Advantages of blogs for small businesses

Yaro Starak, an Australian entrepreneur and publisher of Small Business Branding, has a great post on the advantages of blogs for small businesses. It’s part of his series on small business Internet marketing and covers the basics, right down to “What is a blog?” Take a moment to read it.

Here’s why blogging is taking off Per Yaro.

Blog usage is exploding because blogs foster great content and collaboration. Blogs are built to communicate with other blogs and no doubt if you do become a blogger you will find yourself meeting many other bloggers (meeting through the Internet however because quite often you will live in different countries). Not only will you form relationships with your customers but you will also meet people working in your industry, opening up opportunities for joint ventures, cross promotions, business collaboration and even friendships.

The real power in blogging comes from leveraging the blog network (called the blogosphere – yes it is cheesy!) to reach hundreds and even thousands of people. One popular article can be picked up (linked to) by hundreds of other blogs filtering your name and blog around the web like a virus. You couldn’t buy viral marketing of this magnitude, which penetrates so far so quickly at no cost, in the real world. If you blog consistently it can happen on a regular basis.

Yaro’s right on both accounts. I’ve been sharing some of Yaro’s content with law firms and professional service firms (75% of which are small businesses). By my doing so, thousands of these firms were introduced to Yaro. And I benefited by being featured in an upcoming podcast interview on Yaro’s podcast show for small business marketing.