by Jennifer Laycock
While social media is still the topic du jour at major search conferences, I'm still hearing a lot of buzz about blogs. While Technorati is tracking more than 121 million blogs these days, we're still no where near the saturation point. The issue now is convincing small businesses of the need to consider launching a blog. That's what Grant Griffiths is aiming to do over at Home Office Warrior with his great list of 12 Ways a Blog Can Benefit Your Business.
Grant breaks them down like so:
1. Blogs are not expensive and in fact, cost less than most other marketing efforts.
2. New blogs launch quickly and are easy to use.
3. Search engines love blogs and they love them because blogs are easily updated.
4. Publishing a blog shows your readers who you are.
5. Blogs offer you a completely new way to communicate with your clients, prospects and fellow business owners.
6. Your target market is using the web to search for everything, including the services or products you are offering.
7. Blogging can position you and your blog as the place to go for the information that is needed on the Internet.
8. Blogging and posting relevant content can position you as a "thought leader" in your niche.
9. By hosting a conversation on your blog, you will be positioned to succeed.
10. Having a blog puts you in control of your own Web based magazine and talk show.
11. Your blog post will never disappear from the reach of your target market.
12. Get with it and blog, because if you don't, you will be left behind.
You'll want to read his entire post to get the full reasoning on each benefit, but even just glancing at this list should be tempting you for at least one or two reasons.
Ultimately, I think small business types need to look at a blog beyond the value of "sharing information." Blogs have gotten a lot of play in the information services industries as a way to educate people. The motivation for many bloggers was the idea of sharing their knowledge freely so people would recognize their expertise and hire them. While that works on many fronts, it doesn't work on all of them.
It was with that in mind that I shared the story of the Tin Basher blog at SES San Jose last week. See, the Tin Basher blog was created by a small sheet metal fabrication shop in northern England. It wasn't created with the goal of spreading knowledge about metal fabrication. It was created with the purpose of adding a human face to the company...to build up a sense of rapport with readers and to give potential clients some insight into the company's culture.
Tin Basher blogger Paul Woodhouse dishes up personal news, interesting stories about nearby businesses and yes, the occasional sheet metal post. While the idea of a small sheet metal shop blogging may seem funny, the results are nothing to scoff at.
I had a chance to email with Paul to ask him about the blog and he shares some amazing numbers with me. According to Paul, the company behind the Tin Basher has seen their gross revenues triple since the blog was launched. The blog is pulling in upwards of 50,000 unique visitors a month and the company can directly tie 30-40% of their income to leads that came in through the blog.
That's not bad. Not bad at all.
It makes sense when you think about it though. My father's an engineer with Delphi and spends most of his time working with small machine shops and tool and die shops to get contracts filled. In his type of business, the personal relationship you build with the shop plays a huge role in getting the work done. If you know you might have to call someone up at the last second to get a job done yesterday, you need to know a little something about the people you're dealing with. You need to build relationships. The Tin Basher blog does this beautifully.
So maybe you aren't blogging yet. Maybe you think you don't run the type of company that "fits" with a blog. If that's the case, I'd challenge you to consider the Tin Basher and to consider Grant Griffiths 12 Reasons to Blog post. You might find yourself double checking to see if WordPress is installed on your server...
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Source: A Dozen Reasons to Blog
