Blogs can help businesses build brand trust and loyalty

During the last several years, a new form of communicating with Web savvy individuals has become extremely popular: blogging.

You've probably heard of it, but you may not know exactly what it is. Blog is short for "Web log." It is a compilation of your thoughts, opinions, ideas, daily actions or other personal content. Thus, blogging means to write entries or add content to a blog.

It is estimated that more than 100 million blogs exist covering a wide range of topics. Most people are blogging for fun and don't use this powerful medium for business.

However, there are practical business strategies for blogging. When you apply these strategies, you will build brand trust and loyalty with your market. Let me give you two quick and simple strategies you can use with a business blog.

Strategy No. 1 — Provide Valuable Content.

The first strategy is to understand that no one wants to read a blog that doesn't have valuable content. The trick is in knowing what kind of content is considered most valuable. From my experience, the most valuable content is content that makes the consumer feel that their time was well spent.

For example, one Utah blogger offers feedback on local restaurants and her experience with the menu and the service. She has established a loyal following, and now when she recommends a restaurant, her readers flock to eat there. Restaurants now are offering to advertise on her blog, generating a nice revenue stream.

You can offer tips, advice and reviews of any service and then build a following and become their trusted advisor. Because trust is one of the factors in building brand loyalty, this strategy can be a major influence on building trust with your market.

Strategy No. 2 — Involve Your Market in New Project Launches.

Starting a new product, service, Web site, real estate development or a new store location are all examples of project launches with which you can involve your target market. Remember what I said before about building brand trust and loyalty with your blog? Imagine launching a product or service for which your market is anxiously waiting. If you involve your market in the creation of your offering's features, you will have a following that has already endeared itself to your brand.

The application of this strategy can be as simple as asking your market for feedback every step of the way during your planning phase. Then use that feedback in the development of your new real estate community, product, service or solution.