Blogging started as a way for people to keep their journals online. People wrote about their personal lives as a way of connecting with others in similar situations, sharing, staying connected to family, etc. People wanted to talk and listen to others.

It was about having a conversation.

Business blogging is no different. Business blogging isn’t about pitching products. It’s not about telling people why you’re great and why they should do business with you.

It’s about engaging customers and prospects in meaningful conversations.

Mike Sansone at Converstations does a great job of explaining this in his recent post: Is Your Company Blog Simply Marketing Insurance?

What might scare some businesses off is talk about “conversation” and “engaging customers.” What does that mean? How does it work?

Truth be told it’s quite easy. Provide people with valuable information about your industry. Comment on what’s going on in your industry. Having an opinion is good. It might not seem that way when you’re trying to please everyone (so you can sell everyone something) but opinions can demonstrate some form of insight and relevance.

Ask for feedback. Scary for some, but obvious and necessary. Engage your customers by asking them for their thoughts on your products, company or industry. Find pain points and problems customers are facing. Collect information, answer questions and generally be available when a customer reaches out. They will once you start blogging and adding your thoughts to the collective information available.

Tags: business blogs, business blogging, corporate blogs, corporate blogging, marketing, advertising, sales, marketing blog, online marketing

Mike Sansone sums up the ongoing debate on whether or not companies should blog. He’s certainly in favor and puts together some great arguments.

Check out the sample searches he invites you to do on Google for hyper-local businesses and you’ll see obvious results. Google works for finding local businesses, and people use Google for that very purpose.

More than just reaching out via search engines, blogging can do other things too. What if you could start running contests on your blog instead of printing more expensive pamphlets and paper materials…get more attention online (that stays around, and doesn’t get thrown in the recycling) and set yourself up as unique versus your competition?

The big example used by detractors in the most recent debate is whether a pizza shop should blog. It’s a fair and good question. With some creativity (like online contests / coupons / etc.) I think you’d find some ways that make sense.

The debate is worth following. I don’t think every business will eventually blog, that’s just not realistic. But I think you’ll see more and more of them blogging and finding ways to leverage easy online publishing for their benefit.

Tags: business blogging, corporate blogging, mike sansone, converstations, small business blogging, business blogs, weblog, corporate blogs

When you first start a business blog, you might think the best thing to do is talk about yourself and your business. Your accomplishments. Your services. Why you’re great.

Eh…OK, that’s not necessarily terrible, but blogging isn’t really the place for that. It’s not about you. It’s about everyone else around you. It’s about the audience/community you want to develop.

So then you might say, “Let’s blog about our industry, with news, insight, etc.”

Absolutely. Makes total sense. Now we’re on the right track.

But could that get boring? Can we take it a step further?

Over at chilibean there’s mention of a blog by Quicken Loans called WHAT’S THE DIFF.

It’s tagline is wonderful: Exposing the gap between average and excellence.

Well I’m excellent, and so are you…so let’s take a look at what this blog is all about!

On the WHAT’S THE DIFF site they write:

THE DIFF blog is all about the things that make the difference in business and in life. Most of the time, it’s the little things. But every so often it’s something really big. At Quicken Loans, our team members cite “the ability to make a difference” as the biggest key to their job satisfaction. We consider this one of the most important facets of our company and corporate culture. So, we decided to search the planet for things that make a difference. Everyday, we want to celebrate those that make a difference and call out those that don’t. It’s that simple.

Quicken Loans is using THE DIFF as a platform to speak about their company’s culture and values. It helps give you an inside look at the people who work there, and by extension gives you a very good impression of the company. This approach - where you’re not blogging specifically about your industry - can be very effective and a lot of fun. It’s a very “hands off” approach to marketing/sales but if your brand can be associated with great values, your business will benefit.

Tags: branding, advertising, quicken loans, business blogging, corporate blogging, business blogs, corporate blogs

I love the name of Joseph Ratliff’s blog — The Profitable Business Edge.

He recently wrote a post, 5 Reasons Why Blogging is the New Internet Marketing Tool. He’s got 4 out of 5 things right in my opinion.

He writes:

Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free. Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up. Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

I suppose it depends on the context, but it’s not entirely clear. If he’s talking about putting advertising on blogs…perhaps you could find some people willing to do that for free. Certainly bloggers will link to your content for free, of their own volition, if the content is good and suits their own communities.

But the act of blogging isn’t free.

The infrastructure costs are very low (i.e. hosting, blog setup, etc.) but you can’t devalue the time it takes to write. If you write daily, expect to spend at least 30-60 minutes/day. And, as soon as you realize how important it is to read other blogs (and participate in the greater blogosphere community) you’ll be spending even more time.

That time will be well worth it.

But it’s not free. So it’s important to do a few things when you get into business blogging:

1. Have a Plan. You need a plan for how often you’ll post, and for what you’ll write about. Ideally, if you can always plan a week or more worth of posts ahead of time, you’ll save a lot of time in the long run.
2. Track Your Time. Knowing how much time you spend doing things is always a good idea. Even if you think you know, I bet you’ll be surprised once you really start looking at it. Tracking your blog-related time is a good way to start honing in on an ROI.
3. Have Very Clear Goals. The blogosphere can suck you in if you’re not careful. Actually, that’s really how the Internet works overall, not just blogs. It’s so easy to get lost on the Web, spending hours reading, checking out new videos, etc. Without clear goals there’s a good chance you’ll waste a ton of time. The goals help you decide, “Is what I’m doing right now going to deliver the results I want? It’s not all work and no play, but too much play won’t help either…

I may have misread Joseph’s intentions when he wrote that bit about “blogging is free” and hopefully he’ll respond and we can start a good discussion on the topic!

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Tags: Tags: business blog, weblog, business blogging, corporate blog, corporate blogging, blog success, great business blogs, business strategy, online marketing

Chuck Newton is a lawyer. And no, this isn’t the start of a lawyer joke.

Chuck Newton is a blogger.

And Chuck Newton gets it.

He recently wrote, “Simply put, blogging is the process of branding, and branding is what you need.”

That’s the first sentence in his blog post titled, Blogging Is Branding..And Branding Is Important For Business. Very true, Chuck.

What Chuck has come to realize about branding is that it can be very effectively done via blogging. And it’s not just for big business. On the contrary, I’d argue that a small business, solopreneur or at-home business person can stand out amazingly from the crowd (of other small businesses and big businesses) via blogging.

Chuck clearly sees the value of branding for law firms, and his understanding can easily extend to numerous other industries.

Tags: chuck newton, law blogs, blawgs, blogging, weblog, business blogs, business blogging, corporate blogs, corporate blogging, small business