Should Your Business Have a Blog? A 2 Week Experiment

vanessa — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:00:09 +0000

As more business owners and executives read about how successful and influential blogs have been in building other businesses, many are interested in starting a blog and dive head first into the pool without ever testing the waters. I would never suggest diving into blogging simply because you read about it in business newspapers or because you’ve seen other top execs start blogging and you instantly want the same results they have. No, that’s a sure fire disaster. Instead, I recommend you get a sampling of what a business blog can do following this two week challenge.

If you’re not a strong writer or find it difficult to make the time to write, it would be better to do this experiment before plunging ahead with a blog.

Here is the gist of the experiment: test the waters by following blogs in your niche and become an engaged reader by commenting on posts that have meaning to you or make you ask questions.
Blog commenting is a good way to develop your writing habits on someone elses blog (and their blog investment). You also get to develop thought leadership in your arena and helps build your reputation for your name and business. Here are the details.

The 2 Week Challenge

How to Decide if Blogging is Right for Your Business

First step: Get to know your industry blogging peers

Figure out who are the most influential blogs are in your industry. Subscribe to their feeds using a reader like GoogleReader or Bloglines, you should limit this initial challenge to 5 to 10 blogs.

Second step: Seeing what’s out there
Every day, skim all the headlines and only read full posts that pull your interest.

Third Step: Become an engaged reader by commenting
Leave a comment on the posts you read that you found interesting or ask a question to the author to expand on the topic. Remember to always add value to the conversation between the author, yourself and the rest of the blog readers.

I suggest using RSS feeds instead of visiting the individual websites as an effort to save time and get an overview of what is happening in your industry. Learn how to use Google Reader in Plain English

If you’re hard pressed to come up with industry peer blogs, consider doing a Google Blog Search or Technorati Search for your market. You can also search and subscribe to similar blogs inside of Google Reader. I reference a great article in a previous post, see question 4 to find relevant blogs in your industry.

By the end of the challenge you’ll have jump started your blogging authority and found your ‘blog voice’ in your industy amoung your peers and their readership.

You will also be able to decide if blogging was what you thought it would be like. You’ll be able to answer these questions before making your decision to start a blog for your business.

Was the experience similar to what you expected?

Did you have a hard time scheduling time to do the challenge?

Did you see how your peers’ blogs work to build a community and increase business? Did you see any benefit for the other company’s blog that you would like to add to your business?