Creating Original Content --- First and Foremost for Blogging

Do you know many websites are built on a WordPress (blog) theme?  Oh yes.  People are very likely reading blogs when they browse contents on the internet, and blogging can be very effective in marketing communications and making sales.  Yet, how does blogging different from Facebook or Twitter updates?  What can we expected from a good blog post?

Blog is definitely different from Facebook, Twitter, or other social media sites.  Blogging is more than just an update.  There is no set limit on how many characters a blog post can have, allowing people to publish longer and more in-depth discussion.  Plus, bloggers can embed other social media contents in a post (e.g., pictures and videos).

I started blogging about four years ago.  When I first started, I did more “sharing” than “creating.”  I shared the news articles that I found interesting and relevant to my target audience.  My blog posts read more like summaries of relevant news articles with very little in-depth discussion.  Over time, I saw a steady increase of pageviews, but I wondered why would people want to read my “summaries.”  They can easily find summaries of news updates on the internet.  If they only want to read the news articles that are relevant to them (e.g., my blog is related to hospitality management and social media), they can sign up for those subscription services available on the internet and the news will “find” them instead.  Moreover, if I only want to share news articles, I can do that just as well on Twitter or Facebook.  Why do I bother to talk about those updates on my blog?

To me, a good blog discussion must reveal what is “inside” of the author, and good bloggers post original content.  They share their unique perspectives of an event or develop knowledge-based propositions.  If a blogger simply shares a summary of somebody else’s work, s/he is just “manipulating content.” Creating original content should be the first and foremost indication of a good blog post. 

In fact, creating original content has become extremely important in social media marketing and business communications. Taco Bell, for example, shared in the Big Data Idea Exchange Workshop @UCIrvine that the company had sent the social media team to The New York Times and The Huffington Post for training because Taco Bell also wants to be a content creator on social media.  Evidence from Taco Bell’s social media presence has shown the training had paid off.

Do you read blogs? Please share with us what blogs or websites you visit often and what draws you back to those blogs or websites. 

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The picture was downloaded from Profalbrecht.wordpress.com