can get pretty good search engine rankings just by writing about their topic.
Blogs are a lot like transformers, for sure: more than meets the eye! Ask your friend how easily he can change his website without going through a big hassle.
@Chris - Thanks for the kind words. Great point about SEO (more on that in “round 3″).
@Michael - Completely agree. I recently did some work with a local non-profit who had to contact the person who hosted their website for “free” EVERY time they had to upload content or even add a photo. Ridiculous!
Websites might lose the “popular opinion” rounds, but blogs always win the “common sense” rounds
John
That’s why in recent years we can see the trend of more and more company blogs launched by big companies helping them to directly connect with their customers and getting the valuable feedback from them.
Excellent video.
Rajeev,
Thanks for the comment. Actually, Ford Motor has a blog - would you believe it!
John
John,
I agree with everyone else. Your video explains, in simple language, what a blog is really all about without all of the technobabel that usually accompanies technical topics.
I recently signed up for your newsletter and I am glad that I did.
Rich
Rich,
Thanks for the compliment. In truth, I’m not that technical of a person - these videos are are an attempt to communicate business value of a blog.
John
John - another great blog post. You’ve got me hooked.
As a new user/blogger, what did you use to produce your video? Great way to show your audience how to comment and engage on a blog. This is great info for anyone new to blogging.
Jeff - I use a program called “Screenflow” and plan on doing many videos for the blog. Additionally, I’m working on several subscription products designed to educate non-profits about social media - I’ll be using video to teach the “how-tos”.
John
The videos are great! Thanks. Where’s round 3?!
I’m a realtor. I’m getting ready to build my own website (I’ve been relying on my company’s) or commit to a regular blog. The realtor-packaged-website web service provider I would probably use has blogging integrated into the website. What do you think of that as an option? Is it overkill? I resist blogging because I don’t enjoy or follow blogs much myself. Mainly, I find an interesting blog article (like this one) from time to time. Thanks for your thoughts!
Laura - Round three is next week - the Pilgrims and Native American Indians had to go ahead and mess up my schedule!
Scrap the web-site - get a blog. Very easy to use (round 4?)
John