The blogosphere is growing rapidly as businesses and business people recognize the ability of blogging to demonstrate expertise, develop relationships with influencers, and ultimately enhance company and personal brands.
I will not get into it, but if you’re still unsure about the benefits that blogging offers, check out this fantastic SlideShare presentation from Michael Brenner. It explains how building your personal brand through social media will help you advance your career.
So now that you understand the value of blogging and you’ve got your blog set up, you start writing and sharing your posts on social media. To monitor your performance, you watch the page views, comments and social shares and you can see which articles are performing well and which are not.
But one big question remains unanswered – is anyone reading the information and recommendations you are taking the time to write and share? Just because your audience retweeted your article, “liked” it, or clicked on it doesn’t mean that they’ve actually read it, let alone that your article made any kind of impact.
In an analysis of 2.7 million tweets containing links, HubSpot discovered that almost 15% of retweeted tweets had absolutely no clicks. This means that people may be retweeting your content without ever looking at it. In fact, if you ask any Twitter user, almost all of them will admit to having retweeted your content adding “Great article!” without ever reading a word of it.
Despite the odds, last week one Business Innovation site author was actually given the satisfaction of knowing that one of his articles actually made a palpable impact.
Author Mukesh Gupta published 3 Things You Can Do Daily To Become An Effective Leader, encouraging leaders to improve the relationship with their team by 1) talking to everyone in your team at the start of the day; 2) coaching one person a day; 3) catching someone doing something right and recognizing them for it every day.
As social media manager for the site, I then shared article on the Business Innovation Twitter handle (@biz_innovations).
A follower, @HRGalFriday, saw the tweet, read the article and was reminded that she needed to thank the “bag boy” from the local grocery store she had visited recently at Brookshire’s Food and Pharmacy (@brookshires_).
Read the Twitter conversation from bottom to top.
A few days later, @HRGalFriday, or Dominique Rodgers, tweeted Mukesh and the Business Innovation handle this message (read bottom to top):
I later learned the rest of the story…
Dominique had visited a Brookshire’s store in Minden, Louisiana to get water and ice for her father’s 60th birthday party that day. After she had finished filling up her shopping cart with all the heavy items, it was difficult to maneuver. Seeing her struggle, a young Brookshire’s employee offered to help steer her heavy cart to the check-out counter.
It gets better…not only did he help her check out, he pushed the cart to her car, unloaded all of her groceries, broke up the ice and loaded it into the ice chest that was in her trunk, lifted the heavy ice chest into the car and then cleaned up all the trash afterwards.
None of these tasks are included in his job description – Kenneth did it out of kindness and to provide excellent customer service to a Brookshire’s customer.
After reading Mukesh’s article on leadership and his third suggestion to “catch someone doing something right and recognize them for it,” Dominique remembered Kenneth, the Brookshire’s employee who had helped her so much.
As a token of her gratitude, she emailed the Minden Brookshire’s and told them her story. She later got a call from the manager who said that he had forwarded her email to Mr. Brookshire and that he was very pleased that a customer had taken the time to share her positive shopping experience.
As any effective leader would, Mr. Brookshire instructed the store manager to recognize the employee who went above and beyond for a customer by taking him out to lunch.
This goes to show you that while it is rare to hear the stories of your impact on readers, your blogs have the power to ignite change. So keep on blogging and if you’re aren’t already, GET STARTED!
Do you have any stories like this that you can share? Have you been able to witness one of your articles influencing your audience? Please share by commenting below or on Twitter @LindseyLaManna.