Small business blogging

Jory, Kevin, Andru, and Stan all small business bloggers.  This is a huge thing.  Blogs and small business go together like peanut butter and jelly.  Of course when you go from just talking about your life, to talking about your work as your life this is a big thing.  When money starts coming into play ... then you have to start worrying about the shill question.  Can you be bought.  Can someone buy a good (or bad) word from you.  Andru is addressing this at the moment, and this has been a theme all day.  Interesting times. This wasn't talked about last year.  This wasn't even talked about three months ago ... at least not the the extent that it is right now.

Content.  If you start a personal blog that becomes a work blog, what about the old content, what about the content you might like to write about?  I would think about before making your personal blog work ... just start a new work blog.  But remember that the two will become intertwined and linked whether you like it or not.

Kevin: Experts sharing content.  This is so key.  For consultants, lawyers, etc. blogs are, hands down, the way to get noticed and noted in your field as an expert.  Kevin was being cited as an expert in law blogs (or blawgs) six weeks into blogging.  Yes you read that right.  Why?  He happened to start blogging in a niche without much (any) competition.

"No how small you may be today ... if you have faith in your idea ... if you have a service you can offer ... you establish a price and can present clearly what you do (note to self ... clarify self ... just what do I do anyway?) ... you can do it."  Post, link and write. Steve Rubel's advice ... FLEE

  • Find the Internet discussion on your topic
  • Listen to the discussion
  • Engage in the discussion, link, comment
  • Empower people to market for you.  Link to your content ... leverage your content ... this is your currency

Stan: "Blog and podcast ... hmm they don't seem like deep sea fisherman to me ..." I think Stan was showing Chris and Ponzi a house, but I'm not sure ... he had asked what they do and was told they were bloggers ... the quote above is classic and so true.  What does it mean when our terms seem so alien to most people?  Stan, who was Robert and Maryam  Scoble's real estate agent.  Stan was relating when Robert and Maryam put their house up for sale.  OMG, can you imagine?

Revenue models ... advertising?  No   Okay a little advertising will help pay your hosting fees. But then the question is "would you sell your soul for beer money ... " depends on the beer!  But seriously it isn't a small decision you do have to think about the perception of having Adsense on your blog.  There isn't a right or wrong per se, but ... ask a blogger.  We'll tell you.

Here comes the blog ... a small business that sells wedding favours but also has a community of brides talking about their weddings.

Kevin has made an awesome point ... small companies (law firms are his example) cannot be nimble enough to out blog you to out write you.

Do you have to blog about your business?  No, make sure you blog about your industry to show that you are an authority and guru in your industry.

This has been one of the best and informative sessions, well except for mine of course ;-).

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Re: Small business blogging
I found it interesting as well, Tris, but next year I'd like to see more non-technical bloggers - bloggers who use their blog to market themselves rather than make money from their blogs, and are not involved in the blogging industry. The person who founded the "Here Comes the Blog" blog would be great!
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You got me rocking
Weblog:  LexBlog Blog
Excerpt:  My panel with Jory Des Jardins, Andru Edwards and Stan Mackey on small business blogging really got the juices rolling. We may have been the last of today at the Blog Business Summit but it was great to share stories...
Posted:  Fri Oct 27 01:32:10 EDT 2006