Does your small business blog?

If you do or are looking at starting a blog it seems there may be even more opportunity than initially thought. It turns out most small businesses aren’t seeing blogging as the best way to grow their business.

According to the Social Media Study from Hiscox only 8% of US small business leaders indicated that blogging was their best method for growing business with social media.

That’s not a big number.

Small Business Blogging Opportunity

This number surprised me a little bit, but then I got to thinking about what I see most often in my day to day happenings. It’s not surprising because for the most part business blogging is still new.

And by no means is blogging a quick return for businesses.

Blogging is a long-term strategy for small businesses. It’s unlikely for a business to get a comment on their first blog post. There is a better chance of posting something on Facebook or Twitter and getting a response. You’ll get more interaction from the popular social media channels than you will with your blog…at least initially.

The debate about the common social channels and blogs often revolves around where time will be best spent. Would it be wise to spend time and money growing a Facebook following or Twitter following? Perhaps.

Would it be beneficial to grow a following and a community around a blog? My vote is yes and my second vote would be that it’s even better than focusing solely on Facebook and Twitter. In fact, I believe a blog is something that could provide even more results for your Facebook and Twitter efforts than simply using those channels solely.

The argument is to focus on your own channel first. Invest the effort and money into building content for your property – your website and blog. Then reuse this content on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

One reason is these channels are unpredictable. At any point in time Facebook can change the way their platform operates. When you don’t have any control over the platform you will struggle to adjust to changes. When you own the platform – like your website or a blog – you are better suited to control the environment for the interaction.

Another reason to focus on blogging is you can use the content you create and push it to social media channels. If you have something interesting to share with your target audience and you think it might pique their interest in your company you can write a blog post about it and share a snippet on Facebook and Twitter.

Now you’re getting those people that use Facebook and Twitter to potentially opt-in to your blog.

And this is far more powerful than simply having people opt-in to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

I’m not against social media channels. They are powerful.

Just don’t lose sight of the power blogging can play in your small business.