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October 2006 — Vol. 84, No. 8

SMALL BUSINESS

Should you have a business blog?

Blogs can be good marketing tools but have potential downsides

Related articles:

By Chris Amorosino

Freelance writer in Unionville

“Blogs are wonderful tools for marketers,” says Tom Bradley, public relations director for Cronin & Co., a Glastonbury advertising agency. “They [often] don’t cost a thing. They’re an incredibly efficient vehicle for maintaining a dialog with customers and prospects. They give people reasons to keep in touch with you. And they provide a free forum for demonstrating the value of your products and services.”

Blogs — Internet journals, or “Web logs” — are booming. Technorati, a Web site that tracks blogs, reports that there are now more than 39 million blogs, with 75,000 new ones being created every day.

The blog owner regularly writes entries, which are usually short and may include links. Blogs usually have a dominant theme and ask readers to add their own comments to the journal entries. You can set up and manage a blog at no or very low cost.

Ongoing customer conversation

Proponents of business blogs see them as a great way to maintain an ongoing conversation with prospects and customers. Whereas Web sites provide primarily one-way information (company to customer), blogs allow a true dialogue.

A blog can “personalize” a company. The informal tone of a blog allows the business owner to speak to people as if talking at a cocktail party, rather than using the more formal corporate language of most business communications, says Wilson Cleveland, of the New York City office of Cubitt, Jacobs & Prosek Communications, a public relations firm with Connecticut offices in Stratford and Hartford.

Blogs can position companies as thought leaders, according to David Kluskiewicz, senior account executive at First Experience Communications in Glastonbury.

“This perception of being a trusted resource or authority is a subliminal way to instill confidence in potential and existing customers,” notes George Roberts, a principal of the Farmington Web site development company, Crucial Networking.

Blogs can also provide uncensored, nearly immediate feedback on products and services. Cleveland says honest, thought-provoking posts on issues important to readers get people talking about the blogging company. The back-and-forth nature of blogs and the fact they’re frequently updated make them a great way to build customer relationships, Kluskiewicz believes.

Another plus is that blogs can make your company’s name more visible with search engines. The more a business posts entries, the more people read the blog, and the more the blog is linked to other blogs, the higher up the blog sponsor appears on search engines like Yahoo and Google.

Simple to start

Starting one is simple. Some blog service providers, such as Google’s www.Blogger.com, are free. Others, like www.TypePad.com, start as low as $4.95 a month. Setup can be accomplished in minutes.

But bloggers must commit to posting entries at least every other day. Otherwise, according to Cleveland, the blog won’t attract or hold anyone’s attention.

Roberts advises businesses to keep their blogs uncontroversial. A tongue-in-cheek comment can be misinterpreted, damage the company reputation or even result in a lawsuit. Keep the entries factual and brief. And stick to what the business knows best.

On the other hand, Kluskiewicz recommends being very candid. That makes the blog more authentic, stimulates more conversation and attracts more interest.

Are there any downsides?

Blogging does give people the ability to publicly chastise the blogging company for an error. Bradley sees this as a worthwhile risk. “It provides you with the opportunity to show the world how responsive you can be when you do make a mistake. And rather than let a problem fester, it forces you to deal with it quickly and decisively.”

Another possible negative is that blogs allow people to say whatever they’d like to about the blogger’s product or company — true or untrue. However, unwarranted criticism has been known to motivate loyal customers to rally to a company’s defense. And trust tends to build when people see a company is willing to hear the bad as well as the good.

Some businesses worry that a blog might enable an employee to reveal trade secrets or information the company doesn’t want shared. Cleveland says companies can control blog content by having comments sent to the business owner for approval before they’re posted. And some companies create an employee policy that spells out the rules for using the blog.

“A blog can become a destination for the people you’re targeting,” Bradley says, “a place where they can learn and talk, and also where they can find resources through links to other blogs and Web sites.”

 

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