If you’re already wearing all the hats that an entrepreneur or small business owner has to wear, starting a small business blog may be low on your list. It shouldn’t be. There are important benefits – and of course challenges – to keep in mind.
We explored the benefits in a previous article – Small Business Tips: Why Should a Business Blog? Now, let’s focus today on the challenges and first steps.
The People Problems You’ll Find in Starting a Small Business Blog
If it’s just you in your small business, you can probably skip this. However, your business may grow someday. The people problems associated with your business blog will fall in a couple of categories:
- Control – People are often comfortable when they feel like they have control over their specific area. Blogging duties can start to chip away at that sense of security and control. Information becomes public that wasn’t, or certain aspects of the business may be suddenly scrutinized.
- Ideas – Where will your small business’ blog ideas come from? Your team or your customers? Let customer demand determine what the topics of interest are.
- Responsibility – Suddenly all the people with ideas seem to disappear when it comes time to write. It is best to share blogging duties among different authors, but this isn’t always possible. At the very least, one person should be the editor or content driver. Encourage as many as possible to contribute content . . . maybe even customers!
What Platform is Best for Starting a Small Business Blog?
It seems like a simple question, but decisions you make on streamlining your blog generation now will reap huge benefits later. Also, keep in mind that certain platforms can have implications on your content ownership (as with Google and Blogspot). Keep that in mind.
We continue to recommend self-hosted WordPress as the best platform for blogging.
Content Scheduling For Your Small Business Blog
Invariably, companies find one or two good topics to blog on, start the blog, then they run out of ideas. There are plenty of topics out there though. Go ahead and establish a content calendar now to determine weeks in advance the content that you want to share. Time sensitive or customer driven content can always interrupt the calendar or supplement it.
Blog Management and Moderation
Keep in mind when starting a small business blog that it won’t get built overnight. Building a blog takes time and ongoing investment. The duties are longterm. With time, there will be comments to approve, delete, and moderate. Consider determining that role now – it is probably best for the editor you’ve chosen to run with these duties.
After some time, revisit the blog’s performance and the enthusiasm of the team. It won’t all happen overnight, and the direct response will come in time. Make sure all members of the team are on the same page with these expectations. But, remember, a blog can be a great place to express and highlight personality, unique viewpoints, and what makes your small business unique – take advantage of that.
Are you starting a small business blog? Tell us about it below! Do you need help getting started? Reach out and tell us more.
Hey Matt,
Another great post! You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned content scheduling. A small business blog needs to have a steady stream of content at a consistent pace to succeed. Great tips as always!
– Matt Banner
Indeed, pace is key. And, pace is difficult – I get it. When you’re juggling different tasks, there’s a desire to focus on content generation one day and maybe customer satisfaction the next day. But, finding a pace – a rhythm – is the key to long-term success when wearing all those hats.
If you’re lucky enough to actually have a marketing department, you can distribute those tasks. But then, the structure of that department and how it can affect that pace are factors to keep in mind.
Thanks for the comments Matt – you’re certainly an expert on the topic.