Giving Your Real Estate Blog A Purpose
For what purpose do you use your real estate blog? What is your blogging mission? What do you hope to achieve as a result of your real estate blogging effort?
These are all questions you should answer in advance, long before you start publishing to your blog.
Sure, you can just wing it, if you want to. But you will get more from your blogging efforts if you identify your real estate blog’s purpose in advance. On top of that, your blog will be much easier to manage if you have a purpose and mission already laid out. Let’s look at an example of a purposeful blog.
A Real Estate Blog Scenario
Let’s say I’m a real estate agent in Chicago, Illinois. I’m looking for a way to distinguish myself, and I also want to capture more business from the Internet. I hear about the benefits of real estate blogs and decide to launch a blog of my own.
But I don’t want this to be just any real estate agent blog. I want it to be special, unique, and attention-getting. So I sit down with a piece of paper and start brainstorming. In order to succeed, my blog has to be useful and valuable to my audience, so I write the word “Daily” on my piece of paper.
It also has to be relevant to my business (to help me build my reputation and attract clients), so I write the word “real estate” down on my paper.
Lastly, I want my real estate blog to be unique and memorable, so I write down the word “angle” on my paper. This tells me that I need a good angle to help differentiate my blog and make it interesting (in addition to being useful).
So far, my purpose statement only consists of a few words — daily, real estate, angle — but it’s taking shape!
I know my blog will offer daily real estate news and information. But what’s my angle? This is where you would delve into your own personality to find out what makes you our your business unique … or how you might use your blog to be unique.
For the purposes of this scenario, let’s say my angle is humor. It’s not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of real estate, but that could be just the thing I need to differentiate my blog.
So now I have a purpose and mission for my real estate blog. I will create a blog that provides daily real estate information about Chicago, but with a humorous touch. Maybe I’ll create “Top Ten” lists in a David Letterman style. Maybe I’ll hit the streets with my camera and create neighborhood profiles (with a special focus on pigeon populations).
Obviously, I’m just brainstorming here.
But you can see the result of this brainstorming. I have the beginnings of a real estate blog that will be useful, timely, relevant, interesting, and memorable. Will it make people talk? Very likely. Could it lead to media coverage down the road? Quite possibly. Will people respond to it in a favorable way? Time will tell.
But it all starts with the purpose.
* You may republish this article online if you retain the author’s byline and the ACTIVE hyperlinks below. Copyright 2007, Brandon Cornett.
Learn More
This post is part of the Real Estate Blog Alphabet — 26 benefits and best practices of using a real estate blog for marketing purposes. Get more tips by visiting http://www.armingyourfarming.com/realestatemarketing/
Tags: blog, blogging, real estate websites