One of the hardest things to do these days is to establish credibility among your readers. According to Rettburg in his chapters on “Blogging Brands” and “Blogs, Communities, and Networks,” building a follower base whether you are a corporate blog or a blogger who is using advertising to make money, it is important to come off as credible and trustworthy. But how do you do that? How do you establish yourself as credible and trustworthy?
Here are a few of my observations:
First off, a lot of big companies don’t do it right. Ever seen your favorite superstore try its hand at a blog post? It almost seems like a giant, forced advertisement that you exit in about 30 seconds. There are ads all over the place constantly trying to goad you into buying a product that will “make your summer great!” It simply seems like a lot of big name brands’ blogs are just a waste of time. So what do successful blog pages look like?
Well, successful pages have very few advertisements, if any. The blogger typically has content that is intriguing, highly useful and entertaining. Great visuals are also essential to helping your blog be successful. Tutorials or how-tos for things your target audience cares about can work well to build a readership base and keep your brand at the top of your readers’ minds.
For instance, I once stumbled across a Lauren Conrad blog post on juice cleanses. I wasn’t sold on the idea initially, but once my roommate started talking about doing one together, I immediately remembered Lauren Conrad’s post and read my roommate tips on how to do one.
The blog post took on an authentic tone, citing each step of her journey with no plugs for specific juices. Before I knew it, I was a regular visitor of her blog because she not only won over my interest with her perspicacity for health, but beauty, fitness and style. After a while I began looking through her posts and without realizing it, I was already considering buying her products because I felt her tone was always so genuine.
So what’s the most important thing to remember about blogging? Keep an authentic tone. If you are trying to sell something to your followers they will recognize it! Do not assume people are idiots. In order to be considered credible – and yes it may take time but don’t give up – you need to develop an authentic tone. If your readers develop trust in both your writing and your blog, you will even develop a network that will surprise you.
Questions to ponder:
1. If a blogger you trust does start using advertisements, would you still consider him or her credible if they were to make it clear they are not being paid to post?
2. How can we as readers ever trust corporate blogs, especially when they write about one of their products – isn’t it just to get consumers to buy it?
Source of image: http://laurenconrad.com/
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