Blogging has been around since the late 90's but if you haven't started your blog or maybe you are hoping to resurrect your blog, it's a great way to reach multiple goals such as generating leads, branding or SEO (marketing). With platforms such as Medium and even LinkedIn focusing more on blogging, it's a great opportunity that CEO's and business professionals should look into leveraging in 2016 and beyond.
Business Blogging is a niche blogging category that focuses on entrepreneurs and business owners that blog for their businesses and those that leverage blogging to target the Business-2-Business (B2B) market. There are numerous platforms that have strengths and weaknesses. I decided to list some of them below.
1) WordPress.com / Worpress.org
WordPress is one of my favorite platforms because it's very user-friendly, and it has a small learning curve. WordPress also is the largest Content Management System on the web. Also, you can develop a website around your blog (or vice versa) and add a lot of functionality because there are so many plugins to use with it. I use it for blogging and even is my go-to for building websites. The important thing to keep in mind is that WordPress.com is more of a social network built around blogging while WordPress.org is software. Many of the blogging communities that are developed are even using WordPress.org software (like CEOpress). It's important to understand the distinction or you will get easily confused.
LinkedIn was known as the “professional Facebook” and it still is a way to show your profile and an online version of your resume to network or even look for a job. The newer wrinkle is LinkedIn allows you to publish content directly on their site. If you haven't checked out LinkedIn Pulse, you can see all of the content that has been published on the site and if you are signed in you will see a button below that lets you know you can publish your own post.
Medium
Medium is a fairly new kid on the block and capitalizes on being just a blogging platform. While WordPress has grown in it's capabilities, it has opened up the door to platforms like Medium that are solely a blogging platform. It was started by Ev Williams who also started Twitter (below) and Blogger (below) but it has a really cool interface and design.
Blogger
Blogger will always be near and dear to my heart because I wrote my first blog post on Blogger. It's owned by Google and according to their website it's a “Free weblog publishing tool from Google, for sharing text, photos and video. Free templates/ themes and gadgets/ widgets included.” Blogger is similar to WordPress.com and not WordPress.org. This simply means that it is a social network built around blogging but it's not actually software that you install on your server.
CEOpress
Launching in 2016, CEOpress is a blogging platform that will be exclusive to CEO's, entrepreneurs, startups and business owners. While many (if not all) platforms can be used for “business blogging.” There are a dearth of exclusive communities for the business community.
Other blogging platforms to check out
- Silvrback – Silvrback.com is a subscription blog site. The site provides a sleek, clean platform for the blogger seeking a distraction-free experience.
- Postach.io – Turn an Evernote™ notebook into a beautiful blog or web site.
- SVBTLE is a writing and reading network designed from the ground up to work the same way your brain does. It helps you think. Svbtle is blogging with everything else taken away.
- Tumblr – Tumblr is a microblogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! Inc. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
- Ghost – Create a solo blog, or a full scale newspaper. Ghost can be completely customized in design to suit your needs and your brand.
- Squarespace | Wix.com – Actually website platforms; however, you can integrate blogging.
- Twitter – A microblogging platform that might expand it's number of characters allowing you to post more.
- Facebook Notes – You can use Facebook to create notes.
- Google Plus – Google's social media site that you can create posts on.
- LiveJournal – A service for journals and blogs, that also offers privacy controls, photo storage, publishing tools, style templates, and online communities for many interests.
- Postagon is a blogging platform for those who like it simple and clean. Equipped with just the essentials for a pure reading & writing experience that will make your words shine.
- HubPages – Discover and create original, in-depth, useful, media-rich pages on topics you are passionate about.
- Quora – Question and answer blogging platform.
- Sett.com – SETT is a blogging platform that’s looking to emphasize community, so that new users can find a right audience immediately and long-time bloggers can interact with higher-quality commenters and contributors.
- Blog.com – Share your life's stories, videos and photos! Smashing beautiful themes, a robust platform and friendly support.
- LiveJournal -LiveJournal is a community publishing platform, willfully blurring the lines between blogging and social networking.
- Drupal – Drupal is content management software.
- Xanga – Xanga is a website that hosts weblogs, photoblogs, and social networking profiles. It is operated by Xanga.com, Inc. and based in New York City.
- CEOpress (coming soon) – a blogging platform exclusively for CEOs, entrepreneurs, startups and business owners.
- Typepad will always get recognition when you have someone like Seth Godin that uses it. It's not necessarily built for the B2B audience but it can be used that way.
How Can I Get Started?
It’s easier than it ever has been. Check out some of the sites above.
- You can get started by taking our FREE business blogging course. The 15 day course will walk you through everything you need to get started with your blog.
- If you already have a business blog, add it to our business blogging directory for FREE!
- Next, you can sign up to receive notifications for CEOpress (launching in 2016). When you sign up, you will receive a FREE business blogging sheet delivered directly to your inbox. It is a blogging community where you can find out how to start and leverage your business blog with exclusive resources. There will also be premium resources from CEO Blog Nation available to the community.
- Finally, check out one of the options above and get started blogging.