WSJ: Blogging Good for Small Business
March 8, 2005
The Wall Street Journal from March 1 has this great piece on the benefits of blogging for small businesses. Here's an excerpt:
The blog as business tool has arrived.
Some eight million Americans now publish blogs and 32 million people read them, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. What began as a form of public diary-keeping has become an important supplement to a business's online strategy: Blogs can connect with consumers on a personal level -- and keep them visiting a company's Web site regularly.
While any size company can use such a strategy, small businesses may benefit most: Blogs offer little-known small businesses name recognition, and the chance to boost traffic well beyond what they'd get if they were simply offering goods and services for sale.
"It's a new way of communicating, rather than marketing," says Charlene Lee, an analyst at Forrester Research. Like other forms of publishing, blogs attract the largest audiences when they avoid overt commercialism and deliver compelling and credible content, Ms. Lee says.
In a similar vein, blogs with character are seen as more effective than some more traditional online-marketing strategies, such as static, brochurelike Web sites and electronic newsletters that may get blocked by spam filters.
What a great impetus for me to keep this up, as well as encouraging the clients I support to do the same!
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