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