Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Blogging for Business

Some of you may be surprised to find out that this blog was started over 4 years ago to extend the reach for an audience for Annarella, a retail design, gift and art gallery. That business got caught in the economic crunch coupled with some personal problems and closed 3 years ago. The blog ontinued as I turned to Annarella Girl as a full time endeavor, but the intent remained the same - to use it as a tool to develope new customers while keeping old customers in the loop with what was happening. This year it has become more personal with my thoughts and stories of my life as well as the business. Periodically I visit it with the idea of how it is contributing to the business. The last few weeks I've been looking at this angle.

Conclusions. It doesn't work as a business tool. I'm not sure why, but I've never been able to capture even a small audience. Lots of people try it out. Read it once or twice, but then drop it. As far as I can tell few readers recommend it to others. Few other bloggers link to it from their blogs. One notable exception is Susan @ magnolias end who has been a cheerleader from the early days. (Go to the highlighted link for her blog. I love her wise and gentle voice. It uplifts me, and frequently informs me.)

I've tried different approaches to see if I cans register an improvement in my stats. Seldom do I have a noticeable uptick in readership or comments. I'm left with several possibilities. First, I'm not saying anything that is of interest to others, family excluded. I'm not informative rather I'm opinion based and there are so many blogs out there who can offer those with much better writing and observations. Although I do write about what I'm doing with Annarella Girl, now that I have a business page on Facebook, it seems redundant to blog about it, too. So I'm left with wondering what to do. Do I continue in the same unproductive vein? Or do I try to re-invent the blog, again? I have more thinking to do. Although blogging has been good for my mental health, I need to make the best use of time and effectiveness for my business tools.

Any insights you may have are welcome. What has worked for you? How is the best way to move forward?

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