Focusing Your Business Blog on Secondary Topics

Many people think of a business blog as a way of advertising your business. It is. But the content of the blog doesn’t have to be focused on your company, its services, its successes, etc.

In fact, more and more business blogs are more loosely tied with the core business from the perspective of services, offerings and certainly from sales pitches.

Business blogs can do so much more than be glorified sales pitches:

1. Highlight your brand, uniqueness and identity
2. Give consumers an inside look into what you’re about and what you care about
3. Provide information resources to earn trust and respect

iMedia Connection has a good review of two business blogs run by Wells Fargo. The first, The Studen LoanDown is all about college financing and financial aid. I’m sure Wells Fargo gives out student loans by the bucketload, but they don’t overly brand the side or emphasize their services.

They’ve picked a specific topic, one that smartly targets a younger audience (heavy into blog reading), and they’re developing a good information product. Yes, there are plenty of links back to Wells Fargo, but this isn’t Wells Fargo talking about Wells Fargo.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in the subject of financial aid and student loans go check out Chris Penn’s podcast The Financial Aid Podcast.

The second Wells Fargo blog is called Guided by History, which focuses on disaster relief. This is a far cry from any Wells Fargo-related services, but it helps to accomplish point #2 above — show customers and prospects what you care about, and why they should care about you.

A successful business blog can focus on any number of secondary topics or corollary subjects to your core business. It gives business owners the opportunity to spread their wings, expand their brand and get into the world without having to be hammering home a sales pitch every second of the day.

Tags: wells fargo, imedia connection, business blogging, corporate blogging, business blogs, corporate blogs, weblogs, sales, branding, business success