There was an interesting article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal written by Shelly Banjo which discussed the power of blogs for small businesses without large marketing budgets.

Excerpt from WSJ Article:

“Businesses of all types and sizes are focusing on the power of bloggers as opinion shapers. But harnessing that power is particularly important for small-business owners who don’t have the money to create name recognition with big marketing campaigns. By connecting with the right blogs, small businesses can generate buzz around their products and services and increase sales dramatically.”

Leveraging Existing Blogs

The article notes that creating your own blog isn’t the only way to leverage the blogosphere. The WSJ article suggests rather than trying to create an established blog with dedicated readership, you take your product to a reputable blog and have them write about it, putting you directly in front of their readers.

Here is a quick example of how a property management company could creatively leverage existing travel blogs to increase exposure of their product:

1. XYZ Property Management in the greater Boston area reads Arthur Frommer’s online blog today and notices his mention of spending a summer vacation at Harvard - a four week summer school for all ages.
2. XYZ Property Management contacts Frommer’s blog to inform them of a “Harvard Summer School Special” - offering select vacation homes close to Harvard at a discount for attendees of the four week program.
3. Frommer’s finds this supplementary story interesting and relevant and writes a brief post about XYZ Property Management and their unique “Harvard Summer School Special” offer.

Presto - your company is mentioned on a site that attracted over 600,000 unique visitors last month according to compete.com.

Starting your own blog is also an excellent option and can be free and easy on websites such as wordpress.com and blogger.com. However, to make your blog relevant and useful to readers, you will have to be dedicated to writing consistent and relevant articles. In the meantime, consider how to use existing blogosphere resources to market yourself and your services to a wider audience.

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