Blogging for Brand Credibility

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry claims to know something nowadays. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry has something to sell you, and something to tell you. And so they buy up airtime on your local TV stations, have a terribly built web page, and advertise in magazines with slapped-together ads. And nobody cares. Big surprise.

Consumers are a savvy bunch. They don't believe in you just because you tell them to. The era of SELL is long since gone. Today is the era of BUY. Consumers like to buy--they despise being sold to.

"Look at this amazing car I bought!" one man says to another. He feels validated for his own personal purchasing power. Notice he didn't say, "Look at this amazing car the dealership sold to me."

Branding is the process of pre-selling your product or service. There are countless routes to go through which to build your brand. One of the more popular has been blogging. But why? For one, blogging helps build credibility.

Tom, Dick, and Harry all claim to know something. Maybe they do, and maybe they just want to extract cash from your bank account.

Blogging adds a level of transparency to your company, unmatched by traditional advertising. Blogging, after all, is very raw and real and emotional. It's spontaneous. Fifteen minutes before I wrote this, I was eating a cinnamon raisin bagel and responding to comments on MySpace.

The same informality associated with blogging is the same informality that lacks in Big Media (most commonly: radio, TV, print, and online). Consumers don't trust Big Media. They don't trust you. Unless you have credibility!

I tune out and FF>> through 98% of TV commercials. But I have stopped the Tivo to watch countless VW ads ("Holdin' it down on the engineering tip, y'all!"). I don't read magazine ads, but I do pause on a Lacoste ad whenever I see one. And I don't click on those pesky online ads. Ever. Well, I have been known to roll over those Apple ads from time to time. All of these companies have built brand credibility in my mind.

If you're not one of the lucky few who has built credibility in the mind of your consumers, blogging is a great way to do so. You establish yourself as relevant and involved, as current and important.

To my way of thinking, if one can't write a few times a week about the field in which they are a supposed expert, then they should not be in business.

Over time, your trail of blogs can help you build a reputation as a credible professional. Your average consumer most likely will not read every last word you have written, but they many will glance through your words to feel at ease with your knowledge. The consumer is always skeptic. Otherwise, they would not ask, "But what's the catch?"

The catch, dear consumer, is that you don't trust me by default. And they don't trust you by default. And without credibility, your business is as good as kaput.