The small business guide to blogging
- By David Carle
What do Howard Dean, Bob Lutz and Marc Cuban have in common?
Apart being powerful individuals, they successfully embraced the web's latest technology to drum up online momentum for their respective activities.
How did they do it?
Howard Dean leveraged his blog to build a loyal supporter base, and became the largest fund-raiser of the 2004 Presidential race.
GM Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz fearlessly faced online criticism and launched his FastLane blog, as a medium to exchange with GM car enthusiasts. This move was extremely valuable to the automotive company, as it gave them the ability to reposition their brand based on feedback from their buyers.
And Marc Cuban, the eccentric millionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, faithfully transcript on his blog the team's latest news, providing quality content to the media following the team.
Learning to blog turned out to be a profitable move for theses three gentlemen's. Imagine now what it can do for your site.
Welcome to the blogosphere
Dear entrepreneur friend, we arrived at the right time to witness the most explosive outbreak in the information publishing world since the Internet.
The blogosphere, the name given to the community of the 50 millions blogs, is doubling every 5 months, and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Everyone seems to have a blog theses day. People are blogging on everything from Paris Hilton and the latest canine trends, all the way to the latest business news.You probably already guessed that people are blogging on your industry at this moment.
This means you better catch up on this blog technology and learn how to use this powerful marketing tool properly so it doesn't turn against you.
A blog definition
First, a definition for the uninitiated: A blog works exactly like an online journal. The publisher writes small essays reflecting his views and ideas on any given subject, and posts the content on his blog. An external link can be supplied with the content, so other blogs can easily link to the article.
The intended goal is to open a conversation with the blog's visitors who can post their own comments. The next reader adds his comment in a chronological order and before you can spell blog, you have created an almost real-time discussion.
Every blog in the blogosphere falls in one of two categories:
1- The personal blog, where the publisher express private thoughts on various subjects.
2- The corporate blog, covering industry events, exchanging with the customer and accomplishing an organizational goal.
Now since we are here to grow your business, let's give a closer look to the advantages behind corporate blogging.
What are the benefits for my small business?
You already have a web page, invested in several e-marketing activities, and now you just heard about blogging. Is it worth the investment? The answer is more if your business can afford to not have one, as the benefits are simply overpowering:
Dialogue tool: Imagine the possibilities: Receiving feedback from your customers while drawing potential buyers in the conversation. This is intelligence research at his best. Long gone are the days of expensive telemarketing surveys.
Building credibility: Reporting breaking news on your industry will portray your business as the authority in the field. Although be careful: showing your experience should never look like a sale pitch for your company.
Low cost marketing: Running a small business is synonym with limited budget. Managing a blog is an excellent return on your investment, considering the exposure it brings to your organization. And it is cheap: no need to hire a full-time programmer. Free blogs software are popping out everywhere on the web.
Control your PR: You think McDonald's wouldn't have preferred dealing with criticisms on their blog instead of helplessly watching the box office's success "Super Size Me"? Having a blog is an opportunity of being the first to publish your company announcements, instead of playing the cat and mouse game with the media covering your industry.
Weathering the storm There are two sides to every coin, and inexperienced companies will quickly learn that a blunder in the blogosphere can turn in an online nightmare. Take the case of Netflix. Mike Kaltschnee, proud owner of the fan blog Hacking Netflix, had his interview request turned down by the Internet DVD Renting giant.
What happen next is predictable: Kaltschnee publish the conversation on the blog, and the Internet giant has to sail through a storm of criticisms.
Good or bad, blogs are giving customers the ability to pass insider information easily between themselves. A single complaint and precise linking can quickly become an online time bomb. The key to defuse theses explosives situation is professionalism and tactfulness, and never doing the mistake of fueling the critics.
Just treat your blog readers the same way you treat your customers in real life. Isn't the customer always right?
Ok, you convinced me, where do I sign up?
So you understand the possible consequences and decided the reward is worth the risks. So where do you begin?
First you need a blog account. The most popular are blogger and wordpress, while typepad requires a bit more technical knowledge. Although in any cases, the online instructions are so clear even the least technical person can setup his own blog within a couple of minutes.
Now the million-dollar question: What do you blog about? First, you need to define your business's objectives behind your blog. Do you want to talk about your industry and your organization, or your products and services? Perhaps using a bit of creativity, and describe how your product changed your customer's lives?
The efficiency of your blog is proportionately related to how well you match the interests of your readers. Mix the content they want with a conversational style of writing and you have the recipe for a successful blogging experience.
The style of writing is as important as the content. Nobody likes nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad type of talk, especially not in the blogosphere.
Final Thoughts
There is more than one reason to consider blogging for your online small business. As with other marketing activities, the key to remember is what your intentions are, and be ready for any consequences. Do you want more customers? Develop your corporate online credibility? Is the content relevant for your readers?
In this highly competitive e-commerce world, the winners will be those who embrace successfully the latest Internet technologies, while the losers are simply watching. Risky or not, you owe it to your business to try the blogosphere.
Can you afford to watch the game develop from the sidelines?