Oh, you fabulous little crumpet. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! A blog is wholly yours, a place where your branding can be polished as shiny as a new dime.

Blogging is a brilliant way to improve your SEO. Blogging is a brilliant way to establish your expertise. Blogging is an extra-crunchy brilliant way of connecting with your customers. Don’t believe me? Check out this infographic from the fine folks over at Social Media Today. Starting with this statistic:

61% of US consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post. 

I know! And don’t think you’re off the hook if you’re a B2B biz. No sir no ma’am. Your clients still want to know that you’re credible, that you’re human, that you’re there. The best way to be there is to be findable — and that means links. And that means blogging.

But here’s the catch. You can’t. Be. Boring.

To borrow a concept from audio engineering, the internet has a signal/noise ratio. There are a whole lot of folks making noise out there. Social media posts. Blogs. Deeply useful videos to remind you that someone else’s opinion doesn’t have to become your reality. So to stand out in all that noise, you have to have a good signal.

(Did you guess that I was going to talk about storytelling? You know me so well.)

Your blog is your space to tell your brand’s story. There’s no more valuable opportunity. So take it seriously. If you don’t have the time to do it all yourself, hire help, solicit folks in your company, take a candid look a the kind of knowledge you can provide that is unique to your business and experience. Then use storytelling tropes and techniques to rock your content like a hurricane.

So go forth and blog, my friend. Set yourself apart. Be awesome.