Should a small business blog?
Firstly, what’s a blog? Well, successbox.com.au is a type of blog. And according to mysmallbusiness.com.au blogger, Kirsten Le Mesurier, blogs are a medium for soul-baring and straight talking. They are read because they are anti-establishment and free of spin.
A blog is a type of journal that is made available on the web. Readers, ie your customers, staff, suppliers and the general public, can leave comments, feedback (good or bad) or share views and opinions on topics you have posted.
So what’s in it for a potential business blogger?
Le Mesurier sums it up quite nicely:
- Open communication about your company or organisation, its employees and its culture humanises the organisation.
- Blogs can deliver instant feedback. Readers don’t hold back, and an advantage is that problems or criticisms can be picked up on and resolved quickly.
- Honest and thought-provoking posts can have wide reach.
- You’ll be positioned as an expert in your industry.
What about search engines?
Well, as per our last article, search engines love blogs! So, if the above reasons don’t excite you, how about the fact that blogs help improve your visibility on search engines? Read more.
Blogging well
- Do not hire someone to write your blog. Write it yourself.
- Focus your blog posts on your area of expertise. For example, as a leader in online business solutions, Melbourne IT’s blog topics on successbox.com.au is about online marketing for small business.
- It is best to avoid self-promotion and advertorial type posts. If blogs are a medium for soul-baring and straight talking, then promotional type posts would defeat this purpose. You’ll probably annoy readers and lose credibility.
- Post topics and content on a regular basis to ensure readers always have something fresh to read and search engines continue to visit and index your site.
- Respond to comments and questions quickly. A blog is, after all, a form of one-to-one communication with customers.
- Avoid censoring comments. Readers respond to each other so unwarranted criticism is often refuted by later comments. You would have noticed this in last week’s blog article.
- Get your staff involved and invite them to post relevant topics.
- Make sure you have a blog policy.
Here are examples of business blogs:
mysmallbusiness.com.au. A blog for those who are starting, growing or managing a business.
Zero Budget Marketing Blog. Talks about innovative ways to promote your business on a shoestring budget.
Now We Are Talking. Telstra’s blog on what makes their people tick.
Bailie Photography. A blog of a photographer featuring samples of great shots from previous clients.
Where to start
The best place to start is through Wordpress.com or blogger.com. They provide a simple interface and multiple templates to choose from so you can customise the look and feel of your blog. You don’t need technical skills as the templates are easy to maintain. Best of all, it’s free.
Just make sure your blog is linked back to your main website and vice versa to help gain more traffic and readers.
So, do you think blogging, in one form or another, adds value to your business?
Need help? Book a Free Consultation with a Melbourne IT eBusiness Consultant or call us on 1300 132 838.
October 11th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Sory to report your explanation of a “blog” still has me confused but I’ve only been using computers for business for the last 27 years. I had adopted the position that I would ignore all the hype about ‘Blogs’ until someone eventually explained how the heck they were different to anything I already knew and was doing. Sadly I’m still waiting.
You mention that “success box” as an example of a ‘type’ of a blog, but that begs the question – what is success box? Most people would have no idea. So simply explaining the functions and objectives of “success box” in your article may have been a good start.
Us oldies are familiar with the principle concepts of “publishing” news or opinions on our own web site or providing “feedback” to news or opinions on other people’s web sites. Is blogging just modern venacular that seeks to subsume these old, tried and simple concepts?
Is a blog an on-line company news medium or a personal opinion medium? Or are the responses that people leave to those new items a blog? I would have thought that responses would have been known as feedback.
After your valiant attempt ot explain blogs I suspect some of the simple questions people may still have about blogs are:
What type of information constitutes a blog? More importantly is there any that dosen’t?
Where does a blog live on the web? My web site or someone elses?
Who owns a blogging site, some examples?
How is one classified as a blogger?
How does one physically make a blog? Is it by filling in a response form on someone else’s web site? Or by publishing information on your own web site?
What ‘Old fashioned’ names could blogs have gone under in the near past.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Carrying on from what Brian has said, how does a blog differ from a Chat room? Some answers to Brians questions would go a long way to clarifiying the situaution.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Brian’s comments typify mine. I’m an ‘oldie’ with very little experience with computers but willing to learn and try anything! It would be fantastic if I could start a ‘blog’, ’story’, ‘communication’ etc. on my website for the public to read and primarily be informed and educated from, which will then, hopefully, lead them to me! I really do like this idea!
So, do I just add another webpage to my website with an appropriate name for the public to click onto, add some informative chit-chat and a form for the public to fill in and comment? Then, regularly update this ‘informative chit-chat’? Is this how it will work? It sounds to me like a monthly article in a magazine but with none of the costly fees!
Please enlighten me and thank you for your education.
Sincerely,
Patricia Beatty
October 11th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
I have a ‘blog which I publish twice weekly to a small mailing list using a PHP list manager. As an artist, I include an image of a painting with a brief explanation of where the painting was executed, the media, size and price.
I also write a ‘blog for an art site in the USA (ArtID.com).
In both ‘blogs I try to be accurate, honest, , factual, fair and uncomplicated. I certainly do NOT use my ‘blogs for propaganda purposes, or include one-sided arguments, or partial truths when it suits me.
You might like to review YOUR OWN ‘blog policy in the light of these comments, particularly when quoting examples of well-known ‘blogs in the article above.
You have my apologies if this comment is too subtle, but I have very strong feelings about honesty in public statements. A ‘blog is a document in the public domain.
Perhaps you might care to include http://www.tellthetruthtelstra.com.au as another example of a ‘blog with a different point of view.
Cheers,
Dai
October 12th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Something I do on the side to raise money for our work with homeless people is internet marketing consulting. So your email I understood but I’d rather get higher level experienced advice if I’m going to get any email from you on this topic.
I understand dealing with clients there is always that knowledge gap, and have the advantage of if I use a technical term I can explain it to them. Perhaps what you could consider is providing a link to a pop-up explanation for all technical terms in your emails, or something like that.
Technically I disagreed with the wording of some of your claims, not so much that they were false, but more that a bit of a stretch of reality was involved.
Point being you should respect the spectrum of understanding your clients have. Some are at expert level, in terms of search engine optimization and some are completely uninformed.
Perhaps a new product line – a tutorial in seo / sem especially for the beginners. I know this email was some kind of attempt at that but given beginners received the email, you pretty much missed the mark on that one.
Finally, If you don’t want to be laughed at by expert clients, get your advice in order before you send it out.
I don’t mean to salt your game, just giving respectful and honest feedback.
October 29th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Hi there,
This blogging……if customers can leave comments, what is to stop people leaving rubbish? We have had to implement an anti – hackers device on our testimonials page to stop nuisance messages which take up space and are junk downloaded from a web page. We don’t want to get ourselves into that sort of situation again.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Businesses are using blogs as an easy answer to a newsletter. They prove to your customers you are an expert in your industry, have a dynamic product range and are on the ball with current issues.
Blogs are engaging, giving your visitors a reason to return, promoting word of mouth and providing an effortless means of website interaction.
Sounds technical? It’s not, it’s easy! A blog allows you to write short, punchy snippets which are then automatically displayed on your website.
Write about industry news, company achievements, customer comments, suggestions… whichever topics you feel will repeatedly interest your customers and motivate them to return to your website over and over.
Your internet savvy visitors will go a step further, and elect to have your posts automatically sent to them — how’s that for getting your message in front of potential customers?
A blog can be installed and integrated into your website like a news page. Lots of free software is available, one of the more popular ones is Wordpress. Your web designer can install this at a very low cost.
(I hope this is a less technical answer and provides easy-to-digest responses!)
April 30th, 2008 at 10:51 am
We have got great benefit from our blog, and advise all of our customers that are in consulting or provide expert advice to customers to do the same. A blog is a great way to engage your customers in a new way, and to develop a relationship with them that is different from advertising or other marketing methods.
The main thing is that once a blog is up and running, it needs to be maintained and reguarly updated. Otherwise a negleted blog can be more of a detriment then a benefit