When you look back at your career or even the last 6 or 8 months of your life, do you see a few moments that stand out as important? We embarked on a journey with you back in March of this year to advocate for US Manufacturing. It was a defining moment for us, a point where something was so obvious and important that action was necessary. Now several months later we’ve enjoyed the journey together, for mutual benefit. Today I want you to think about something, to see if that defining moment may be waiting for you. Think about telling your story and later in this article will provide you with some resources to help get started.
Why Manufacturers Should Tell Their Story
If you’re still reading this you probably do care about what you do and you might be looking for ideas to do it even better. There is a reason you care, at some point someone or something lit a fire inside you. You would not fight through all the nonsense a business principal or employee must endure without having a reason for it. That reason is the best case for US Manufacturing – or whatever else you do, for that matter. If something clicked for you, it is likely to do the same for others. It may have just been a class, or even just by accident finding yourself poised next to a CNC machine watching metal chips fly. Whatever the catalyst was, your story will bring future generations into manufacturing. It will also help people understand your values and help you to attract the right customers, co-workers, and employees.
Using a Blog to Tell Your Story
Speaking of defining moments, early on when blogging for business was a new concept, there were two main reasons why it was a great approach.
- It was a home base you control.
- It was a place for you to give your side of any story, without allowing others to.
A Blog as a Home Base
By hosting your own blog, you own the content, no-one can ever take it away from you. It will be there as long as you want it and if you decide you want to eliminate it, that is within your power. After watching the ups and downs of technology companies, it’s pretty important to be able to own your home base. Imagine posting all of your content to a social network only to have that network be acquired and be shut down within 6 months leaving you hanging. This is a scenario handling your own home base will prevent.
Don’t Let Someone Else Define You
Search engines like Google index all web content. When people write about topics regularly they build up some authority for those topics. That means the search engines will direct people to those sites by returning the content as more relevant (better search results). If you’re not telling your story, what does it look like? Is it a couple of websites that index businesses and share them in the form of a web directory? Or worse, someone trying to sell information about you or poach your customers. Either option is not good compared to a compelling, interesting, real story about a business that is making it’s way in this world. Don’t let your story be a secret and more importantly don’t let a couple of paid ads be the most compelling content for your company. In the example you will note that when searching for “Managed Solutions” the top 2 pieces of content are advertisements. People pay for that, it’s less credible. The first organic result is this website, a far more compelling choice for someone searching for this company. Vow to not let others define you.
Get you Started Telling Your Story (Podcast)
Earlier we promised a resource to help you get started. If you’re looking for a little extra encouragement to take the next step, listen in to the first of three Podcasts intended to help people get started in the world of blogging. Here is episode 1 of 3, The Ins and Outs of Blogging – Getting Started.
If you don’t want to miss the next one you can subscribe or if you simply cannot wait and want links now to the next two episode (I may be flattering myself here) or just want to share a comment about your story let me know.
