Blogging is becoming an increasingly more important part of social media and can be a powerful tool to strengthen a broker’s social media marketing strategy. But how does blogging differ to the other social networking platforms and what can it add to your social media presence? Australian Broker spoke with a broker who blogs and a marketing guru about the ins and outs of blogging.
Owun Taylor, mortgage broker for
Mortgage Choice Newtown, said blogging can be an effective way to communicate with clients and build their trust in you as a broker.
“Blogging can allow brokers to communicate and talk with clients from a position of authority. It should be a part of a brokers overall marketing strategy, but unlike the other networks it allows you to remind clients why they should choose you. People come to brokers for our knowledge and our pearls of information, so blogging can be a way to educate and inform consumers and reinforce their trust in your knowledge and your skills.”
Diane Leonard, digital marketing manager at
Aussie Home Loans, said blogging helps increase your search engine optimisation (SEO), which will help you get noticed and get clients.
“Blogs and SEO work hand in hand. If a broker is writing a blog about a certain topic, then people who are searching online for that topic will more likely come across them. So, blogging can be a great tool to raise your profile and make yourself easier to be found by consumers. It brings more online attention to you and ultimately lets you build that trust with consumers as an expert and an adviser.”
When deciding what to blog about, Leonard says there are three ways you can ensure you are picking the right topics that are going to get you some traction.
“Firstly, I am always telling our brokers that they should ask themselves ‘what are my clients always asking me?’ That is a really good starting point to figure out what sort of posts people are going to read. Secondly, another tip of mine is to keep an eye on what people are talking about on Twitter – try searching keywords on Twitter and see what comes up. This can give a great indication of what is a hot topic and what is trending. Thirdly, do some keyword research – this can tell you what topics, questions or phrases people are searching in Google the most.”
However, blog posts don’t always have to be about finance, mortgages and property. Taylor says it can also be a way for brokers to engage with their community.
“Our blog posts aren’t always about finance and mortgage tips or property market news; it is also a way for us to talk about who we are behind our business and who we are in the local community. One of our most viewed blog posts was about our fundraising efforts for Camp Quality. It all comes back to reinforcing your clients’ confidence in you. Clients like to know who they are dealing with.”
Both Taylor and Leonard warn, however, that blogging may not be for everybody.
“My top tip for other brokers who are thinking about blogging would be to only do it because you want to, not because you have read that you need too. I wouldn’t say blogging is necessarily for everybody, you need to be actively involved and posting regularly. I am writing a blog post once a week,” Taylor said.
“Blogging is definitely not suitable for every broker. Blogs take a long time to build and gain momentum, so they have to be diligent and make time for it. When brokers come to me and ask about blogging, I tell them to sit down and write 20 topic ideas straight away and then write the posts for three of those topics. If they can’t think of 20 ideas and write the first three then they are going to find blogging challenging and stressful, so it may not be the best thing for them or their business,” Leonard told Australia Broker.
“I do also recommend that blogging should be more of a group thing. They will have more success if the whole office gets involved and they are spreading the workload. I would say brokers should aim to publish 3-5 posts a week, but it is always different for different businesses.”
