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The Business Case For Blogging: Some Notes

By Des Walsh on Aug 10, 2006 in Blogging, Business, Main Page

I've been invited to participate in a breakfast seminar on blogging, as part of Small Business Month - September - on the calendar of my state's department of state and regional development: 'regional' meaning - all the bits outside Sydney, the state capital.

So after a chat with our region's business advisory person who is organising the event, I jotted down some notes for her to include in the program.

It was interesting to try and condense the business case for blogging into one page - and to include an explanation of what blogging is, briefly but sufficiently to encourage local small business owners (we don't really have big businesses in these parts) to come along to breakfast. Loading it up with stuff about RSS and other aspects of blogging did not seem a good idea.

Anyway, here's my go at it and I welcome suggestions to improve it.

The Business Case for Blogging

A ‘blog’ or ‘weblog’ is a website which has some extra tools that make it possible for even the most non-technical person to update online content regularly, add pictures and even sound to text content and generally interact more effectively with customers and prospective customers. Blogs are very low cost in dollar terms (try between $0 and $20 a month) and can be integrated with a traditional website or set up separately. Internationally, blogs are used by Fortune 500 multinationals and solobusinesses in a new approach to marketing and customer relations.

Technorati – - which tracks the number of blogs, reported August 2006 that it is now tracking 50 million blogs: the number continues to double every 6 months, with 175,000 new blogs being created every day.

A few examples of businesses large and small, using blogs:

  • CEO and President of Sun Microsystems, Jonathan Schwartz - Jonathan's Blog
  • CEO of motorbike company Ducati, Federico Minoi, connects directly with his customers and invites their feedback without intermediaries or spin doctors on the Desmoblog
  • Savile Row bespoke tailor Thomas Mahon has created international business through his chatty, friendly English Cut blog
  • Signs Never Sleep, weblog of the Lincoln Sign Company in the town of Lincoln (pop. 1,271), has promoted the company internationally and brought a measurable 10% increase in sales in 2005 ($35,000 of total $350,000) - as quoted in Debbie Weil's The Corporate Blogging Book.

The rest of the page was filled up with some Australia-focused information on blogging - subject of another post in the next day or so.

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  1. 1 Comment(s)

  2. By Abby Eagle on Jul 9, 2007 | Reply

    Over the last few years the Yellow Pages have been replaced by the Internet search engines. Likewise i think a lot of lead generation is better done through a blog than print based media. It is certainly cheaper and it remains on the Internet for ever. It just takes a bit of work to get your head around the concepts of internet marketing. I think that every one whether they are in business or not should at least have a blog if not a website. What i would like to know though is how to use a blog to generate local leads? Every blog is different. I wrote mine by hand http://www.rejoiceinlife.com/rss/abbyeagle_blog.xml They are also a good way to develop new relationships so if you are interested in a great stress management course (NLP and Zen Meditation at Bond Uni) then feel free to give me a call on 07 5576 4270.

    Kind regards, Abby Eagle

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