There are lots of reasons to blog to promote and grow a small business, but the ‘how’ part is the most important to get started. There are two kinds of blogging: public and anonymous.
First and most importantly there is public blogging linked to your professional website, where you identify who you are, with information on how you can be contacted, and encourage two way communication on the yummy goodness of your product.
Second there is true blogging where you write anonymously about any subject matter you choose, including your business, and if you have time for a creative outlet.
This is the Jekyll and Hyde of blogging. Because you write naturally, you should set up both blogs, because ideas and thoughts will occur to you as you write that may not be in your best business interest to publish on your public business blog, but remember –
here your Good Fairy Marketing Manager reminds you never, ever tell anyone who you really are in your anonymous blog even if you become famed writing it, not your wife, best friend or worse enemy, in person, over the phone, or in email. Keep yourself free.
Hyde (anonymous) blogging makes you a more interesting person to keep a secret, and gives you a sense of personal power as well as being an outlet to muse freely on any subject as true self expression without fear of reprisal, in the market or any other way.
The Free Stuff ---
Business Blog
To start blogging you need your business email address and I recommend starting out in Google’s Blogger http://www.blogger.com/ because you can link your blog easily to your existing Website, and “best of all it’s free!”.
Secret Blog
Blogging software works very similarly from application to application, and there are clusters of similar bloggers using the same platform, but for the Hyde blog I recommend you choose MSN Spaces http://spaces.msn.com because it is integrated very well with other Microsoft products and very easy to learn to use, and it is free also.
MSN Spaces is dedicated to a good user experience and freedom of speech (despite Press saying they don't, those working on Spaces take it VERY seriously, they believe in freedom of speech) and Microsoft Terms and Conditions spells out that you own your own content, MSN Spaces just publishes it on the Web for you.
For anonymous blogging over Spaces, first create an email address on Hotmail because you will need to sign in using your Microsoft Passport.
If you link your business blog yourself to your business site, on a UNIX based server system the file name for your blog in a unique directory should be index.html (or your choice of appropriate extension), if a Windows based server system the file name should be default.html. These settings and more are configurable in just about any major league blogging software.
By being connected to two very different blogging markets you are also covering more turf in terms of search indices and engines.
However, if you have a little money and some time, and you want to start with the best publishing platform software which is very configurable, try MOVABLE TYPE or TYPEPAD, http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/, http://www.typepad.com/ Typepad currently has a 30 day free trial offer.
So, that is just to begin. Go out without doing anything else and set up both your blogs right now.
Write your blog in some other software product, such as Microsoft Word, so that you do not accidentally delete it in the online format and you have a backup of your text. As of this writing Spaces can not easily control the appearance of fonts but that is expected to be remedied very soon.
Remember you can edit, change dates, delete, and otherwise change anything you publish.
In the case of your product, as with many services on the Web, it is actually more cost effective for your clients / customers to find you than it is for you to find them, by attracting their fine minds to your fine product.
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