The main purpose of blogs in its initial days was to enable people to express themselves online.
However, with the passing years blogs have become a powerful tool of marketing, thanks to the importance given by search engines to social media, recent news and frequent updates.
Nowadays both individuals as well as large corporates use blogs to get their message across to different people.
Given below are some of the uses of blogs: It can work as a personal diary Most people use blogs like their personal diaries.
They use it to make a note of personal experiences, opinions, thoughts and content.
Most of the times, people who follow someone else's personal blog will be those who can related to what the blogger says.
It can be used as a corporate newsletter Many times news of things that happen in a company may not be big enough to be released as a press release.
However, it is important to pass this news to the employees and other members within the company.
By doing this, the company makes sure that its employees and members know that the company is still active.
At such times, the blog can be used as a platform to inform its employees and members of the various developments that are happening within the organization.
It can also act as a platform for members and employees to share their thoughts and ideas on various topics that they specialize in.
Platform to engage informally The corporate website of any business acts like a platform for people involved in it to communicate with each other formally.
However, every business also requires a platform that will enable all its members and employees to engage and communicate with each other informally.
Blogs can be an ideal platform to enable this type of informal interaction between the people.
Many companies also use their corporate blogs to communicate with their target audiences and also obtain feedback from them about their site, products and services.
Rich media portfolios If you are a self employed person like a professional photographer or film maker, then you may need to showcase your work to other people in order to get more work or business.
Though you have the option of showcasing your work on sites like YouTube or free image sites, it will have a completely different effect on the people if you display your work on your own site.
However, you may find it difficult to publish images and videos on a static site if you do not understand the technicalities involved in web design.
At such times, you can use a blog to showcase your work to your audience.
This will be much easier to do and since it gets updated often, will get easily indexed in search engines as well.
As a result, it will also rank well in search engines faster.
Helps to build a community online It always helps to build your brand online if you have a community of followers irrespective of whether you are an individual or a business.
A community of followers will help you set up an audience base and will also help you with your networking by referring you and your work to other people that they know.
This community will also give you the opportunity to reach out to them either as a group or individuals.
One of the ways of doing so is through email marketing.
However, the other effective and informal way of doing this would be by setting up a blog.
Thanks to blogs, one way communication seems to be a thing of the past.
Blogs have become instrumental in marketing and promoting your products and services to people in the online world.
It is necessary for you to have knowledge of the various uses of blogs so that you can get maximum benefits from it.