Small Businesses And Blogs: Bigger Than You Might Think

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Small business is big stuff around Indiana.  From the Indianapolis Star the other day, I learned that 98% of Indiana employers qualify as “small” by the U.S. Small Business Administration standard of 500 employees or less.  In my work as a professional ghost blogger, I’m dealing mostly with clients at the small end of “small”, those with 30 employees down to one-man or one-woman shows.
One reality of owning a small business is the need to “shout loudly” to get found, and the need to do that on a limited marketing budget.  The “Business Profiles” section of IndyStar a couple of weeks ago urged us to patronize small businesses, saying “You’ll get personalized service and quality products while boosting your local economy.” Still, many challenges persist for small businesses in this age of stay-home-and-click-to-find-anything.
Those challenges, in essence, are what makes my work as a ghost blogger for business so satisfying.  I actually get to help level the playing field a little, giving my small business owners a chance to compete with bigger guys, “win search”, get found, and bring in new customers and clients.  Through providing recent, relevant, and constantly changing content on the Web (and, with my help, doing it frequently), those “little ones” get a chance to be big, not only in the aggregate as part of that 98% of Hoosier businesses, but individually!  At the very least, these small businesses can be bigger than one might imagine based on size alone.  In the blogosphere, you see, small can be beautiful.
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Blogs – In Between Crafted And Cranked Out

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Remember the study about motorists noticing billboard ads only when they’re already in the market for that kind of product or service? Well, stuck in traffic the other day, I found myself being an exception to that rule, and, at the same time, proof of how true it is.  I noticed this billboard for the first time after having passed it every day or so for months.  It was an ad for a home building company that was on the billboard, and it contained only four words: Crafted, Not Cranked Out”.  Living proof of the rule is that I’d never noticed the sign before because I’m not in the market for a new home.  On the other hand, as a professional ghost blogger, I’m always interested in great word tidbits, and this billboard sure qualified.
We’re all used to alliteration in slogans, meaning repeated sounds.  This one used a C in crafted and cranked.  But what makes for a great word tidbit is capturing, in just a couple of words, a number of ideas and then delivering those in an impactful way. These homes, I instantly understood, were carefully and lovingly devised by skilled artisans to be different and unique, in contrast to the other guys’ homes that were just cranked out cookie-cutter style. (Remember, I’m getting all this from just four little words!)
I reflected that business blogs and word tidbits are a match made in marketing heaven.  Unlike brochures, client newsletters, E-zines (online magazines) and websites, blogs are short and concise, just whetting customers’ appetite. Blogs are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  Don’t get me wrong – good blogs are devised with care (poor grammar and spelling or incorrect information would give readers a bad impression of the business), but they strike a happy medium. In fact, the best blogs aren’t either crafted or cranked out, just comfortably in between!.
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In Business Blogs, Keep Your Eye On The Last Two “I”s

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The Whale Hunting Women newsletter outlines a process for women to use when planning big changes in their lives. The first three steps are: Imagine, Investigate, and Invent.  As a professional blogger, I’ve observed different business owners planning to add blogging to their business marketing plan, yet they have no idea what blogging is all about.

In theory, blogging is the most easily-launched marketing tool that a business can use.  Unlike labor-intensive direct mail campaigns or expensive new brochures, ads, and signs, blogs can be started in a few minutes, and, even more appealing, launched without any financial commitment up front.  Before starting the process, the entrepreneur imagines: he/she can just picture them coming – hosts of internet browsers, all looking for information about the very kind of products and services his or her business offers. The owner does some investigation.  He/she reads about blogging, perhaps attends a webinar or seminar, and asks friends who own businesses or professional practices about their experiences with business blogging.  On to Step #3: Invent. The owner jots down ideas for the blog, and even writes the very first blog post.  There are so many great ideas to share with all the people who will be clicking on the blog! So far, so great.

But this is precisely the point at which many business blogging efforts go astray, with lofty dreams and plans ending up in the ditch. The fourth step is Implement.  Even knowing that winning the search and driving business to the website involves frequency of posting blogs, the majority of small business owners, even with the help of their staff and employees, simply cannot spare the time or maintain the discipline of composing and posting blogs frequently enough to make a difference in their marketing results.  As Barbara Weaver Smith, founder of  Whale Hunting Women stresses about implementing the plan, “The important part here is to keep moving.  Business owners who fully understand the difficulty in keeping up frequency and recency in business blogging are the ones who hire ghost bloggers.  As a professional ghost blogger, I am there for the fourth “I“ in other words, to implement.

Whether the blogs are written by the business owner or by his or her ghost blogger, the fifth “I” is the key to the real success of blogging – Integrate.  As Weaver-Smith advises, continue to implement your plan until it becomes totally part of your new way of life and work.  In the case of blogging, even if professional ghost blogging helps my client’s company or professional practice in the search, so that the blog is consistently appearing in a coveted Page One spot on Google, Yahoo, or MSN, there’s work to be done back at the business in order to integrate. That means tracking how many new potential customers showed up at the website (or in person at the place of business) just because of the blog.  That means learning exactly who those customers are and whether they fall into the demographic that business is trying to attract.

Barbara Weaver Smith knows whale hunting works.  My Say It For You business owner clients know blogging works.  But, before you jump in with both feet to business blogging, remember this: you’ve got to keep an eye on all five I’s.

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Birds Do It, Bees Do It… Let’s Do It, Say Busy Business Owners To Their Ghost Bloggers

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In the book “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Podcasting,” Mikal Belicove, ghost blogger and blog strategist, defends the practice of ghost blogging. Most sports figures, music stars, celebrities, and politicians don’t write their own books.  Belicove adds that it’s not only books that are ghost-written; most quotes from CEO’s and company presidents in press releases were never actually uttered by those CEO’s and presidents!

Even though many people are aware that books and speeches and even songs are often not composed by the people to whom they’re attributed, when it comes to employing a professional ghost blogger – some folks feel that takes away the special authenticity blogs have.  Mikal Belicove doesn’t agree with that sentiment for a minute.  Very much in the manner in which I perform Say It For You ghost-blogging services for my clients, Belicove writes and handles the mechanics of posting blogs that contain the client’s thoughts and ideas, not his.  Mikal simply helps them jump-start the process by articulating those thoughts and ideas.  As professional ghost bloggers, we start the process by discussing ideas with the client; the process doesn’t end without the client’s having approved each finished blog post.

Belicove makes one important point in the book that I think is worth emphasizing here: A professional ghost blogger adds a lot more to the mix than just labor.  “He or she provides insight and clarity in taking ideas from a rough format and working them into a post that makes sense and has value.”

Ghost blogging is part of a trend on the part of business owners to focus their time making and selling products or doing consulting, delegating marketing functions to others.  “It’s the thoughts and opinions that matter, not the mechanism for getting them into the blogosphere.”  My thoughts exactly, Mikal… When Cole Porter sang, “Let’s do it,” he was referring to falling in love.  But if Cole were writing the song today, who knows?  He might have sung, “Lets blog!”

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Shout It From The Rooftops With Mini-Windmills And Blogs

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The mayor of New York City proposes putting windmills on city bridges and on rooftops to help supply renewable energy to the city in the form of wind power.  Neighbors worry about having unsightly wind turbines on street corners, but the city’s director of the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability reassured a New York Times reporter that you can make them (the windmills) so small that people think they’re part of the design.

Business owners on a budget can learn a useful lesson from Big Apple.  Just like the city of New York, businesses need to generate marketing power.  The cost of extensive print advertising and direct mail campaigns can be daunting for businesses struggling to grow market share in today’s economy.  What’s needed is wind power to propel new customers and clients to the business without the owner needing to make extensive and inflexible upfront financial commitments.  In business marketing, blogs can serve as the parallel to what New York is calling eggbeater-like wind turbine models.  Blogs are small, shorter and more centered around just one idea than e-zines or newsletters.  Like the proposed rooftop mini-turbines, which require less wind force and less set-up time than their standard-sized counterparts, blogs require less of business owners than major advertising and marketing thrusts.

Blogs are informal, friendly, conversational, and, because new material is posted frequently, blog posts tend to be more up-to-the-minute. Blogs can link to other blogs and web sites, turning mini-power into maxi-power, and increasing exposure to the search engines.  As blog expert Denise Wakeman enthuses: Search engines love blogs!

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to reduce New York City’s dependence on a power grid that caused big blackouts.  He’s thinking small; eggbeaters on the roof. Businesses trying to reduce marketing costs while increasing marketing power might do well to think small, too.  Blogger on the roof, anyone?

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