Blogging for Business: How to choose the Right Platform

Lady in office

Many business professionals and entrepreneurs do now know that Blogging is an essential ingredient for success of businesses, big or small. It’s also a great tool for upcoming journalists, photographers, artists and virtually all industry new comers or even old players to embrace the medium and carve out a content platform of their own.

Those who blog know that the rules are no static, technology changes, new platforms come on board and potential keeps improving just like new users online keep increasing. All these factors affect the rules, so no one is an expert in this field. Businesses that succeed at creating some of the best blog sites have done that by being more interactive, giving readers a behind the scene look at what they do or offer to the market, collaboration through guest blog posts and at times offer tips.

In the blogosphere there are 3 main platforms to choose from: WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr and they all are unique and special in offer to fit you business requirements.  If you own a content driven business like a publication, international beauty corporation WordPress or Blogger may be the best for you. If you are a photographer and relay more on photos than words, then Tumblr is most likely the best for you. Whichever platform you’ll choose, they all have their pros and corns.

Blogger

Blogger

Pros: Best for beginners, this is the best platform for getting started, it’s easy to navigate with very user-friendly graphics and directions for where to preview, post, insert pictures , drafts, upload videos and check out daily activity updates on your dashboard. As with other platforms there are templates and theme designs available. Blogger also auto saves drafts every minute so you can rest assured your draft will be saved in case of power cut or computer crushing.

Cons: Has limited number of templates to choose from in comparison to WordPress. Customizing widgets is also a trick. It also lacks the bells and whistles that have made the other platforms more viable for savvy bloggers.

WordPress

WordPress

Pros: WordPress is now recognized as the Crème de la Crème of blogging platforms. You can sign up for a free blog at WordPress.com or a self hosted version via WordPress.org. Also boost of numerous features to help manage multiple authors and support more robust content. There are also numerous themes to choose from offering more professional content and comes with the bells and whistles.

Cons: It’s not easy to tell who is following your blog and also expect some level of distress in uploading photos or videos if not yet well conversant with the platform. to track growth of your audience you will need third parties such as wimbiya.

Tumblr

Tumblr

Pros: it’s a micro blogging platform and social network site that allows you to post short form blogs with ease. It has a great number of themes to choose from and best for “niche” bloggers with more photographic content.

Cons: It’s not fully featured so you will not have as much control over formatting.  Also you can’t self host meaning when the site experiences technical problems, your site goes down too.

Businesses only need to note that blogging is not a quick fix solution to brand development or sales but a communication tool that should be supplementary and not used in isolation. The blogosphere is an open place for all with an idea or opinion to find others to rally behind them. Thus the funs of you Business blog are always the most enlighten to spread good news about you.