The complicated puzzle of blog content management can often be solved after we’ve truly figured out who our audience is. Just who are your customers? Who are those names in your email database? Furthermore, who are the people who respond to your tweets and Facebook posts or enter your company’s contest? Once you’ve identified who you’re talking to and who you want to talk to, your blog can be more focused, less stodgy, more conversational and more entertaining to read. We see brands that sell toys and services made for children do exactly that by blogging directly to the folks picking up the tab: mom & dad. Teddy bear factory and all-around huggable experience Build-a-Bear, for example, is a brand that knows this and knows how to use blogging to reach out to the entire family and the blogging community at large.
Behind the Seams, the adorably named and perfectly executed blog by Build-A-Bear, is built on WordPress. A company built on building teddy bears naturally blogs about literally making furry friends, in-store events, crafty ideas like planting flowers and making cupcakes and Twitter promotions. Since parents are in charge of organizing trips to the local Build-a-Bear, the blog is written for them and not the kiddos. Instead, the children are directed to Build-a-Bear’s online children’s magazine, Cubazine. Can’t find Behind the Seams or Cubazine? Build-a-Bear’s comprehensive digital marketing also includes another blog on Blogger, an active Pinterest page and plush-flavored micro-blogging over at Twitter. Build-a-Bear is a brand which clearly realizes how crowded the children’s toy market is and uses blogging on different platforms to help stand out from the pack.
The company also engages the blogging community on both WordPress and Blogger, and this a super idea for any size company. Sure, hosting your blog on your own site gives you total control over how your blog looks and reads while making it simple to direct users back to the main home of your website. Yet using a public and mostly free platform gives you something valuable, too — a built-in audience of people you may not already reach! Blogger and WordPress have millions of users, and brands that choose these sites for blog creation get access to them too with very little effort required. Are they perfect for every business? No, but for new brands or companies looking to using blogging to talk to more people, it could be a snuggly, cuddly solution!
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