Top 10 takeaways for Blogging for Small Business

Top 10 takeaways from my Webinar with Office Depot tonight, Jan 16, 4-5PM. You can still register and attend (and I hope you do!)

1) A blog is just a simple Web site, written in a personal style, frequently updated, with the most recently added information shown first. Blogs allow readers to leave feedback in the form of comments, making them interactive and building community.

2) People like to do business with people they know and people will get to know you through your blog due to its personal and conversational tone. Often who you know and who knows you is very important in business.

3) Blogging makes you easily findable on the Internet as search engines love blogs. Businesses, services, and products are looked up more and more frequently on the Internet and less often using the Yellow Pages and other techniques.

4) Blogging establishes you and your business by extension as experts. You increase your expertise, and your reputation, as you blog.

5) Blogs help you communicate with your marketplace: your customers, potential customers, partners, etc.  Since blogs are interactive and invite comments, they are a great way to get feedback.

6) With over 50 million blogs, quite likely some may be talking about you, your company, your products or services, and more. It's easy to monitor the blogosphere, the world of blogs, with blog search engines like Technorati.com and others. They can provide valuable information and can alert you early to any potential problems that are arising.

7) Successful blogging requires some planning. Why are you blogging? What are your goals? How does it fit into your business plans? Don't just start blogging because "everyone else is doing it." That is a recipe for disaster!

8) Successful bloggers are passionate about what they are blogging on. Their passion shines through. If you're bored stiff about your business, blogging may not be for you. Then again, blogging may re-ignite that passion that drove you into your business in the first place!

9) You don't need a lot of readers for success. The people reading your blog often influence those who buy and often buy themselves.

10) Business, and the Internet, are changing rapidly and together. 
Simply having a brochure-like Web site that that hasn't been updated in a long time is no longer enough. Blogging both gives you an advantage over your competitors and a foothold moving forwards.

Comments

[Jack]

I agree planning sets the stage and directions of the site. If the direction is clear, then all the pages topics and everything else falls into place. I know from experience without a clear direction too much time is spent second guessing everything.

[matt]

I think that you do have to be passionate about what you blog about. It definitely will show through in the writing. Here is a simple way for small businesses to gain access to the international market.
Speaking of the online business. I've created a site where small businesses can plug in their own store into my online virtual mall. For $35 dollars a month a company can have a store, with a store front identical to the physical store, while shoppers go in and out of the store, picking up items and are able to put them down or add them to their shopping cart. It's much like a video game. Shoppers can even chat with friends who are at the mall at the same time.
Just thought it might be worth the small business owners time to check this out, since like your article said, many people do their shopping online.
This site is www.popwebcity.com

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hi Jack,

I'm not a big planner, but SOME planning at a minimum is very good. I wish I had done some initial planning for my first blog.

Matt,
Passion rules. It shines through. if you're not passionate, you might as well do something else!

[Dave Forde]

Ted - if a blog is "just a simple web site" then do we really need a separate title to describe the person adding content to it (blogger)?

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hi Dave,
First I'll avoid your question :) by stating I believe the word 'blog' and 'blogger' etc. will fade into obscrurity just like 'Internet year,' 'zoot suit,' and 'Internet addiction."

There isn't a better or alternate word than blogger today.

Can we just call a blogger a 'writer' ot 'online columnist?' Not really -- they are just not the same. They do not convey the same meaning.

So what word will we eventually use? Your guess is as good as mine.

Blogger Ted

[Tamar Greenberg Bracha]

Hi Ted,
I attended your webinar from Israel last night. I just wanted to thank you for your extremely useful lecture. As a freelance blogging coach myself, your lecture had the added value of presenting coaching tips. You emphasized the conversational tone in blogging. One of the problems I have encountered with a few clients is that they have masses of articles they have written in the past, and they want to recycle them by copying the text and pasting it in blog posts. I liked your suggestion about getting clients to talk into the phone, and have someone else transcribe the text.
Tamar

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Hi Tamar,
Thanks for the kind words!
I hope the Webinar recording will be online soon, and I'll post a link.

Thanks also for signup up for the BizBlog+ newsletter!