Denise Graveline: Small Business Blog Interview

A couple of weeks ago we featured an unusual choice. A customer of a farm created a blog for that farm which was really an ideal small business blog. The problem was that the business wasn't the one writing it. We featured it anyway because there were so many good things about the blog to look at and learn from. All it really needed was the farm's logo at the top of the site to be an "official" small business blog, but we were willing to overlook this small problem for in the interest of quality and education.

Now, as it turns out, the author of the blog (Vegetables for Breakfast) is in the business of small business blogging. Specifically, she runs workshops for small business owners on how to blog in the Washington, DC area. For this reason, I threw out the standard interview questions I normally ask bloggers and tried to tap into her specialized knowledge for the sake of educating my readership. Denise did not disappoint.

"I've had people tell me I've changed their entire business plans now that they've learned to blog."

Pajama Market: Vegetables for Breakfast is one of the finest examples of a business blog we've reviewed. Yet, you are actually not affiliated in any way with the farm the blog is about (other than being a customer). What inspired you to create and maintain this blog?

Denise Graveline: That's either the toughest question, or the easiest. Either way, there are 3 reasons:

•  I wanted to do more writing of my own, returning to my roots as a former journalist. Blogs are easiest to launch and self-publish, and can lead to articles and books by building an audience, attracting publishers' notice, and even promote the book or author.
• My first-time experiment with community-supported agriculture this summer had great storyline potential. I get a weekly share of organic vegetables from a farmer less than 100 miles away, once a week for five months. I have no idea what vegetables are coming until the day I pick them up, and I need to consume them quickly or figure out how to preserve them for future use. Some of the best blogs out there, business or otherwise, have a recurring storyline that keeps you wanting to follow them. The situation seemed to lend enough drama to keep me and the audience guessing.
• The topics are familiar. Much of my career has been in communicating science, environment, health and food-related topics (sometimes all at once), so I can combine those topics with the recurring storyline and write about cooking, organic farming, food safety, food science, environmental and energy-use issues, even nutrition. And I have great information sources in all those areas.

In my consulting and my blogging classes, I recommend that businesses consider getting good customers to blog about their business, although the farm didn't ask me to blog about them. It's a unique perspective. You need to make clear with the blogger and on the blog what the arrangement is: are they free to write it as they see it? have you compensated them? I've invited the farmer to post, although this couldn't be a worse time for him (otherwise I wouldn't have all these vegetables). Come the slower winter months, I hope he will add his voice to the blog.

PJ: You consult small businesses in the Washington, DC area on blogging. What is the most common question that comes up in your workgroups?

DG: It's either "won't it take up all my time?" or the more basic "why should I blog for my business?" That's before they try it. There's an enormous hesitation out there, a mix of technophobia, uncertainty and skepticism. Yet businesses of all kinds sense they should know about it, if only to explain why they’re not doing it. Once they try blogging and have a safe place to ask questions, most of them do it. I've had people tell me I've changed their entire business plans now that they've learned to blog. But for many blogging is still the Wild West, yet to be explored, and they're not quite sure they want to pack their belongings in the covered wagon, so to speak. If you are still publishing print or email newsletters, worrying about updating your web page, or doing some other form of communicating with your customers or clients, you should really be blogging. For most, the clincher seems to be the fast route to the top of the search engine results. With Vegetables for Breakfast, it took only a couple of weeks for me to rise to the top or near-top of all sorts of searches for vegetables, breakfast, vegetables-for-breakfast, or for specific types of recipes or vegetables. If this were my business, I'd be thrilled.

PJ: What types of businesses are represented in your workgroups?

DG: You name it: Government agencies, insurance agents, a true-crime writer, a fashion boutique owner, public relations executives, freelance writers, a temporary agency director, nonprofit executives, a high-tech inventor, scientists, newsletter publishers, a garden-center owner, government contractors, a would-be book author or two. I've yet to see a pattern. These business bloggers are looking to reach everything from the anonymous taxpayer to walk-in retail clients.

PJ: What are some keys to a great business blog?

DG:

• Shorter posts. Save it up for next time; there’s always a next time.
• Coming up with what journalists call "service copy" or "evergreen topics"
• subjects that don't require timeliness to succeed, or seasonal topics that you can anticipate. Write those ahead of time, and post them when you're too busy to compose something else.
• Frequent posts. Write one less email a day, and one more blog post. My vegetable blog included coverage of heat stress in this year's tomato crop in the mid-Atlantic long before the Washington Post, which just came out with an article on it this week. Next year this time, the Post will be looking to my blog for tips.
• Posting with care. Will what you write scare off clients who worry they'll be featured next, even anonymously? Don't write to embarrass, even instructively. On the other hand, if you make a mistake, do correct it publicly in a post.
• Appropriate amounts of links and quotes. Readers are looking for resources. That may be a useful article, a recipe, a good online resource YOU use.
• If you are the business owner and you blog, sharing your perspective is golden
• it's what clients want that only you can provide. Don't whine, just open the curtain and show them what your experience is like.
• Give away tips and advice, no matter how mundane they sound to you.
• Make recommendations and referrals: “We never do X" or "we always use X service." The word-of-mouth isn't just about you, it can be from you.
• Think graphically. That may mean using selective bold or italic type, block quotes or other type treatments. With Vegetables for Breakfast, I realized photos were critical, and the storyline offers lots of opportunities: I take shots of the pickup site, the vegetables in each week's share, some of the food being prepared, sometimes the final dish, and soon, the farm from which we get the vegetables. These days, I keep a camera in the kitchen at all times!
• Don't sell, sell, sell. In my classes, I teach the concept of "gentle promotion" as the best tone for a business blog, rather than the hard sell. It’s a fine line to walk, but more effective. I've read some consultants say every post should sell you something, and I couldn't disagree more. My other blog only refers to what my consultancy can do for you infrequently. It's implied more frequently than it's stated.

PJ:  How will bloggging affect the advertising blueprint for companies in the next few years?

DG: I come at this question from my days in magazine publishing, and I think blogging -- more precisely, the ability to self-publish in this way -- will eventually upend the advertising industry, both buyers and sellers. With Vegetables for Breakfast, I have the power of a journalist and the independence that used to be reserved only for those who could earn enough advertising to pay for the magazine. The saying used to be "freedom of the press belongs to the guy who owns one," and Blogger and all the other platforms have just handed us the presses to work with. I don't advise people to get into blogs to earn traditional advertising dollars, in general. Instead, I counsel them to consider the blog itself to be the mechanism for reaching clients and consumers. It builds a relationship and brand-preference better than anything that's been invented yet.

The second part of the equation is the reader. Consumers are inundated with ad messages, and tuning out, in many cases, or getting very selective. It's no longer enough to tell consumers your product or service is the best/cheapest/closest/smartest, and it's harder and harder to predict what they'll look at or where you can find them. They also are asking their friends (and their friends include Google results) what they think, usually before they are looking at your ad.

Having said all that, bloggers need to remember that "if you build it, they will come" does not apply here. You need to promote the blog and point readers to it to build an audience, regardless of whether you take ads or decide to forego them….and even before that, you need content that matters to them, as well as to you.

PJ: What else would you like to share about your company or your blogs?

DG: Vegetables for Breakfast is a blog I do to get back into writing and publishing as an author, and it is certainly jump-starting that for me. My blog for my consulting business, Don't Get Caught, began as, and remains, a resource for my consulting in communications. That business is all about keeping clients prepared to face the public audiences they want to reach -- as in, don't get caught without a message, speechless or unprepared. The blog helps my current clients feel better prepared, because I share advice, resources, and perspectives, often about what's in the news, but just as often about situations they tell me they're facing. Potential clients get to see how I approach issues and problems. Incorporating the blog into my firm's website as the "news & info" page (done by my designer Sara Delgado of Gado Graphics -- www.gadographics.com -- on a Blogger platform) keeps it easily updated. A client told me recently "I love your website--it's so frequently updated." I'm not sure she realizes it's a blog, but the result's still good. Others wonder why I "give away" free advice, but in fact, that's what builds readers' confidence in my services.

What's great about multiple blogs: They drive traffic to one another. I can see that some readers who came to the vegetable blog are now reading both blogs, and some of my current clients are on to the vegetable blog. (Each blog links to the other.) Those who might want to take my blogging classes or hire me to help them create a blog can see two different models of how I might approach the challenge. For myself, I've had to step back with the vegetable blog and treat myself as I would a client, in terms of how to create, structure, fill and promote the blog -- it's like a showroom model for clients, so I'm making sure I give it the best I've got. As young as it is, the blog already has national media outlets watching it and a steady readership. And it’s exhilarating to see it do well so early. I'm also having fun with it -- you have to have a sense of humor about photographing your dinner as you cook it and then posting that for the world to see.

I'm about to start a third blog, but this time, it will be a group blog, a model I also recommend. In this case, five women entrepreneurs in different aspects of public relations in Washington, DC, will blog about professional networking meetings and events, as a resource for clients. We all have different types of businesses, and our hope is that we can split the work of a blog, and enjoy the variety that comes from different voices.

Thanks for the thorough and very enlightening answers Denise.

Tags: fresh & local, fresh and local, fresh & local csa, fresh and local csa, csa, community supported agriculture, vegetables for breakfast, denise graveline, shepherdstown, shepherdstown wv, shepherdstown west virginia, community farm, vegetables, washington dc

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[bookkeeping]

We have posted marketing tips for generating more business. This might be of use to small Thanks for looking.and medium businesses. Our blog can be found at www.globalintegra.com/blog.