Why Your Small Business Needs a Blog
July 11th, 2012
Filed in Blogging with the following tags: Blogging, Small Business
It should be obvious that every business has a website. In an online world, it is your virtual business card, and you can show the whole world what you have to offer, every day of the year. However, this is where many businesses stop. They don’t bother exploring blogging. For some, it may be intimidating, while others feel that they don’t have what it takes to write a blog. It may not be obvious, but it is an essential part to your marketing campaign and it costs a fraction of what traditional marketing does.
You need a blog to build trust.
While a traditional website is static, a blog allows you to add posts and let your readers comment on them. Let’s take a small business like a hardware store for example. The owner is a keen handy man and posts tips on how to fix things in and around the house. He gets a fair amount of readers and he gains a reputation as a go-to guy online. He has reached expert status by helping people do something that he loves. He freely offers advice to his readers. In fact, many of his readers go to his store to ask his opinion on certain products, and again he gives them the best possible advice.
The hardware store owner is trusted by his readers and his customers, and it keeps them loyal. He gives his advice and tips away freely and this earns him trust. The trust that he’s earned both online and offline gives him a huge advantage over the hardware store down the street that has no website and no blog.
You need a blog to drive traffic.
Using the same example as above, the hardware store’s blog has become incredibly popular due to the quality of content that the owner shares. The content is great and read by so many people, that his online traffic increases, along with his search engine rankings. With the increased online traffic, the owner can sell his products online, and will sell them easily, as his customers trust him, and will buy nearly anything that he recommends.
The blog can also drive offline traffic. People want to meet the man that has given them valuable advice in person and they feel comfortable purchasing goods at his store, knowing that he would suggest the right products. Due to the higher volume in customers, he can offer DIY workshops, which will build even more trust, resulting in more traffic, which results in more business.
You need a blog to interact with your customers.
A blog allows customers and readers to comment on your posts and get in touch with you. They can ask you questions on your blog that they might feel stupid asking you in person. People communicate differently over different mediums. Some people prefer to write, while others prefer picking up the phone and talking, while others will climb into their car just to come talk to you face to face.
The interaction between you and your customers is priceless. You can bounce new ideas off them and they can give you feedback on a range of subjects, perhaps pointing out a potential problem that you never knew even existed.
Blogging is inexpensive and easy.
Blogging is really cheap when you consider it. The main expenses to consider are a domain name, hosting and a decent theme. WordPress is the world’s most popular blogging system by far and it is absolutely free. Setting a blog up is quick and easy and it doesn’t take an experienced web designer to put them up.
Blogs are an excellent tool to keep your customers engaged. They also keep you in the front of the customer’s mind when they’re thinking of your particular industry. If you have a small business, does your business have a blog?
Great article Alessio and I agree with you about needing a blog. So many companies haven’t been informed as to how powerful a blog can be and it’s up to us to educate them and show them the huge potential. As an blogger myself, and someone who has practiced SEO for a number of years, I look at it quite simply when it comes to a company starting a blog:
1. Get someone to set up a blog on the company site, even if it’s running adjacent to it, such as http://www.company.com/name
2. Start with just one blog post every few weeks, just to show that it’s there and to get fresh content into the mix
3. Ensure that you have Google Analytics or some measuring software linked to it.
4. Measure, evolve and enjoy a wealth of fresh eyes on your website.
Of course, an added bonus would be commissioning someone who does SEO to align the blog accurately and ensure that its benefits are being maximized – it’s incredible what someone with a little savvy can do to maximize a blogs potential.
Fresh content is crucial and measuring leads to success.
I can vouch for this, i started a blog about 3-4 years ago and over the years the responses have grown and grown. We even saw the potential to launch and online store due to the responses the website had generated over the years.
I think in this day and age if your company doesn’t have and online image then you are pretty much not moving forward and will be left behind.
Just a quick one, starting a blog is super easy and WordPress is so user friendly even for the average Joe who knows nothing about websites
It’s really great to hear from other bloggers who’ve taken the time to do things properly and are now reaping the benefits. I took a look at your blog and can see that you have an engaged audience, which is everything any blogger dreams of, so good on you!
Must agree, WordPress is such a wonderful platform and with access to hundreds and thousands of free and premium themes, one has the ability to get something up quickly and relatively unique.
The next step is activating Joost’s SEO Plugin (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/) and carefully configuring it. I came across a great article on SEOmoz a while ago, it details the process of setting up a WordPress blog to be SEO friendly and it’s a must read: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/setup-wordpress-for-seo-success
It will be a great study if you can perhaps include reports to confirm this finding. I’m not questioning your blog success, I’m just curious on metrics such as Traffic conversions, bounce rates, traffic referrals, time on pages spent, traffic location, SERP rankings etc – The effective measurement of any blog success! Congratz on winning with your blog. It makes a massive difference.
Thanks Chris. But it is true, the great thing about a blog is that you dont really have to be all clued up on SEO as you said plugins can do that for you.. We are pretty much at the top of all our search terms just because of a little research and some basic SEO.
I remember back when we 1st started the website it was a lot harder to rank, but as the website grew older and the website content grew, so did our following.
This is something people don’t understand, gone are the old days where a landing page was enough. Web users have become so much more savvy and people aren’t afraid to use Search engines to find what they are searching for, so even if your competitor is out ranking you, you are still going to get a share of the action.
Just last week I helped a mate who is in a dead end job start a computer repairs blog, we are still working on a custom theme, but its super easy to get started. Steve has now got his friend who owns a landscaping company to get himself a blog as well, so people are starting to see the potential and who at the end of the day doesn’t want to be a part of the marketing race
What you say about initially being hard and then easier is absolutely spot on, in most cases at least. Having a website with an audience and great fresh and unique content is what gets a website ranking (amongst other things). What I love about the web is that a website, if done carefully, gains credibility with Google and thus gets easier and easier to rank.
I’m really pleased that people are blogging more and more, from time to time I hear people saying blogging is dead because of things like Facebook and Twitter, and in my opinion they’re poorly mistaken. Facebook isn’t for business when it comes to SMMEs (in most cases at least) and Twitter only offers 140 characters, which definitely isn’t enough. Facebook works well for brand exposure and some specific industries, and Twitter is useful for Online Reputation Management (ORM) and quick announcements.
Long live blogging!
For sure at 1st i noticed a couple of decent hits from Google and as the content grew so did my rank and also the amount of traffic the Search Engines sent. So yes over time the website gains authority and then ranking your blog posts becomes pretty simple.
A lot of new business owners find the web to be a daunting place i find, but once they see how easy it can be and that South Africa still is “new” to the whole online thing its relatively easy to rank in your respective industry or target market.
For example this guy we helping with the gardening business, there isn’t actually any competition decent competition, yes there are a good couple of websites to compete with, but to our rank them will be rather easy to after posting a couple compelling landscaping blogs.
Yea so am i, its great to see our South Africa blog network expand. I believe there will always be a place for dynamic website.. You can only go so far with a social network IMO. You cant SEO Facebook posts/notes you cant store content on Twitter for followers to browse through at a later stage.
I’m huge into my social network marketing for my blog, and the following we have is amazing, don’t get me wrong i thing social networks and a great advantage to use in conjunction, but i still find ranking on search engine to be more effective than marketing on a social network. At the end of the day a person that searches for something on the internet is generally looking for specific information apposed to somebody that just clicks through a link from a Social Network.
This is just my opinion of course,but it seems to be working very well in the industry I’m involved in.
Something else that works incredibly well is that of commenting – Having people leave comments on your blog introduces not only great content, but also fresh content and content that my well be linked to from a tweet or another website should said person leave a really great comment.
Side note: There was an insane blog post by Anthony Pensabane yesterday on blog commenting: http://anthonypensabene.com/2012/07/10/what-you-comment-upon-now-echoes-in-bar-crawl-commentary/ – worth the read.
With regards to Facebook and Twitter, there are some fundamentals you can apply to assist with SEO, but they’re rather limited and potentially not worth the time investment if you’re limited for time.
I love seeing blogs being fueled by social media, don’t get me wrong. It’s difficult to move people from a social channel like Facebook through to a blog and even a step further, to leaving a comment on a blog – getting that funnel working will always result in excellent conversion.
Great effort, and in my mind, I can picture Google smiling at ya with a beer in each hand… Blogging. Ah. Fresh Content on a regular basis.
Direct points reviewed: (this is where a mudfight might start)
“You need a blog to build trust.”
I reckon there are better channels to accomplish this. Social media and perhaps email marketing. Why do I say this? Coz you speak to your prospects/clients directly. I mean let’s be honest: how many of your clients will actually be regular readers on your blog? But if perhaps hit them with a 140 character tweet containing a solid tip of some sort, that will be easier digestible, and readers can actually respond way faster than having to leave comments on blogs. Or best of both worlds: tweet your article with a shortned link and a purposefull #-tag. You, the Social Media specialists will know all the neat tricks and turns to make this successful.
“You need a blog to drive traffic.”
This might be the case without a doubt. The only challenge I find with this point is how to generate leads from blog traffic. 50% of visitors read your blog for research, 30% read but don’t convert, 15% bounce at first sight and the other 5% convert into a lead or something. But yeah, worth the effort!
“You need a blog to interact with your customers.”
As mentioned above: Social media offer way better options for interaction. But, funny enough, giants such as SEOMoz actually grew their brand thanx to a great blog commenting system where you actually can score points if people score your comment with a positive number. That is just great if you can actually implement something similar on your own blog.
“Blogging is inexpensive and easy.”
I won’t deny this, but I see a barrier to blogging, especially on local soil. Where will this hardware store owner find time to write blog articles? Yeah he can pay an agency to write articles for him, but way too many local businesses aren’t willing to pay extra to get a smooth-running blog up and running. Plus, you can’t deny it, for the ‘average’ blogger, coming up with relevant and fresh content on ‘tight’ topics is probably the single hardest thing to master.
But, I’ve got some feedback on your points from without my own perspective and might even open some doors to a healthy debate.
I wish blogging was as easy as this, but in my opinion, it’s way way harder than just posting articles. You need to do keyword research to determine which keywords might convert. You need to scan Twitter and Facebook to pin-down what is trending. You need to do competitor analysis to actually see if your competitors are doing something similar and how you can distinguish yourself from them. You need to study your stakeholders and their reading habits/needs. This hardware store owner needs to learn basic SEO implementations such as on-page optimisation and internal linking to actually make his blog valuable and to shift focus on conversion marketing. You need to obtain backlinks to ensure good rankings in search engines, coz if you don’t, how will you attract those masses of traffic? You need to manage some form of reporting (Google Analytics) to determine if you are pinning down the correct methods, getting the right referral traffic, reaching the correct location of readers. No use having a hardware store in JHB but you have more readers based in San Francisco. That will deter any chances towards good conversions. Yeah but how do we do that good ol’ sir? Keyword localisation. When writing those articles, include keyword phrases such as ‘where to buy affordable hardware tools in Cape Town?’ ‘hardware store johannesburg’ and the likes. All the above can basically be blog articles on their own. A more in depth review of each.
To us digital specialists, all this makes sense and we can go right ahead and implement all the best practices to make blogging successful. But that old lady running a cupcake business on corner Van Dyk and Crown Street will see blogging as a bloody burden. Almost as hard as maintaining a successful marriage. The question comes in: Is basic SEO knowledge sufficient, becoz I doubt that the ‘average’ user knows anything about duplication penalties, Google Panda and Google Penguin etc
Conclusion: In a perfect world, blogging will open up so many opportunities, and it’s such a valuable tool for Brand Exposure and a channel that will refine your business and what you stand for. In this perfect world, budgets will me unlimited, and copywriters can write like mad. But, realistically spoken, successful blogging creates way more challenges than sweet dreams!
MarketingMother, thank you for popping in and joining the conversation, I am so passionate about blogging that I can only appreciate and respect you for taking the time to share your opinion on all these points.
< mudfight>
I must admit, engagement through a social channel such as Twitter after doing research on the likes of Topsy is incredibly powerful. I’ve tried and tested this and seen excellent results. As we know, Twitter and Facebook add value to SEO, but not nearly as much as an engaged audience on your own website. I prefer to have people commenting on my blog and leaving fresh content than letting the social giants “own” the content. I also feel we can’t really separate everything, I feel that all of these tools work hand in hand, much like you’d have a great blog with a subscription box on the right, above the fold, to capture email addresses, rather than tweeting out to people asking them to subscribe to your newsletter – this won’t work most times, you will need a base station of sorts that shows the content you produce and allows people to consider before subscribing. If I brought SEO into this as a primary topic, then I would discuss this differently, but I’m trying not to do that ;)
In terms of driving traffic to conversion, one of the greatest blogs in the world that succeeds at this head over heels is the KISSmetrics blog – their conversion rates are incredible. That 5% conversion rate isn’t bad, most websites convert less than 3%, so if you can add another 5%.. that’s a good ceiling!
I agree with you, “need a blog to interact” is perhaps not the most accurate phrase, which could have been rephrased to “a blog helps with interaction” rather than stating it as though it’s the only way, your comments on social media are very accurate in this point.
Blogging is difficult, I work with a lot of companies where I need them to generate content on their blog in order to reach their goals, but it becomes clear very quickly that it’s going to be a huge hassle for the company so I often go a step further and I teach the client how to blog, how to blog effectively and how to blog without spending hours. There are so many useful tips and tricks that are available on the Internet that teach people how to blog, the problem is that people don’t always realize that blogging is a skill, and a skill needs to be learned and practiced.
The way you describe blogging in your last few paragraphs is like trying to create a website as brilliant as Facebook.. not everyone (read: hardly anyone) will create the best blog ever. I don’t believe striving to be the best is the aim of the game (or not at first though), but rather just getting started, learning the basics, writing something useful at an easy frequency and measuring it. From there it’s possibly to evolve, but if you go for the best of the best from the start, it will become a full time job and nobody will be available to do any “real” work.
“Conclusion: In a perfect world, blogging will open up so many opportunities, and it’s such a valuable tool for Brand Exposure and a channel that will refine your business and what you stand for. In this perfect world, budgets will me unlimited, and copywriters can write like mad. But, realistically spoken, successful blogging creates way more challenges than sweet dreams!”
I love that conclusion, and I can’t say anything against that. Blogging isn’t the most difficult thing, but I agree that there is a bit more to it than meets the eye and hopefully this blog will provide tips on blogging to help those who are standing at the start of a race and can’t find that first step.
I love this discussion, thank you Serperture!
@MarketingMother: I missed your first comment about Metrics of blog success. Interesting question and I don’t have anything completely tangible, but what I can tell you is that I have won a couple South African Blog Awards, I’ve appeared in multiple publications and I’ve become recognised as one of South Africa’s leading bloggers (sorry for the gloat, gross) – this alone shows great “conversion” in terms of building a personal brand. Moving a step further, I have leveraged my blog to build a network of people who have now given me the opportunity to launch my own digital marketing agency called iMod Digital. We’re (it’s not just me, the company has several full time employees and a few part time employees) 2 months into existence and we’re profitable. None of this would have been possible without my blog :)
Does that answer your question at all? It hasn’t all been about statistics per say, do you know what I mean?
With all that being said, I do have several clients that I’ve used blogging to fuel their businesses. I really want to share their names, but I am not in a position to do so, so you’ll just have to take my word that we’ve had great success with blogging across a number of different verticals :)
:-) Congratz on the successes, that makes a massive difference! I’m just really sceptical about “average blogging” as I’ve seen average blogs die a slow and painful death.
I’m really passionate about blogging without a doubt.
Let’s test you with a lil’ scenario:
Client name: Warehouse madness
Product & Services: Warehouse shelving and storage
Mission: Creat a successful blog that focuses on gaining leads, reaching the desired stakeholders (let’s say Johannesburg residents), you want people to actively particpate in the comment section (not just likes on articles) and you have a fairly limited budget as well as limited time to write articles and keep a constant eye on your Analytic reports.
Quest: Make of success of the above by being an “entry-level” blogger with no knowledge on custom blog theme creations, no knowledge on solid commenting system, and no idea how Google panda and google penguin works, so you aint sure if you are relevant with things.
Ready, set go ;-)
“The way you describe blogging in your last few paragraphs is like trying to create a website as brilliant as Facebook… not everyone (read: hardly anyone) will create the best blog ever.” Nah, not entirely what I meant. To me, succeeding with conversion marketing on your blog is probably the main focus and reason you would want to blog. Maybe that is different to most bloggers, but whilst I’m at it, I want to make money doing it. Yeah rankings are important thanx to fresh content on a constant basis and traffic to your blog is great, but like I mentioned: You sell hardware tools in Johannesburg and you get more traffic from US residents. That deters any attempt towards good conversions.
Issues I’ve picked up on local and international soil:
- People are really reluctant to browse the net using their smartphones coz data bundles are mostly used for “important” things. Blackberry has got the majority of market share in SA, and we all know how crappy the entry-level BBs are for browsing… those ones most people can afford.
- How many South Africans are clued up with RSS feeds? I still love those, and thanx to them, I see fresh content from not-so-popular blogs.
- Subscribe to newsletters of blog posts: Yeah you can but it gets really annoying getting those received in your inbox. Between useful mails, spam mails and newsletter mails, the last two irritate me like crazy.
- A lot of blogs asks for sign up before you can comment… yeah that is fair and really needed, but how many readers to you perhaps lose in the process? It makes me think of ecommerce sites where you battle to get things in your baskets, and you kinda just leave coz of patience.
“If I brought SEO into this as a primary topic, then I would discuss this differently, but I’m trying not to do that ;)” haha yeah reckon I did pull it out a bit, but the words blogging is easy etc kinda got me thinking. Anyone can blog, but to become really successful in blogging is a massive step… like you mentioned in the part where you actually train people to write effective blog articles.
“KISSmetrics blog” they are masters at what they do, but I’m not a regular visitor and never subscribe to emails from them. Why not you may ask? Again. Information overload. I even get emails from Distilled and SEER, and they irritate me like mad, coz it’s over and over and over… There I go again! Running into other directions. This is basically me pointing out the underlying barriers of blogging. Sorry for moving into other directions!
BUT JUST TO BE CLEAR: YES, EVERY COMPANY NEEDS A BLOG WITHOUT A DOUBT. BUT JUST HAVING A BLOG AINT ENOUGH. KNOW THE UNDERLYING CHALLENGES TO TURN HOURS SPENT INTO MAKING DOLLARS AND CREATING ‘TRUST’ AS MENTIONED!
@MarketingMother Haha, I absolutely love your challenge and it’s so well constructed that I applaud you. Off the bat, I would probably turn a project like that away, haha, but let’s take a look at it. The items to remember are:
- Increase leads
- Reaching target audience
- Commenting
- Limited budget
- Lack of time for writing & analytics
OK, so first off there’s a bit of a catch, “limited budget” isn’t too defined, so I’m going to assume that the budget is enough to pay for some local hosting and get a domain name (if required). Furthermore, some time to install WordPress and purchase a $39 theme. So, we’re looking at about R1,440 for the hosting (year), R50 for the domain name and about 4 hours @ R350 per hour, which is R1,400 to set up the blog and desired plugins – total being just shy of R3,000 – if they can’t afford that then they shouldn’t be entering this space, marketing costs money, this is still a fraction of print media and such. Right, so that’s the foundation cost, then I could say that they should have someone do a few hours of consulting to teach them now to write posts, answer comments and a few other basics. I would also advise discussing ways of using their own products as a means to attract traffic, as this is usually easier than spending cash. So, a few ideas that come to mind are things such as:
1. DIY Projects – who doesn’t like a cool DIY project.
2. Giveaways – Leave a comment answering a question, or submit a photograph of a shelf you installed, etc, etc. (crowd source the content and give something away for it, then publish it).
3. How to Guides – almost as useful as DIY projects.
I’d recommend one post every two weeks at the very least, I think less than that and it’s not worth it. One every two weeks and if there’s return, this can be increased. Talking of return, a consultant would need to setup Analytics to send them a report once a week (takes 10 minutes to setup) with the inclusion of goals and the likes – it would be a really simple report with strict facts so the owner could manage the success.
That’s a really simple example taking budget and time into account as strictly as possible. We’re looking at around R5,000 probably upfront capital to get set up and running – spend it, it’s an expense, less tax ;)
–
I’m not going to pick at every comment you left, all are valid, but I want to touch on two:
1. “A lot of blogs asks for sign up before you can comment… yeah that is fair and really needed, but how many readers to you perhaps lose in the process? It makes me think of ecommerce sites where you battle to get things in your baskets, and you kinda just leave coz of patience.” – Now that is too true for words; nobody really cares to sign up in order to comment, on Serperture they have rewards and points systems which do help, but in general people don’t like too and I agree about e-commerce and patience, the process must be seamless, especially in SA where the Internet isn’t fantastic.
2. KISSmetrics, SEOmoz, Distilled, PointBlankSEO and all the other blogs are rather frustrating, this is a topic I’ve spoken about many times. Not only is their a severe information overload, the topics are advanced and more than often they appear very actionable, but only if you have a ton of time to do an assortment of adjacent tasks around them, so I agree with you on that. However, KISSmetrics convert through their blog like no other and that was the point I was trying to make, so whilst I completely agree with you, I stand by what I said.
One of the biggest difficulties with a blog is that it isn’t instant and it takes time to see results. The results do come, but perseverance is required. I’m glad we agree that every company needs a blog, but you are right, “just having a blog aint enough” is correct. It’s a tricky one and I see what you mean about “average blogging” so we’re on the same page which is a nice way for this discussion to go. I suppose we now need Alessio to write a post on how to get up and running for less than R5,000? ;-) Perhaps I should guest post that one.
@MarketingMother – This has been a truly great discussion, thank you.
I have to applaud you for this one. Good formulation created from the scenario. I would really like to turn clients like this away, but let’s be honest; most small business clients will give you limited budget issues – and by limited I mean in the region of R2000 – R4000 which should probably include a holiday for six to Hawaii ;-)
Yeah I might have drifted off from the main headline and topic, but so many more points and ideas came forward. The original title “why your small business needs a blog” can be slightly vague if you catch my drift. It’s like writing an article stating “Every site needs to be monitored with analytics reports” and you discuss points that basically float around without any real substance. Why agree with all points covered in an article? That will never generate debates! Muwahahaahaaaa!
“Furthermore, some time to install WordPress and purchase a $39 theme. So, we’re looking at about R1,440 for the hosting (year), R50 for the domain name and about 4 hours @ R350 per hour, which is R1,400 to set up the blog and desired plugins – total being just shy of R3,000” haha I like this a lot.. Is that your selling proposition good ol’ sir? (MarketingMother taking a mental note)
Yup yup good content ideas. Those will surely attract some form of traffic. Love a DIY article that’s for sure. KISSmetrics are legends in all rights, won’t deny that. I take my hat off to those guys.
Okay cool this is me signing off with last thoughts from this article and debate (even though I drifted off into more sides/faces of the topic, which gave the article more substance in my opinion)
- Blogs are really helpful and all small businesses should get them started and managed (the theme of this article)
BUT
- Blogging has underlying hurdles that needs to be climbed before great success can be created, and all start-up bloggers need to be made aware of those. Learn SEO practices or pay an agent, coz Google Panda might just come around and cut-off the primary veins that leads to your blog’s heart – killing it slowly.
Dankie vir die debatvoering meneer! Have a good one and see you around here!
Groete
MarketingMother
I had to think on my toes there, nice challenge. Yeh, R2,000 – R4,000 is incredibly limited and in cases like that I might reassess the situation and see where best that money could be spent rather than simply throwing a strategy to make the money, it’s a little more to me than just the bottom line. Hawaii.. how I dream of an island holiday right now ;-)
I must agree, this post has become incredibly valuable to anyone running a small business or anyone interested in starting a blog, at the very least they might decide not to based on this or they might realize that it is possible, which is a great outcome either way as it will save them hours of research.
I honestly cooked that selling proposition in 5 minutes, dead serious, it’s what came to mind that I felt would suit a small budget and I do believe it’s very possible. However, I will state that getting a professional to work for those amounts may be difficult, but I know a handful of intermediate web guys who would take that on in a heart beat.
Thank you for the discussion, really awesome debate with great points being raised from all sides. I hope to see you around more on the blog, hopefully we’ll get into another great discussion and if you’re keen on blogging here, I saw an article submission area so I went ahead and submitted one, perhaps you’ll jump in too.
Take care!
Marketing Mother and Chris M
While some small business owners might be slightly older and a little less tech-savvy, the challenge is to get them to grasp that a blog and social media can make a huge difference to their business if done right. The challenge lies in convincing them to put down much needed cash to start a blog.
Traditional forms of advertising might be all they understand and they would be willing to spend more money on something they understand, which may not yield the results they expect, but the bottom line is that they understand the medium.
I say this because I have had the experience of running a business with these old school types and they saw no value in it. They would not see it as an investment, but rather more of a chance that they would be taking. That R2,000 or R4,000 could be used to buy stock.
Also, as previously mentioned, not everyone is tech-savvy enough to put a blog post together. Another challenge would be writing. Not everyone is able to write. Education in this aspect is vital, and the only way to reach small business owners would be through free workshops to help explain the value of the Internet, blogs and social media and to put it into laymen’s terms that everybody can understand.
@alessiolr – You summed that up quite accurately and pulled together what MarketingMother and I were saying. There’s definitely a decent learning curve, which requires someone who has a very strong take on social media and online marketing. The biggest hurdle I find is that online marketing isn’t instant (unless you go AdWords or whatever), so telling a company that they need to spend good money and then wait is always tricky and I don’t blame them for being apprehensive. Perhaps we need to write a post on getting a blog set up? Would make for a great tutorial..
@ChrisM – That sounds like a great idea. A proper comprehensive post, or even series of posts. From start to finish.
We would definitely be interested in a follow up post on this topic; it has created excellent conversation and holds a lot of value to anyone curious as to whether a blog is a wise marketing move.
Update: Part 1 of a 2 series on how to set up a WordPress blog has been published: http://www.serperture.com/blog/blogging/how-to-setup-a-wordpress-blog-part-1