What do you think of this article? Comments welcomed.
I'm just putting together an article for a small business newsletter. What follows is a first draft.
I'm not absolutely sure when my final deadline is for this, but if any of you guys have any comments that would be great.
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WHY WEB 2.0 IS BIG NEWS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
There’s a second revolution happening right now on the web. And this revolution, for once, is going to have a big and positive impact on small businesses who see and then seize the opportunity. Not by doing anything technologically advanced, or by designing flashy websites, but simply by doing what they do best – developing strong relationships with their customers, talking to them and serving them well.
So what is this revolution? Put simply it’s the fact that blogs, podcasts, networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, ubiquitous broadband and mobile phones mean that the web is a much more social and connected place. A place much like where you live, with people chatting, socialising, networking, doing business and shopping. A place where people may already be having conversations about your business, conversations you should be participating in. It feels like a village with global scale. An interesting paradox, but also a great business opportunity.
For small businesses, blogs (short for weblog) are the quickest and simplest way to get started and take part in this new social web. A blog is simply a website that you can update quickly and easily yourself, with each piece of new content appearing in reverse chronological order.
In practice you’ll be wanting to add regular updates on you, your business and what you’re up to, giving customers and potential customers a chance to get to know you and your business. Be transparent, let your interests and let your personality shine through. A warts and all approach is far more likely to establish trust. Don’t fill your blog with marketing spiel.
Why do people do business with you in the real world? In part because they trust and like you. Blogging can help establish trust for a business on line - a sense of the real people behind the business. And small businesses are in a much better position to achieve this than large businesses where every utterance is filtered, signed-off and corporate through-and-through.
Because Google loves new content on websites, blogs are also an excellent way to get your business higher up the search rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find you.
Small and medium-sized businesses in Britain are already taking advantage of blogs and what’s become known as social media. One of the best known is the Tinbasher blog, written by Paul Woodhouse of Butler Sheet Metal. It’s a well written, amusing insight into life at this east Lancashire stainless steel fabrication business. It’s also garnered Butler Sheet Metal huge attention and recognition.
The same goes for Heather Gorringe at Wiggly Wigglers, an organic gardening suppliers based on a remote Herefordshire farm. Heather’s team create a 21st century reality-Archers on their podcast and blog each week which has seen their business featured in national newspapers in the UK, but also in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Clive Birnie is managing director of Severn Delta a textile manufacturer which has also recently started blogging and which is rapidly establishing an interested readership.
What is surprising about all of these companies is how traditional they are in many ways. Internet start-ups they are not. But each has recognised that they can be part of an online conversation which will bring attention, trust and customers to their business.
The internet has very much shrunk the plant for small businesses. As marketing guru, Seth Godin frequently says: “small is the new big”. Now’s the time to get involved, make new connections and make sure your business is part of this exciting new world.
I'm not absolutely sure when my final deadline is for this, but if any of you guys have any comments that would be great.
**************************
WHY WEB 2.0 IS BIG NEWS FOR SMALL BUSINESS
There’s a second revolution happening right now on the web. And this revolution, for once, is going to have a big and positive impact on small businesses who see and then seize the opportunity. Not by doing anything technologically advanced, or by designing flashy websites, but simply by doing what they do best – developing strong relationships with their customers, talking to them and serving them well.
So what is this revolution? Put simply it’s the fact that blogs, podcasts, networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, ubiquitous broadband and mobile phones mean that the web is a much more social and connected place. A place much like where you live, with people chatting, socialising, networking, doing business and shopping. A place where people may already be having conversations about your business, conversations you should be participating in. It feels like a village with global scale. An interesting paradox, but also a great business opportunity.
For small businesses, blogs (short for weblog) are the quickest and simplest way to get started and take part in this new social web. A blog is simply a website that you can update quickly and easily yourself, with each piece of new content appearing in reverse chronological order.
In practice you’ll be wanting to add regular updates on you, your business and what you’re up to, giving customers and potential customers a chance to get to know you and your business. Be transparent, let your interests and let your personality shine through. A warts and all approach is far more likely to establish trust. Don’t fill your blog with marketing spiel.
Why do people do business with you in the real world? In part because they trust and like you. Blogging can help establish trust for a business on line - a sense of the real people behind the business. And small businesses are in a much better position to achieve this than large businesses where every utterance is filtered, signed-off and corporate through-and-through.
Because Google loves new content on websites, blogs are also an excellent way to get your business higher up the search rankings, making it easier for potential customers to find you.
Small and medium-sized businesses in Britain are already taking advantage of blogs and what’s become known as social media. One of the best known is the Tinbasher blog, written by Paul Woodhouse of Butler Sheet Metal. It’s a well written, amusing insight into life at this east Lancashire stainless steel fabrication business. It’s also garnered Butler Sheet Metal huge attention and recognition.
The same goes for Heather Gorringe at Wiggly Wigglers, an organic gardening suppliers based on a remote Herefordshire farm. Heather’s team create a 21st century reality-Archers on their podcast and blog each week which has seen their business featured in national newspapers in the UK, but also in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Clive Birnie is managing director of Severn Delta a textile manufacturer which has also recently started blogging and which is rapidly establishing an interested readership.
What is surprising about all of these companies is how traditional they are in many ways. Internet start-ups they are not. But each has recognised that they can be part of an online conversation which will bring attention, trust and customers to their business.
The internet has very much shrunk the plant for small businesses. As marketing guru, Seth Godin frequently says: “small is the new big”. Now’s the time to get involved, make new connections and make sure your business is part of this exciting new world.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard Boyd on
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"...shrunk the plant for small..." is that bit aimed us Alex? ;)
It's a good article and very relevant. As I was reading it I was struck by the fact that round 1 on the web had a big impact and then there was a huge fallout after the initial wave subsided.
Round 2 many of the networks are (perhaps I'm stupid) difficult to use and time consuming. Small businesses are time poor so for a network to succeed its interface and facilities need to be very intuitive. The interface is not difficult this was ironed out in round 1, but many of the web 2 networks don't seem to "get it".
The fallout will take longer this time as the usefulness of a network is determined by it's user base....
I'm sure someone else can pick up there and offer their 2ps worth.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Bellinger on
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Cheers Richard and thanks for spotting one of a few typos! Web 2.0 bonzai - interesting :)
I agree these social networks could be more intuitive and more efficient. I'm still awaiting the holy grail of single sign-in/profile for all networks, so you don't have to keep on regurgitating yourself!
If web 2.0 is the social web, I'm hoping web 3.0 will be the effortless web.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Smith on
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Well the single sign in portion of that is "trying" to be solved by openid. We'll see, every-time in the past someone has tried to come up with a solution like this it was a flop.
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OpenID looks promising, but from my limited understanding there seem to be quite a lot of identity based systems hoping to do something similar. Whatever happened to microsoft .net passports anyone?
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They renamed it Live Id. For the most part the only people that use it is part of the Microsoft family.
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Permalink Reply by Kelvin Jones on
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OpenID is slightly different to passport/Live Id as it is possible to maintain complete control over your identity.
OpenID effectively defines a protocol for open identity, whereas passport was always a service for hosting your identity.
OpenID is already successful in many ways, being adopted by AOL was no mean feat. The big question is whether Yahoo & Google come on board... at that point I think we'll see massive take-up.
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One other aspect I'd like to comment on. The blog mantra is post, post and post, however, this in a large % of posts leads to fairly uninteresting material.
If you are ready blogs then (please correct me) you are likely subscribing via RSS, so in a sense you don't care when someone updates... You do however, want quality information.
Oh one more ;)
It would also be interesting to see what the experts say about integrating V standalone blogs and which method produces the best results. We went for standalone, mainly because we had a number of domain names hanging around, not for any well research reason.
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Hi Richard
Agree absolutely about quality vs quantity on blogs. It's much harder to do the former, and very tempting to do the latter. I think the reason you often see blogs that offer news snippets, brief commentary and not a lot of added value is because they're being written for Google not for regular readers. Sadly, the more new content the better seems to be the Google spider mantra.
As for integrating blogs or not. Personally, I'd always go for integrating them into your site. For example, why not have a mini-blog on the home page/landing page of a shopping site. It would be an experiment and admittedly would be taking up 'selling real estate', but it might just engage potential purchasers.
Cheers
Alex
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According to Google Reader, I've read over 1,100 posts in the last month, about 35 posts a day.
There are a couple of blogs that I have unsubscribed from just because of the volume of posts, e.g. 10 per day.
I much prefer to subscribe to a blog that posts maybe once a week, or even a month if it has quality posts. Just look at a list apart for a perfect example of that.
Having said that, that's just me and the specific type of blogs I read. If your target audience are unlikely to subscribe via RSS, then they'll be coming to your site to check it every time... in this situation it may be damaging not to update more often.
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Ahh ... I taught myself CSS (as you can probably tell!) when I redesigned SmallBizPod's site and a list apart was a fantastic resource! Even though I don't go there very often now I still have very warm feelings about the site. All down to how useful it was.
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Permalink Reply by anne marie mcewan on
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Your article is a nice read, Alex. I like particularly like the manufacturing examples, illustrating that any small business can get in on the act.
Will you be offering pointers to how people can get started?
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Thanks Anne Marie, if i get asked to contribute again to the publication again, I will. Only had 500 words. Even, if I don't I'll probably post a follow-up here on the blog.
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