Yesterday, I was involved in a great discussion about how small business owners can take advantage of social media tools (blogs, LinkedIn, etc.) to grow their businesses while still balancing all of the other hats we have to wear.

My answer to this question is social media tools are just that, tools. In order to use them efficiently and effectively to grow our business, we have to connect them to our strategy – in this case, our marketing strategy.

In very basic terms, you marketing strategy answers these two questions – 1) Who do you want to talk to and 2) what will you say to show you are different from everyone who claims they do what you do?

Two common questions that I hear when talking to small business owners who are thinking about jumping in to social networking are – 1) Where should I start? (which tool) and 2) what will I say?

When you know the answers the the first two questions, it is much easier to answer the second set of questions. If your ideal prospects are doctors who are 5 or fewer years away from retirement, MySpace may not be where you want to spend your time.

Tim Berry has a nice post discussing the importance of having a strategy for blogging and other social media. As Tim states, having a business strategy for your blog doesn't mean you have to  sell something on your blog – but you do need to have a business purpose.

So, why do you blog? How do you determine that your blog is "good business" for you?