All businesses, whether they like it or not, operate in communities. In some businesses, these are called industries ; in others, they’re called vertical markets. But all businesses also operate in a more intangible community: the community of ideas centered around their business. Your community of ideas is made up of your company, your employees, your partners, your suppliers, your customers, and any industry analysts, reporters, or bloggers who are interested. This community of ideas includes all the people who have any interest in your company, and it likely encompasses a sizeable number of people, even if yours is a small one-person business. A healthy community of ideas and interests builds itself up: it means two clients who may have supply and demand opportunities (a new business who needs business cards and a printing company, for example) learn about each other and work together. Your blog is one of the best ways to unite that community around your company. Having a blog written either specifically for this.

BLOGGING CONFERENCES: THE FAST-TRACK TO BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

Blogging conferences are to bloggers what going out for a drinks on a Friday night is for many people: a way to connect. Blogging conferences are held every month (or every week) all over the world, and they are generally attended by 200 to 300 bloggers and people in various industries. These conferences are primarily about three things:

• Meeting people who blog or want to learn how to blog

• Listening to talks, generally while blogging about them

• Meeting people who blog or want to learn how to blog

For most bloggers, the conference itself is really beside the point. Blogging conferences are about solidifying relationships, catching up on gossip, meeting new people, and talking to company reps who are present. Higher profile bloggers will also conduct press interviews, podcasts from the conference floor, panel sessions, and open-ended discussion sessions (these come in various flavors). group or at least with this group in mind allows you to tap into the potential that is created when companies, individuals, the media, bloggers, customers, and government work together to come up with great ideas and it allows it all to happen on your blog.

WHAT COMMUNITY LOOKS LIKE

A community of ideas or community of interest blog is a fairly new phenomenon and one that few companies are using (yet); however, it’s an incredibly powerful tool. The community spreads news about what’s happening in the community. If you own a sign-making company, your community may comprise a large variety of businesses, most of which might be in a fairly specific geographic area. It may also involve suppliers of the materials you use, readers of your blogs, employees, and any government officials who work with you. It may involve competitors (if you have a relationship with them). A healthy community blog will list interesting things happening in all of these factions: from a new shish-kabob restaurant, to new government issues that affect businesses like yours and those of your community, to a new type of product that either you or other businesses in your community would find interesting. By spreading news about what’s going on and what’s applicable, everyone stays in the loop, and everyone’s business benefits.

Community advertises new opportunities. A healthy community blog will post new job opportunities in the businesses involved, post new contracts that are available, post links to new government grants that may be applicable, and generally keep everyone informed as to opportunities that may be of interest. Obviously, this doesn’t have to be to the detriment of your business, but if some information will help everyone, it’s worth posting. Community offers challenges. I know of a business that was burglarized, and the insurance company refused to cover the damages or the lost goods. This news was posted on a community site, and several businesses stepped in to offer help; the business that was robbed repaid the favors in new business and a variety of other ways. In another community, one of the owners of a twoman printing shop was diagnosed with cancer. When this news was posted to the community, several people offered part-time staff (to be paid by the printing shop, of course) who could help one or two days a week. This isn’t about generosity so much as about realizing that a large and healthy community helps all businesses involved.

Community shares important information or tips. Whatever information is relevant to the community industry, the geographic location, or a school of thought should be posted to the community blog. Perhaps a new conference is of interest, or a major department store is coming to town that people may want to support. Sharing this information makes everyone’s business stronger and more able to compete. In many ways, community is like an advanced contacts systems online like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) where everyone tries to be available to help everyone else. As the old saying goes, “A rising tide raises all ships.” By hosting this community of ideas or community of interest, you not only get to be identified as the business that’s doing the actual sharing, but you get to establish stronger relationships with all of these businesses as you maintain contact, share ideas, and ultimately build everyone’s business to a greater degree than would have happened without you and without the new community blog.

WRAPPING IT UP

Ultimately, whether you buy into my overall vision for blogging or not, blogging is still valuable for your business in that it does increase your visibility (when done well), and it does allow you to experiment with all kinds of interesting customer interactions. What you choose to do with your blog is ultimately up to you, and how you succeed with your blog will be decided by how committed to it you and your business are. In the next, and final, article of this article, we look at the future of blogging and how blogging is challenging various business paradigms. I’ve talked about many such paradigms throughout this article such as transmitting versus engaging, treating your customers as participants instead of wallets, and so forth. In the next article we look at how blogging will ultimately evolve as it collides with these and other paradigms. My hope is that this article has provided you with food for thought, the information and examples necessary to develop a blogging strategy, and the excitement needed to take a leap into something as new and sometimes scary as blogging can be. Article 11 is meant to provide you with some forward-thinking information to make that leap just a little bit easier.