September 21, 2016 / in Blogging / by Jason Terry
Author: Jason Terry (with great help from Mic Johnson!)
The very first blog post for Blue Gurus was an article I wrote and published on March 18th, 2009. That was the month Blue Gurus first opened for business. The title of that first post was “The Power of LinkedIn.com” and what was true then is still true today.
That story went live seven and a half years ago, and we’ve been putting out a blog post just about every week since. To date, we have 347 blog posts published between Mic and I. Mic’s first post was published March 30th, 2010 and the title was “Social Media – The Only Thing You Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.” Amazingly, it’s an idea and perspective he continues to share to this day.
Now I’m not sure if you find any of that background particularly interesting. You might be thinking to yourself, “Self… these guys have been telling real world stories for a long time. Cool.” Or you might be thinking, “Who cares?”
No matter which side of the fence you’re on, here are some thoughts that any business who is blogging (or even those who haven’t started yet) need to consider:
As I was paging through the history of Blue Gurus blog posts in preparation for writing this story, it turned into a virtual walk down memory lane. It was actually a lot of fun. Sprinkled throughout the pages of our posts are pictures of ourselves, our clients, our peers, the nonprofits we’ve adopted over the years, and more. It was amazing to see all of the people we’ve worked with, the inspirational stories, the technology tips, the ups and downs, and how our perspectives have changed and grown over the years.
In case you missed them, here are a few of my favorites:
This is a question we still get today. (even though blogging has been around since the late 1990’s!)
For starters, we’ve grown every year since the doors opened through word-of-mouth referrals. There’s NO QUESTION our blogging has earned us business. To this day, it’s still the only formal marketing we do… and that’s by design. Being able to say we grow every year using our own best practices is a great selling point when talking to potential new clients.
Blogging accelerates growth through referrals. The benefits far outweigh the costs.
We’ve educated people on social, technology, and great local businesses. We’ve put a lot of time and effort in trying to inspire people with the thoughts and ideas that matter to us. And we know it’s been working because rarely a week goes by where someone doesn’t tell us that they enjoyed a post, put one of our best practices to use, tried out a local restaurant we mentioned, and more. Just recently I had someone tell me, “I loved your blog article about hand writing letters and wax stamps. I’ve been doing that since college!”
DON’T MISS THAT. The majority of traditional marketing efforts don’t get people actually TALKING about what you’re doing in your business. When you make a consistent effort to create quality content on a regular basis via your blog…people will start talking. We’ve lived it ourselves…and we’ve lived it with our clients over the last several years.
THANK YOU for reading and sharing our blog. Whether you’re reading it for the first time or have been following us for awhile, we appreciate it more than you know.
I hope this post encourages you to keep blogging at your company… and if you haven’t started yet, it’s time. Believe me… it’s definitely time.
From the very beginning, Blue Gurus have been excellent partners in Swope Health Services' quest to build a better presence online.
Blue Gurus are top notch! They were quick and efficient in building our website and have been very responsive when we've requested updates. They also helped us get our blog started and continue to offer us tips and hints for making the most of that platform. Beyond that, they're just good guys and they make working on our website fun.
Michelle Keller
Vice President, Community Engagement, Development and Outreach at Swope Health
