Well, here we are in August, 2010 and location-based social networks are all the rage. Everyone’s talking about Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and now, Facebook Places. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are all considered mainstream and imperative in terms of marketing.

However, it is obvious that many, if not most, businesses have yet to venture into the simplest and arguably the most effective type of social marketing…blogging.

Blogging is nothing new. Blogs date back to 1997, took off in 1999 and were considered mainstream by 2004.

It’s 2010 and your company hasn’t started blogging. Why is that? Are you afraid of what someone might post on your blog? Here’s the deal…people are going to talk about your company, whether it’s on your blog or in the grocery store. Perhaps you don’t see the importance and you’re not completely sold on blogging for business.

A recent study by eMarketer shows a strong increase in companies entering the blogosphere. Their study predicts that 43% of companies will be blogging by 2012.

Here’s a short list of 5 reasons why your company should be actively blogging:

1 - Blogging gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as the expert in your industry or field. Are you a local fitness center or gym? Your blog should contain posts and information on why someone should join your fitness center, as opposed to your competition. You never want to downgrade your competition on your blog. Rather, focus on what your fitness center has to offer and emphasize all the positive attributes of your facility and staff.

2 – Blogging gives your current and potential customers a platform to ask questions and communicate with your business. This adds credibility and can increase customer loyalty. Monitoring your blog closely, answering questions and replying to comments will promote trust and transparency.

3 – Search engines love fresh content. If you don’t add new content to your website on a regular basis the search engines have nothing new to crawl and distribute. Integrating a blog into your site makes it easy to post fresh information on a regular basis for the search engines to find.

4 – A blog is another chance to issue a press release, announce an event, launch a new product or make an important announcement. Blogging is marketing. What are you marketing? Your business!

5 – Your blog serves as what I call your “content distribution source.” With every blog post you publish, you can take that article, create profiles on dozens of other social platforms and post. Not only will this generate more traffic to your blog and website, but you’re also creating links, which will aid in search engine optimization.

Maximizing your blogging efforts will take time, but it’s worth it. Post often, include important keywords for your business/industry and engage with your audience. In my opinion, this should be the first step in creating a powerful social media presence and personality for your company or business.

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The question is, “Are you being careful with what you post?” There are some legendary stories out there of people who have totally dissed their bosses on Facebook, only to discover that the boss was actually watching. Not smart.

Here’s a list of things you can do to stay safe and not run the risk of being incredibly embarrassed…or fired, some of which are pretty much common sense.

1 – Don’t post any comments or status updates that may bring your company/employer into disrepute.
2 - Don’t use social networks in any way to attack or abuse colleagues or competitors.
3 – Don’t post direct references to any business-related activities regarding your company/employer.
4 – Don’t post personal stuff during work hours. Do that away from the office.
5 – Only post positive work-related comments and information.

Remember, posts are time-stamped, so if you call in sick and decide to post a picture of yourself having lunch with your friends or shopping at the mall….you’re only asking for trouble.

Be careful out there. The boss might be watching!

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