We all know that blogging to promote your business is a good idea, but you've also probably had an experience with putting tons of energy into a blog and then seeing the traffic languishing at 40 visitors a day. This article isn't about making a success of a blog that exists for its own sake - a monetized entertainment or informational blog that is designed to be its own source of income.
This is about a few examples of how using a blog can save your business, be it web-based or brick-and-mortar.
Cookie Store's Blog Post Saves it from Bankruptcy
Our first story comes from a cookie store owner in St. Paul, who already had a blog that was used for personal posts and general news. You wouldn't imagine a cookie shop's blog to have a large following, but when faced with a serious financial crisis and staring bankruptcy in the face, Katie Novolny's single blog post made all the difference.
She posted on her blog that she needed to get a lot of people buying cookies, fast, in order to make it through the month. Because she was active on various small local and specialist social networks, and had built up a number of contacts in these networks, her post started to make its rounds. It was forwarded, shared and emailed, and printed in a local newspaper.
The result was that enough people came around to buy cookies that they managed to pay their bills, stay open, and grow their customer base to a level that made the business sustainable.
Toronto Lawyer Casts Wide Net With Blog
A Toronto employment and human rights lawyer, Lisa Stam, gives us an excellent example of how using your blog can do more than just increase your customer base and generate revenue. Stam is an "old school" commercial blogger - rather than use clever SEO tricks and spamming forums and social media, she has built up a fan-base the hard way: by consistently producing good content and putting it in front of a relevant audience.
Stam says, "Being a Canadian and blogging helps eliminate national borders and helps (me) connect with people all over the place and I like that. It is the neat thing about blogging - it truly is a global activity." Lisa is one of the only female Toronto-based lawyers in her field who blog, so she has attracted a strong niche following. This following has led to a number of career and business opportunities, including agency-appointed client referrals, speaking engagements and a recent interview with the prominent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation talk show Currents.
Her advice for people wanting to use their blog to promote their business? "You have to read more than you write and listen more than you talk, that's critical."
Well said, Lisa.
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