9 Reasons Why You Should Blog

1. Attract an Audience

Blogging enables you to reach the billions of people that use the Internet. Blogging can help you promote yourself or your business. Blogging works as a method for attracting an audience because it provides something of value to them before asking for anything in return.

2. Establish Authority

Having a blog and writing about important topics that are relevant to your audience establishes yourself as an authority in the space. It enhances your professional image. A blog is to professionals in the 2000s what a business card was in the 1990s. Blogs are the new business cards.

3. Build Rapport and Engagement

Blogging can convert traffic into leads and leads into customers. Blogging can “warm up” your cold calls and traffic from other sources. If someone receives your cold call, they may be more receptive if they’ve read your blog and received value from it.

4. Create Opportunities

Blogging can lead to other business/traffic generating opportunities. For example, speaking engagements or press. I’ve had people contact me to speak at conferences who found me through my blog. Blogging enables anyone with something interesting or valuable to say to be identified as an expert.

5. Organize Your Thoughts and Learn

Blogging forces you to teach yourself what you don’t know and to articulate what you do know. When you begin writing a blog post, you are forced to organize your thoughts. If there are any gaps in the topic that you are writing about, you will have to learn about it. Writing out and articulating your thoughts is a great way to internalize something you’ve learned or experienced. Writing helps you become more familiar with the topic you’re writing about.

6. Tell Your Story

Blogging enables you to be your own media company. You can tell your story the way you want to tell it without being dependent on journalists. When you are writing about a topic of your own interest, you can decide how to portray a story, what information to include, and what information to exclude. Blogging allows you to ensure that all information included in the blog is factual.

7. Meet New People

The audience you attract through blogging doesn’t have to just be your “audience.” They can become your friends, colleagues, partners, or lovers. I’ve had many people reach out to me directly after reading my blog. Some of those people have become friends or good business contacts.

8. Stand Out

According to “the 1 percent rule,” only 1 percent of Internet users actively create new content, while the other 99 percent of the participants simply view it. By blogging, you separate yourself from the 99 percent of people that don’t blog. Standing out is essential in an increasingly competitive economy.

9. Validate Expertise

Blogs are the new resumes. Blogging about a topic you would like to be viewed as an expert in, can illustrate to readers, employers, and your network, that you are are skilled and knowledgeable.