When it comes to online marketing, business owners always find the right way to increase their brand preferences. Blogs and podcasts are magnificent marketing tools used to smartly build brand awareness and increase the value of the brand.
You may have a question about which one to choose as an effective and powerful content platform: Blogging or Podcasting? Right! In this article, we have explained the benefits and drawbacks of a blog vs podcast. We have also illustrated which one is the best choice for your business in 2021-22.
Let’s embark!
About Blog
The blog is an informative, educational, or entertaining website showcasing a new piece of information (Blog post). It is a powerful lead generation tool in which the writer or group of writers have shared their knowledge on a range of topics. There are different types of blogs available to choose the best for increasing potential consumers and fulfill the business goal.
If you start your new business, then blogs will help you to get potential clients and grab their attention. Running a blog on your website makes you searchable and competitive in the search engines. So, the key goal of a blog is to connect you to a targeted audience and build your brand.
Furthermore, Blogs are normally updated frequently, sometimes even regularly. In addition to this, consistent and better blog posts have higher chance for your website to hike more visitors. Insert a stunning call to action (CTA) into your content will convert your website traffic into leads.
Some useful statistics you need to know about:
- Around 70 million posts are being published every month by WordPress users.
- Approximately 77% of internet users read blogs.
- Bloggers who write blogs of 2,000+ words are more likely to have powerful outcomes.
- In the United States, internet users spend 3X more time on the blog rather than on email.
- There are more than 500 million blogs that will exist in 2019.
Related Read: How To Write A Blog Post In 30 Minutes
About Podcast
The Podcast term comes from a combination of the word iPod and broadcasting. It is a recording of an audio discussion file on a particular topic such as travel, hobbies, business, and various more. A podcast is a form of audio broadcasting on the World Wide Web. With the podcast, you can hike traffic on your website by directing your listener to visit your website.
Using a Google podcast, you can listen to the latest episode from your favorite shows. Moreover, the subscribers listen to their most-liked podcast without paying zero pence.
Furthermore, some of the podcasts are simple, like some friends discussing their passion, such as traveling, cooking, learning new things, etc. However, a few podcasts are professional, including sound effects, theme music, professional editing, and more. In addition to this, professional podcasts are amazing to listen to.
Some Important statistics you have to know:
- The average 22% of people listen to podcasts while driving.
- A recent survey conducted in 2019 found that around 51% of customers above age 12 in the US listen to podcasts.
- Comedy is one of the most popular podcast genres, followed by education and news.
- Podcast listeners are more likely to subscribe to Amazon Prime and Netflix.
- Nearly 69 percent of people agreed that podcast ads made them aware of the latest products and services.
Now take a look at the pros and cons of the blog and podcast.
The Benefits of Blogging
1. Establish and Strengthen Relationship with New and Existing Customers
For any business, customer engagement is the most important part of online marketing and branding. Blogging provides a great opportunity for you to connect with your potential customers more familiarly.
From the comment section, you will be able to respond directly to your reader’s comments, which helps you to build a strong relationship with them.
2. Easy To Create
Blogs are easy to create with the WordPress platform because there are a plethora of WordPress themes and plugins available to choose from. Importantly, most of them are free to use for creating a blog. Here, we recommend you to use the Blog Designer WordPress plugin for designing your blog layout as per your requirements and give a WOW factor. This plugin supports 50 eye-catching and unique blog templates to attract more visitors to your blog. Importantly, it is easy to integrate using shortcodes.
This plugin is useful for a blogging website, ECommerce website, personal blog site, fashion website, and many more. Moreover, you can say that this plugin is the perfect choice for your blog.
3. Support Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
Ultimately, search engines want to showcase the latest and useful content to their users. Blogging is an amazing technique to consistently provide the latest content to various search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and many more.
Importantly, you can add the relevant keywords that users are searching on the World Wide Web. In addition to this, a high-quality blog provides an opportunity to drive more traffic to your blog.
Also Read – Does Blogging Help SEO? Blog SEO Tips
4. Connect Individuals With Your Brand
Brand awareness is a critical element of marketing. Blogging permits you to showcase a personal side of your business to your followers. Moreover, you can open up your brand message and engage your existing customers.
Blogging also reflects a clear vision, corporate standards, and the personality of your business.
5. Learn About Your Audience
As a blogger, you may find that readers share a lot of things about you in your blog post. Moreover, you can learn about the readers from their comments. That data helps you to create new blogs that readers like to read.
Knowing about your audience is priceless, so most companies spend more time and money on testing products in targeted groups.
6. Build Trust Online With Your Readers
Building trust with your website visitors is essential for any website owner. The important thing is, you never buy trust. Blogging is a great way to build trust with your target audience through high-quality content that they find relevant.
Bloggers do it by posting useful and honest articles on their blogs daily. The easiest way to build confidence is to accomplish your goals.
The Downfalls of Blogging
1. Blogging Is Little Bit Time Consuming
Writing powerful content takes a significant amount of time. In the present scenario, long and all-inclusive content does not only satisfy the blog readers but also rank better on the search engine. That is the reason creating a blog will take more time to provide valuable content to your readers. Sometimes, it will take a long time to find good quality content for your business blog.
2. It can be hard if Writing Can’t Come Instinctively
Indeed, blogging is not always easy for many individuals. Perhaps, it can be tough to write a blog in a user-friendly and engaging way. Without a doubt, it can be easier with time when you write more and consistently. If you are not good at writing blogs, then blogging is not the best suit for you because it finds you difficult and frustrating sometimes.
3. Take Time To Make Money
If you are trying to create your blog business, then keep in mind that it takes time to make money. But, there are exceptions to the rule, like bloggers who have some viral and powerful content will make money very fastly. In real-time, blogging is a long-term game.
The Merits of Podcast
1. Useful For Increase Engagement and Community Building
Podcast listeners are focused on the full episode. Not like the blog reader, who scrolls the post and looks at the title and images and may hardly spend their time reading the whole blog. The users will listen to things you have to say without skipping any useful information. But, the one thing they never do is interact with you and others when they are listening to your podcast.
An essential benefit of a podcast is that you can send your podcasting website where the listeners sign up to get direct access to your podcast content. In addition to this, you can also build a community in which you can successfully market your online products and gain more customers.
2. Optimize for Voice Search
One study found that approximately half of all the searches across the internet will be voice-based by 2020. Generally, individuals are looking for things that they find using a few words so they can listen to them at any time, any place from any device. The podcast is the best thing because it is easy to optimize for voice search.
For your blog or website, you have to optimize content for adding voice search into it. However, the podcast is already optimized with voice search.
3. Podcast Is On-demand Technology
For your podcast, create content that speaks directly to your listeners who listen to you. You can talk about the things that worry them. Make sure to create on-demand content to answer their most noted and imperative questions. Moreover, on-demand content is advantageous for a podcast that permits you to develop more engaging content.
Always be clear on what your listeners are and what are their prior interests. Be a friend and answer their questions even before they ask you. Apart from this, people will listen to your podcast during their daily activities such as, at the gym, at work, in their cars, etc.
4. Hike Traffic on Your Website
The aim of the podcast is not to sell but, it will draw attention to your business and increase brand awareness. Moreover, you can use the podcast to drive traffic to your website. You can tell things that they want to listen to. In addition to this, when you build trust, your listener will be more curious to visit your website and purchase the products that you provide.
Importantly, research the keywords to make a useful podcast. And, make sure about your product quality because once you lose trust, you might never build again with your potential clients.
5. Provides Value To Your Customers
A most vital benefit of a podcast is having access to a greatly valuable market. The Edison Research illustrated that most people who listen to podcasts are educated, moneyed, and have a stable income. In short, they make great clients for your online business. Apart from this, you can also think about the people who spend hours in their car, and during the journey, they will prefer podcasts rather than blogs.
If your podcast speaks directly to circumstances they deal with in their day-to-day life, at work, then they may be even more curious to hear from you. It is because they will listen to exactly what they are required to hear.
The Demerits of Podcast
1. Podcast Is Not Searchable
The biggest disadvantage of the podcast is not always easily searchable for users. There are various search engines you can use, but it is next to impossible to directly search within the audio file itself. It might be a disadvantage for many people, who like to gather data by quickly scanning through the normal texts.
2. Sometimes distracting To Your Listeners
Sometimes, permitting the use of an iPod in the companies can create a distraction, and the outcome may be low productivity. And, it could bring poor outcomes because they may listen to music rather than doing actual work.
3. Time Consuming
You have to spend more time creating and verifying data for your podcast because the internet is a vast and public space where anyone can publish files. Moreover, it is a time-consuming process, especially for larger files. Some studies estimated that it takes 45 minutes to create an 8 minutes podcast show.
Blog Vs Podcast: Which One is Perfect for your Business?
Every business requirement is different, so the business owners are trying to decide whether to use a blog or podcast for increasing their online brand presence.
If you are a good content writer compared to talking, then the blog is the best option for you. On the other hand, if you struggle to sit in one place and write, then a podcast is a better option for you.
As you provide detailed information on any topic with high-quality images, videos, and many more, so, the blog post is a better choice for you. However, you are trying to become a daily resource with funny or exciting content that your audience can listen to during their busy schedules. That time podcast is an ideal option.
Furthermore, if you do not want to choose between either of these, then you can also choose both (blog and podcast) for your business. The primary issue is investing precious time, money as well as resources for both the blog and podcast. You can use the WordPress platform for both blogging and podcasting. Initially, you can use a free plan and also use advanced plugins for the paid account.
Final Thought!
That’s all! After reading this whole blog, you can select the best one (blog vs podcast) or even both for your online business. These platforms are powerful marketing tools to enhance your brand awareness and boost traffic to your website.
You can also Contact Us for any blog customization services or help required. We have a team of expert WordPress developers that provides you full support as per your requirements.
Best of Luck!
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