Customizable Blog Posts?
September 19, 2008 by Liz Fuller
Filed under Social Media
(www.businessandblogging.com) Today I came across a concept that I hadn’t heard of before – customizable blog posts for small businesses. They are advertized as ” already written content for your blog that you can customize in two minutes”
These particular blog posts are written for real estate agents. The agents substitute a few words (like the name of their city) and then publish the posts on their own blogs. Twenty new posts a month are available for a membership fee of approximately $30 per month.
Some of you may already be familiar with this practice – but it was my first exposure to it.
My question is what do you think of it?
Is it a great idea for busy entrepreneurs who want timely, relevant content on their site with minimal cost and effort?
or does it defeat the purpose of sincere and intimate blogging as a way to foster communication with your customers?
Is it significantly different from hiring a professional blogger?
Please share your thoughts. And if you’d like to check out more about this phenomenon, visit here.
photo credit: re_birf
I think it tends to defeat the purpose of blogging. It’s essentially the blogging version of PLR articles, in which someone writes a lot of generic stuff for a particular market and sells it to various clients who “tweak” it for their own needs and slap it up on their Web sites. Fills the Web (or, in this case, the blogosphere) with homogeneous content that’s more like filler than good writing.
Hi Debbi
I tend to agree – it creates a “blog” but doesn’t give any insight into the personal and unique nature of the blogger or business.
On the other hand, if a business used it as a jumping off point and created personal responses in the comments area – it might serve a useful purpose.
Mmm . . . possibly (she said, grudgingly). I guess one would have to try it to really see. It’s just that if something is written so generically, anyone can use it, I wonder how much meaningful comment it can generate.
I think I just have an inherent bias against one-size-fits-all Web content of any kind. It’s not you, it’s me. :)
I think it’s worse than having a professional site designed in Microsoft Frontpage or Apple’s iWeb. both are template created and anyone who visits others sites on the net can spot them a mile away and it communicates that company or person doesn’t really care. It just another form of form letter.
Hi Patrick
I agree that a “form letter” content defeats the main purpose of a blog – to provide a personalized view of the business – but I wonder if it is a good way for a sincere novice to “dip their toe into the blogging business”.
I think I want to learn more about this phenomenon.
Ups…
Customizable blog posts can be recommended only by a person who doesn’t have a clue about new web 2.0 age. Typically, today this is a person who works in an advertising agency.
Just don’t do that! A business blog is a PERSONAL blog written by a CEO or founder or other high-ranking authority, but not a bunch of general ramblings of an outside writer.
A business blog is PERSONAL, so all thoughts must be personal, not stolen.
Sure, inspiration can come from the outside, even from other blog posts, but it can be only an inspiration, not a stranger’s writing.
Thanks for your opinion Linas. I actually sent a note to the business that creates these canned posts to see if they would be available for an interview or guest post to explain their viewpoint and why their customers find value in them – hopefully we’ll get to hear the other side of the story!!
Hi Linas
Thanks for your post – it certainly aligns with the message we’ve been presenting at businessandblogging.
However the whole apparent contradiction of “canned posts” got me so intrigued that I contacted the owner of the business and asked her to give her side of the story – why her customers would want to use her service.
We should be hearing more later this week – it should be interesting!
Liz