Local business blogging beyond real estate
Here's a paradox - those of us who know real estate agents would be the hard pressed to generically call them blogging pioneers. Yet, it's the real estate community that has, for the most part, reluctantly realized that business blogging is the best way to establish their online local presence.
Who else needs to establish a local online presence?
Restaurants - Owners, their chefs, their sommeliers, even their servers can discuss cooking and comment on the local food scene. Despite this May, 2005 article from Restaurants & Institutions magazine promoting restaurant blogs , I can't name one restaurant with a blog. They leave it up to the online restaurant reviewers and Yelp for driving traffic to them, but are at the mercy of the reviewers.
Lawyers and accountants - two arcane, non-transparent professions are ripe for blogging to explain the vagaries of what they do. My accountant sends a weekly email newsletter that could easily be repurposed for a blog. The methodology of finding a lawyer or accountant replicates that of finding a real estate agent - it's basically a Google process (which will in time segue into a social networking process). Here's a company that sets up lawyer blogs with links to some of their clients.
Handymen, car mechanics, contractors - granted practitioners who do physical work may have wanted to avoid any kind of writing profession, but therein lies the opportunity to show off as the "smart" repair guy. Would I use a plumber who blogs? Definitely... and I'll hopefully be able to find them more easily via Google. Although there are a lot of car-related blogs, I don't see any bloggers on the list who are mechanics developing their business via online exposure.
Retail - Mall retailers and downtown chambers of commerces should promote business blog networks. Here's an East Portland OR chamber of commerce blog that effectively spells out the reasons why businesses should blog.
Networking groups - Real estate personnel always seem to form the foundation for local networking groups like BNI that aggregate members from different professions to share leads and contact databases. Group blogs are just natural for mutual promotion of a variety of services... these blogsites would become go-to sources for a variety of local information. There are very few network blogs... here's a BNI NY network blog that isn't consistent. Networking organizationslike BNI should be instituting plug and play blog network templates to keep their business relevant.
The advent of local real estate blog networks will allow the other professions beyond real estate to participate more fully as they mature. Why? Local blog networks will always have a hyperlocal focus to attract and maintain local consumer traffic, the kind of readership merchants and business professionals want.
Side note: Advice Network is a new network aggregating articles from bloggers that inform the public on various topics from real estate to weddings. They notified me of an advice writing contest they are conducting with prizes. Forums like this also prompt local businesses thinking about blogging too.
Pat,
I was having the same conversation the other day with Brent Spore, organizer of PodcampAZ as we were running around getting things set for the event - we went through the mental exercise of identifying what industries were particularly well suited to blogging and social media as a way to connect to their current clients and a prospective audience.
Real Estate was high on the list, but the others we came up with were health care, politics and non-profits - not that virtually every business out there wold not benefit in some way from social media and blogging, but these came up as best suited for the technology.
What did these have in common? They all required at some point, a personal conenction and prior to that connection, consumers often wanted more info on the provider - much more.
The others and even the ones you cited, would require more of a niche fit to have an impact of any value - IMHO.
Reply to this
Pat,
I couldn't agree more. I am very surprised how few blogs I find in my local community. It is such an untapped market for many different professions.
Reply to this
See, maybe us real estate agents can help these other businesses learn a thing or two!
Reply to this