Blogging evangelists will tell you that every business-large, small or solo- should have a blog. I disagree.

Sure, blogging is a great way to increase visibility, build your brand and interact with customers and clients. It’s a gatekeeper-free platform for putting your message out into the world. And there are many examples of blogs that have completely changed the way companies communicate with their customers and clients. (Check out this Washington Post article for a few.)

But a blog isn’t an automatic add into your marketing toolkit. In fact, for many companies, starting a blog is simply a bad idea.

Here’s when not to start a company blog:

When you have nothing to say. It sounds silly, but think about this for a minute. Do you know what your blog is about? Can you give it a tagline that sums that up? Do you know who is going to write it? What is the point of view? How will your brand messages be communicated? Who would be interested in reading that and are they really your target market? What exactly will you be writing? Is there an editorial calendar? Ask questions first, blog later.

When you want to sell, sell, sell. Do your eyes (or those of your sales folks) light up at the opportunity to send a constant stream of sales messages into cyberspace via your blog? Being the gatekeeper doesn’t give you license to bombard your audience with sales messages for your products and services. In the right context, blogs can be great sales tools. But information is the key here. If the content you’re providing isn’t interesting, no one is going to read it. And I don’t know anyone who searches Google in hopes of finding daily sales messages.

When you know you’ll never maintain it. I’ve seen this happen a number of times: a company leader gets it into his or her head that a company blog is a fantastic idea. Not just a company blog, but one he or she will write personally. All goes well for a few weeks. But no one’s commenting. The blogger loses interest. If this sounds like you, stop. If it’s your boss, head them off at the pass. Before launching any blog in the name of your brand, be sure you have a firm commitment and schedule for posting on a regular basis, or hire someone to do that. Understand that it might take time to build readership and commit to the process.

When you need to control the conversation. You know who you are. If your business operates rigidly from the top down and every single line of copy you write must be run through legal counsel at least twice, then blogging is not for you. Blogging is all about interaction. You can’t necessarily control where your content goes after you post it, or whether people will comment on that content elsewhere in a way that you’d rather they didn’t. So if a need for control is deeply ingrained in the business culture, save yourself a lot of time and headache. Pick something else.

Don’t get me wrong. Done right, a blog can be an effective marketing tool. But as with anything else in your marketing communications toolkit, having a solid game plan makes all the difference.

Sally Anne Giedrys is the founder of artisan communications, an independent copywriting and communications consultancy that works with businesses and nonprofit organizations to craft compelling marketing and PR messages. For more than 15 years, Sally has been making businesses “sound good” in print and online through a potent combination of great writing, savvy strategy and high integrity communications. Learn more about artisan’s services at www.artisancopy.com. Or reach Sally directly at sally@artisancopy.com.

There’s no doubt about it. After two failed marriages, having five daughters ranging in age from nine to 23, and sometime fond memories of my mother, who would unfailingly drive me round the bend… I can safely say men and women are different.

And regardless of how politically incorrect it is to make comments like that in these stifled times, it’s a fact. So deal with it – because it’s always going to serve us well to deal with the world as it is, not how we think it is, want it to be, or think it ought to be.

“Men And Women Have Very Different Ways Of Looking At The World.”

And given the different biological roles evolution has given us, it’s really what we’d expect.

It’s a common complaint women make about men that we retreat into our “cave” when we’re facing some kind of problem or adversity, and we men in our turn complain women just want to talk about stuff when we’re trying to fix things.

What’s really happening is we’re disconnected from our emotions. We still have them, but we’re not feeling them because in times gone by, they just got in the way and male hominids that were able to act dispassionately and even ruthlessly tended to live longer.

Anyway, one consequence of all this is women are better communicators. It’s more important to them and they’re better at it. Moreover, this spills over into the way we want the world to be.

Women tend to be much more touchy-feely and into cultivating a sense of community and belonging. They tend to be more interested in win-win and have a better sense of fairness.

And what this all adds up to is…

“Women Are Better At Social Media Marketing Than Men”

Because that’s what it’s all about: a chinwag. Connecting. Sharing. Community.

Most men aren’t that interested. It mostly doesn’t turn us on at all. We do it because it’s useful, and we tend to like utility, but we don’t tend to do it very well.

Did you read how Matt Bacak has been castigated recently for how he’s handling his social media marketing? I see the points of his detractors, but I also think they’re being a little unfair: Bacak is being a typical guy.

He’s viewing social media marketing in terms of form, function and utility and not in terms of relationship.

It’s a bit of a faux-pas, to be sure, but it doesn’t make him a bad person.

Now, don’t take any of this to mean women are intrinsically “better” than men or the reverse.

We’re better at the things we’ve evolved to be better at. If I want someone to understand how I’m feeling, I’ll pick a woman; if I want someone to come with me to take on a bunch of hooligans, I’ll pick a man.

Note also, we’re all on a continuum. For a man, I’m a very good communicator; Sarah, my wife, has a fairly male brain and is better at reading a map than any woman I ever met. But I can read the same map any way up and mentally turn it round; Sarah has to have it the right way up. And so on.

Most men behave in much the same way in most situations most of the time. And so do most women. As with all marketing, it’s a game of statistics.

“Tips For Men Using Social Media Marketing”

First, remember this is social media marketing. It’s probably going to make you cringe to do a lot of this touchy-feely stuff, but if you want the results, then that’s what you’ve got to do.

If you don’t, you’re going to find yourself with a large female following (because women do like strong, confident men who communicate) but finding it’s men who are actually buying from you. I have loads of female “fans” but only one lady client. I don’t mind too much, because I love women .

Secondly, bear in mind how women like to buy: they rarely respond to a pitch. That’s why many marketers don’t do too well on teleseminars aimed at selling products to women. The women love the teleseminar because of its sense of community and communication… but then they like to go away and buy just like they do in the shops (drives me MAD!).

Thirdly, watch your language. Women tend not to be impressed by talk of wiping the floor with the competition, becoming insanely wealthy just for the hell of it, or driving fast, powerful cars. They’re looking for Utopia.

“Tips For Women Using Social Media Marketing”

Surprised they need tips? They’re supposed to be good at this, right?

Well, it depends whom they’re selling to. If they want to sell to men, they have to talk to men in a way men understand and respond to.

So, don’t write too much about how your products and services are going to improve their relationships, not even with their families. We do care but in my experience, it’s not something we get really excited about.

Don’t be afraid to talk about things which really make you tighten up inside: competition, prestige, status… all those guy things you and your girlfriends shake your heads over.

And finally, remember why you’re doing this. If you’re not careful you’ll gossip your way through the day and not actually ask for the sale. The expression “social media marketing” has the word “marketing” in it for a reason.

“Don’t Think This Is Confined To Social Media Marketing!”

I recently consulted on a project where the target market was women, and the list feeding the project was also mostly women.

And it was bombing.

Why?

Because the sales materials were being written by men and that meant they were being written for men. After I suggested they change the copy to talk about community and belonging and cooperation rather than destroying the competition and eating their children (you know the kind of copy I mean), the change was startling.

It’s happened a couple of times recently.

Another client I was consulting with said, he has tried marketing to women after taking advice from a big-name marketer whose name you WILL recognize, but neither could get it to work.

And I am not in the least surprised, because they simply take their normal marketing message, color it pink and put a “for women” badge on it.

It doesn’t work – and the women it does attract are the more male-brained ones (so when you ask them what’s wrong with your approach they tell you “nothing”, because it does indeed appeal to them).

Because it’s so important and a big unexplored area with most of my clients, Sarah has studied it in depth and knows it even better than I do. It’s a fascinating subject and well worth reading up on.

Ex-bouncer and jiu-jitsu instructor, and recovered computer programmer, Jon McCulloch is a leading independent direct marketing consultant and copywriter, author, public speaker, and entrepreneur.

He’s been featured in the Irish Times, writes a monthly column for the West Cork People, and helps business owners grow their businesses by 50% to 250% within just 12 months with a combination of powerful and ultra-effective marketing and business systems.

Visit John at http://www.small-business-marketing-tips.com.