Is More More, Or Less More, In Blogs?

Earlier this week, I compared blogs to real estate stagers (see "Staging Your Business Blog"). I love watching HGTV, especially shows where professional stagers on a limited budget work miracles getting a home ready to sell. The homeowners always seem to have decors that are either too bare or too cluttered.  The stagers are either combing bargain furniture stores for decorative pillows, vases, picture frames, and mirrors to adorn the place, or they’re busy taking stuff off the shelves and off the walls and putting that stuff out of sight.  So, I gather, in accessorizing a home, more isn’t always good, but too little isn’t good, either. 

That is so reminiscent of a dilemma business owners face in blogging.  Obviously, blogging is about content. As Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware notes, "Blogging is unique in that it’s largely a quantity game", adding that consistently generating brief content is what does most for a company’s blogging program.  Statistics show that increases in content creation lead to increases in traffic to the blog.

However, as any stager will tell you, being brief doesn’t mean being boring.  As blogging consultant Mack Collier points out, most companies spend too much time blogging about themselves.  And, while blogs should be "small" (readers should not need to scroll down to read "the rest of the story"), the way to make blogs exciting, Collier advises, is by finding your "bigger idea".  In other words, rather than touting your company’s pet grooming product, blog about the proper way to groom pets.

When I’m talking with new clients about setting up their blog, I sometimes need to quell fears that they’ll be giving away valuable information "for free". (This is particularly true of personal service and advice businesses.) But what will really be happening as that, through providing valuable information in their business blogs, the business owners will be positioning themselves as experts and "go-to" guys and gals.

In short (pun intended!) what you want to shoot for in your business blog is providing value, so that less really does become more!