Should You Create a Company or Personal Blog?

Source: Neil Patel

Blogging is an interesting phenomenon.

It’s been a game-changing marketing strategy for many smaller businesses and has enabled them to compete with much larger industry titans.

In many ways, it’s one of the most revolutionary marketing strategies in history.

But it seems that by now it should have been eclipsed by newer, sleeker, and sexier techniques.

Just look at some of the top-rated digital marketing techniques in 2017.

But what’s amazing is that it hasn’t.

A 2017 HubSpot survey found, “53 percent of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.”

Check out where blogging ranks in terms of content marketing tactic usage in 2017.

It’s tied for third place with eNewsletters and in-person events.

You could even make the point that blogging is bigger than ever before.

In fact, “89 percent of companies think blogs will be more important in the next five years.”

And that’s totally fine with me!

Blogging has been my bread and butter for ages.

It was what helped me build my audience when I didn’t have deep pockets and big money to invest in marketing.

I’ve been at it for over 10 years and have written well over 4,000 blog posts.

Not to toot my own horn, but people turn to me frequently for blogging advice.

And there’s one particular question that I get asked a lot.

“Should I create a company blog or a personal blog?”

In other words, they’re wondering which one will be better. It’s an either/or issue.

And it’s a valid question.

It’s especially important to ask in today’s day and age when the line between someone’s personal brand and the startup they are creating has become blurred beyond recognition.

For example, everyone knows about Tim Ferriss, right? He has a personal blog, but he also has a multi-million dollar business.

Does he need a company blog?

Or take Ramit Sethi as another example.

Does he have a company blog?

Not exactly, even though he sure as heck as a multi-million dollar company.

What’s going on here?

Have you ever wondered which type of blog would serve you better — a personal one or a company one?

It’s something you really want to think about carefully before committing to either format.

So for this post, I’m going to break down the differences between a company blog and a personal blog and offer my own advice to help you decide as well as succeed.

Key differences

Some of you may be wondering whether or not there are any major differences between a company and personal blog.

I mean, aren’t you basically covering the same topics?

Well in my case, I do cover very similar topics.

As you can see, they’re pretty much interchangeable.

But I wouldn’t really say that this is the norm across the board.

See, NeilPatel.com is my consulting business, so of course, I’m going to cover digital marketing topics on how businesses can get more traffic and higher conversions.

So this isn’t a personal blog in the conventional sense.

If you’re looking for a solid description of a personal blog, here’s one from Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.

The way I see it, the main difference between a company blog and a personal blog is the subject matter and level of flexibility you have.

On a company blog, you’ll zero in on topics that are directly related to your industry.

So for The Daily Egg (the Crazy Egg blog), it’s conversion optimization.

In other words, there’s not much wiggle room on a company blog.

You’re there to discuss the core concepts that relate to your business and industry.

And that’s pretty much it.

Now I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing.

Explaining the nuts and bolts of your industry and offering helpful advice is incredibly important.

But as Darren Rowse mentioned, there’s much more freedom with personal blogging.

It’s your own little corner of the web where you can write about a smorgasbord of topics.

You’ll definitely cover subjects that relate to your business, but that’s only part of it.

You may also cover topics that are completely unrelated to business and include your philosophy, values, viewpoints, hobbies, personal life, etc.

So I guess what I’m trying to say here is that a personal blog is usually your best option.

You can still blog about business content like you would on a company blog, but there’s a lot more you can do with it.

Besides the flexibility, there’s another massive benefit.

Trust building

One of the reasons why I’m such a proponent of a personal blog is the level of trust you can establish with your target demographic.

Allow me to explain.

There’s an article from HubSpot that talks about how many companies are shooting themselves in the foot when their CEO doesn’t have a social media account or personal bio.

It points out that “only one in five CEOs have a social media account, and only 50 percent of CEOs have a personal bio on their website.”

And just look at the number of Fortune 500 CEOs with 100 or fewer connections on LinkedIn.

It’s meager.

This can make it seem like CEOs have something to hide.

Or at the very least, there’s a disconnect between them and the people who are actually buying their company’s products/services.

Enterprise marketer, Lindsey Gusenburg offers a great quote that speaks to the importance of company leaders being visible and accessible.

Although Gusenburg is referencing social media, there are other ways for leaders to become more visible and accessible.

And when you really think about it, what better way to accomplish this than to create a personal blog?

If you really want to give your audience an inside glimpse of what you’re really like and show that you truly embody your brand, maintaining a personal blog may be pound-for-pound the best way to do it.

It’s like removing the veil that separates you from your audience.

Sure it makes you more exposed and vulnerable, but it’s an integral part of gaining trust.

Some examples

Let me go ahead and give you some specific examples of successful CEOs and business leaders who have pulled off personal blogging brilliantly.

Example #1

My first example is Mark Cuban’s personal blog, Blog Maverick.

If you’re at all familiar with “Cubes,” you’ll know that he likes to speak his mind and stirs the pot from time to time.

He’s opinionated and isn’t necessarily politcally correct.

In fact, he can be quite polarizing.

But you can’t deny the fact that he’s super successful and has a loyal legion of followers.

On his blog, Mark talks…

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