Hi all, this weeks portion of the class is about how blogging assists entrepreneurs. I have linked to a blog which belongs to a friend of mine. She is deep, deep, deep, into stamping and scrapbooking. This cult (I mean hobby) meets at her home quite regularly where they all stamp and scrap to their hearts content. She sells supplies, and also her skills/knowledge when someone else wants to host a party. While she does not really offer anything for sell over the internet, she networks her friends and any related information into her blog.
http://geekgirl415.wordpress.com/
Several sites on the internet discuss this phenomenon of blogging to promote a business. One of them, http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/ecommerce/a/bblogs.htm, lists numerous examples of why blogging is a great way to connect with customers. It also explains that while a business website is a great tool, a blog on the other hand is an easy, non technical way to spread information about you, your product and information.
This article, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384325/, written a little over a year ago, details the blog of a person who quite obviously did well for himself using a blog. The article discusses other successful blogs, and lessons learned from them.
There are in fact other ways entrepreneurs can let people know about them. Websites, print advertising, billboards, etc. I have to admit, for a small business owner with limited funds, a blog appears to be a very inexpensive alternative. And if done properly (and with the right business model for your widget) it can be a successful form of advertising. Additionally, as I mentioned above, a blog requires almost no technical skills in order to make it work.
While I am not convinced that everyone can be successful simply from putting their business info on a blog, there are cases cited from the above links where people have benefited greatly from them. I don't think this is going to put much of a dent in print advertising, nor does it change my original opinion on bloggings impact on print journalism. Furthermore, I see no evidence that it has done so, and as such I believe this somewhat supports my theory that print journalism is not suffering due to blogging.
And your thoughts are...?
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2 comments:
OMG! What on earth are you doing, Anderson! You have a soapbox? I so love it... wanna custom blog banner? I make you one for free... since ur my bud and all!
I have agreed with everything so far. I think we hold the same position that although blogs can be useful if used correctly, it creates a huge problem in differentiating between opinion and real news. Businesses can use them to their advantage but it doesn't necessarily mean people will visit the site and even read the blog. I agree that blogs can be used successfully as a form of advertisement (like you said - they're easy to use and cheap), but probably shouldn't replace traditional advertising just yet.
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