Looking to dip your toes into the blogging sea before you take the plunge? In my last few posts I’ve been trying to convince you that the most common fears that keep small business owners from starting a blog really aren’t that scary. Over on the MarketingProfs website TJ McCue has written some nice tips on how you can join the conversation before you decide to host your own blog. This is a great first step to get a feel for blogging and deciding if it’s for you.

In the comments of my last post, Tim Berry points to a wonderful example of how a company can "talk" to customers via blogs (and comments) and turn frustrated customers into someone who wants to help make the company better. Read this post on Basil at Large and notice the difference in tone between the original post, and the follow up to the reply from PartnerUp.

In the original post, Basil is clearly frustrated and with good reason. The folks from PartnerUp respond to his concern, let him know what their thought processes are, and what their plans are. Basil is obviously pleased to see that his concerns are being addressed and invites PartnerUp to contact him if there is anything that he can do to help THEM!

So by simply listening and joining the conversation, PartnerUp was able to turn frustration into enthusiasm. In addition, people like me who never heard of them will visit their site thinking that they are pretty good folks – before I even know much about what they do.

This is another fear that I hear from small business owners who are considering whether or not they should blog. This is perfectly understandable – no one wants to have their dirty laundry hung out in the front yard for everyone to see. However, when you do make a mistake or are criticized unfairly, I think there are advantages to having it done on your blog.

It gives you a chance to correct your mistakes. Every small business owner that I know would rather have a customer complain to their face rather than complain behind their back. How many times have you said "If I had known about that problem, I would have fixed it!"?

It allows others to see for themselves if a person is being unreasonable. People will criticize you unfairly. If they do it on your blog, you have a chance to explain your position. Others will be able to see when you are being attacked unfairly.

Your customers and prospects know you are human – they know you make mistakes. How you handle those mistakes is what they want to know. The worst thing you can do is ignore criticism on your blog (or elsewhere).

A blog (and marketing in general) is about conversation. You can’t prevent people from talking about you or control what they say. But you can join in and contribute to the conversation.

A common fear I hear expressed by small business owners who are thinking about starting a blog is that the number of comments that will be left on their blog will require an inordinate amount of time to manage and maintain. In my experience, both with my own blog and with small business owners that I work with, this just doesn’t happen on the typical small business blog.

Let me start by saying that you do have control of the comments that are posted to your blog. You can disallow them totally (although I don’t recommend this approach). You can also specify that comments are only visible after you approve them. So, you do have some options for controlling the comments that appear on your blog.

If you are the typical small business owner that I run into, your blog is probably not going to generate hundreds or thousands of comments a day. Depending on your audience, your subject, and your writing style, you may not get very many comments at all. I have been running my current blog for just over 12 months. I have about 180 posts that have been viewed 2,775 times in total and I have only received 27 comments (including 3 trackbacks, which are comments left on other sites that link back to mine).

The comments that you receive on your blog will fall into a few distinct categories – each requiring different amounts of follow up or maintenance work.

• Thank you and compliments – comments like "nice post", "thanks for the info", etc. These comments don’t require any work on your part unless you want to be polite with a "you’re welcome"
• Additions or Contributions – you will often receive comments along the lines of "you may want to check out this product" or "your idea also applies to this field". Again, you probably won’t be obligated to do any follow up for these type of posts. More than likely you will go check out what they are talking about learn something. Share what you learn with your customers and you become even more of an "expert".
• Questions – sometimes you will receive questions directly or indirectly related to a particular post on your blog. This is a great sign that you are establishing yourself as an expert in your subject matter. Don’t be afraid of "giving away" to much information. Even if the person you help out doesn’t become a customer, others who follow will see and appreciate your expertise.
• Criticism or Arguments – Criticism or arguments with your point of view are good so don’t shy away from them. And don’t leave them unanswered. I often find I didn’t make my point very well the first time so I need to clarify. Sometimes you will make a mistake – just apologize. If you disagree with the criticism or argument explain why. None of your customers or prospects expect you to be perfect. More often than not you will win more friends by demonstrating how you handle mistakes than you will by hiding them.
• Spam\Irrelevant comments– chances are you will get some spam on your blog. I get very few – these are the only types of comments that I ever delete from my blog.
• Other – I’m sure I’ve missed something

In my experience, the rewards of meeting people, finding new resources, and acquiring new customers that I would never have met without my blog far outweigh the amount of time I have spent maintaining the comments posted on my blog.

During the past 2 weeks when I have been talking to folks about using blogs as a marketing tool, I have hearing a lot of misconceptions about blogging in the small business arena. I’d like to address some of the more common misconceptions that I run into in my next few posts.

I have run into several business owners who have been told (or read) that they need to post 4 or 5 times a day in order to have an "effective" blog. I think this misconception stems from the difference between "professional" bloggers and small business bloggers. By professional bloggers, I mean people who are using their blog to generate all or a significant portion of their income. In general, these folks are making money by selling advertising on their sites. So the goal is to draw as much traffic as possible to their blogs so more people click on the ads on their sites which leads to more income. The more these folks post, the more likely they are to draw in the traffic.

Small business owners, on the other hand, generally use blogs as a way to demonstrate their expertise in a particular subject or industry. Blogs are also a good way for them to connect with their customers and prospects to help build the Know, Like, and Trust components of their relationships that will hopefully lead to sales and referrals. In this environment, I believe it is more important to post relevant, quality content that your audience is interested in and to do so on a consistent basis than it is to try focus on a certain number of posts per day.

Most of the small business owners I talk to don’t have time to post 4 or 5 times a day, so they decide not to post at all. This is like saying "I don’t have time to talk to my customers 4 or 5 times a day, so I will no longer talk to them at all".

Relevance, consistency, and the quality of your content trump volume when it comes to using a blog as a small business marketing tool. But don’t take my word for it, ask your customers.

Tim Berry, president of Palo Alto Software and author of the Planning, Startup, Stories blog was recently interviewed by Guy Kawasaki on his How to Change the World blog. In this interview, Tim gives some very practical tips on creating and using a business plan. Here’s my favorite quote from the interview:

"Planning isn’t about the ‘Business Plan’ document, it’s about the planning process that creates management. "

This interview is a must read if you are starting or thinking about starting a business.

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing will be conducting a 3 part teleseminar that will teach you how to create marketing materials that educate and connect with your prospects. In this series, you will learn how to create a marketing kit, learn how to use stories in your marketing to connect on an emotional level, and learn how to develop and use case studies and testimonials in your marketing.

Visit John’s site to learn more and to register for this teleseminar.