cc
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Barry on CU has a bar specific blog which earns him a living. A friend of mine is interested in setting up a similar venture but in a more small business oriented venue. Are there any tips to pass on? He has written some keep it 'simple stupid/ business for dummies' type tomes but wants to break into the blogosphere. He is pretty old school imho.
thanks
link to barry's blog
thebarblogger
Columbus
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Hi CC,
Although the blog itself is revenue generating, the goal whn I set it up 12 months ago was to establish my presence in the US (I'm from Ireland) and to generate leads for my subscription based bar management websites.
The blog definitely succeeded in doing this and because of the free content I was giving away led to some great business partnerships and speaking opportunities so I highly recommend using a blog to showcase the personality of the business and the people behind it.
Hard to go into all the elements needed for a blog to succeed here without knowing the details of your friends business but happy to answer any specific questions on this board or offline.
Cheers
Barry
JonMyers
Ao Nang, Krabi, Thailand
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The Bar Blogger returns!
Yep, what Barry said.
I would just add, the blog is a platform to build an audience.
Defining who the audience is and narrowing his focus would serve him well. Small business is a wide, wide niche. There are Entrepreneur magazine entrepreneurs and small business types who are interested in small franchises, there are bootstrapper web entrepreneurs, and on and on. Even then, those audiences could more narrowly defined.
The last thing I would add is to use measures and analytics to help understand what exactly people are looking for. In the case of his blog one of his top measures might be referral rate. How many people are sharing and where that traffic to that post is coming from.
cc
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Thanks Barry,
I showed my friend your blog as it is very polished and nicely done. I was glued to it and I have nothing to do with bar management. I can see why it was successful. I think he is just getting started and needs to flesh out his ideas more. I will have him make an account here at CU. Your points are well stated.
Thanks Jon, your points are also well said. He needs to whittle down his concept to spear a targeted audience. I am sure there will be a learning curve as he is just getting into this form of mass communication. There are a lot of new tools.
racheltb
clintonville
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Problogger.net is a good resource. Reading Chrisbrogan.com is another.
Most bloggers I know make money not just by blogging but by other opportunities - speaking, teaching, consulting, freelance writing, etc. I would estimate that the number of people who make a living by only writing a blog is small.
JonMyers
Ao Nang, Krabi, Thailand
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Rachel, those are both great resources. Another make money blog to watch is ViperChill done by this kid Glenn Allsop. He's pretty awesome and reinventing things.
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