The speed and reach of the Internet cannot be beat! Within minutes, not only are you able to reach out to your customers, chances are they will send the links for your blog to their contacts and the latter to their contacts and so on… Another wonderful advantage about blogging is that you get instantaneous feedback! People are willing to read a virtual stranger’s thoughts and respond immediately with their own; some of it will be good, some not so good.
1. First, take a look around cyberspace to get an idea of what people are blogging about and how they’re doing it. You can also start some simple blogs yourself to get familiar with the whole idea.
2. Sign-up with a blogging service that will provide you with all the tools you need to create a blog. WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Windows Live Spaces, etc, are some examples of blogging services.
3. Once you’ve selected a blogging service and established an account, choose a template for your business blog. There are ready-made templates available, or you can choose to design a unique template yourself.
4. Select a topic for your first blog post, and complete details pertaining to your own profile and that of the business.
5. Set-up access controls to the blog as well as how user comments will be handled – will you review and approve responses before they’re published, will you be the sole person from the business to access the blog and so on.
6. Get started writing and publishing your first few blog posts, spread the word around the company and elsewhere, so that people can read and respond to your posts.
7. Keep refining the format and content until you have a reasonably good following.