Why every startup should blog
Blogging has many more advantages apart from the usual ones, it brings out the human aspect of the company — particularly for Indian Startups
What is a Startup, anyways?
What is a startup, they ask! At its heart, a startup, in fact any new company per se is a group of people out there to create a sustainable business. The early customers or a startup don’t just buy with a startup for cost reasons, they also invest with them because they believe the team. That belief or ‘connect’ that a startup team establishes with the world is of particular significance as the startup matures into a sustainable business.
Community Building
At such a juncture, what a startup needs is a community. Building a community has three key advantages -
- A Customer feels he / she is not alone in using a startup’s product / service
- Problems get solved among customers rather than a startup team having to intervene
- Customer requirements / problems get consolidated very quickly
The simplest way to actually nurture a community is to have a Startup Blog. The blog shouldn’t just be about ‘Features’ , ‘Updates’ and ‘Plans’. It should be about celebrating with the customers. It should publish customer feedback, testimonials and even brickbats. It should ideally depict what the voice of customer has to say about the product or the service that they are using.
Advantages of a Startup Blog -
- Confidence building — A startup with an active blog becomes the go-to place for a lot of early customers to check out whats happening with the team. For example — Naukri — India’s leading Jobs sit uses the blog to talk about new features
- Voice of customer — A blog can lend a voice to customers who otherwise write on review sites & social networks. Rather than using social network as a customer voice mechanism — a blog is a better place for customers to express themselves — Check how Cleartrip handled the Kiruba Incident
- Personalization — Once a while, posting pictures of a team outing or even a customer interaction really works well too. Check this post by Olacabs — a startup celebrating its birthday!
While Startup Blogs are quite commonplace in the Valley, they aren’t so in India, a place where I work and love! Would love to read more about Startups and their blogs in the coming months! I am sure your customers would be eagerly reading too!
