Parkinson Gill Social Media Management

08 Aug To blog or not to blog

Posted at 11:00h in Graphic Design, News, Online & Multimedia, Our Stuff by

Late last year we created a new brand identity and website design for costumiers Parkinson Gill, see here. Since then the feedback for the site has been incredibly positive and has helped to generate new overseas clients for the duo.

One area which has been changed however is the blog section. At the time of briefing we decided with the client that an integrated WordPress blog would provide a suitable solution for providing updates on work in progress and upcoming events. Having previously had a Tumblr account the process for adding new posts was not that dissimilar. However after six months or so the client realised that the blog had rarely been updated and it seemed a bit of a chore to find time to regularly compose articles.

Whilst the SEO benefits of a regularly updated content are normally justification enough for the time spent, in Parkinson Gill’s case the sites page rankings are not of huge importance; as most business is generated via personal introductions to key players rather than Google searches. After discussions we all decided a better approach would be to remove the blog section from the website navigation and replace it with a Facebook profile link and directly linked ‘like us’ button.

For some using Facebook to communicate updates feels more natural and allows a greater perceived freedom to be informal. In maintaining a blog often people feel the need to write in a more formal tone, and at greater lengths then you would in writing a status update.

Running a blog is not for every business, and does require some decent time commitment. Whilst from the SEO side I’d normally advise it worth having, there is nothing worse than having a blog on your site with no posts from the last 6 months, at it can make the whole site feel abandoned.

Twitter and Facebook can provide an informal platform to speak regularly to your audience, just make sure people will want to hear what you say. A few posts of shameless self promotion are okay but if that’s all your saying followers will soon disappear.