Jim Cosgrove of Newcastle Square Realty: Small Business Blog Interview

Jim Cosgrove of Newcastle Square Realty responded to being featured yesterday. In his response, he let us in on some obstacles to getting other employees to participate in the blog. Jim is pretty smart in not taking on the total responsibility of the blog himself (if he can help it), but rather encourages his coworkers to write on the blog as well. So far, only one other employee has taken him up on the offer, but blogs are so straightforward, I'm convinced that when the others give it a try, they'll be hooked. Here's the email:

Brian,

Thank you very much for your interest and for choosing our blog! In the beginning I was pretty convinced that only my family was ever going to read the blog but we're starting to hear from quite a few people that they've seen this or that post. What has surprised us the most is that we intended this to be for an audience of out of staters ("from away" as it's said here). But I hear from local people all the time that they read it and just today the library called and asked us to mention an upcoming concert in our blog.

Our clients love having their property presented there and we've talked about the need to strike a balance between showing listings and providing content about our area.

I read a lot of real estate blogs before we started and quite frankly found most of them as dry as toast so we really strive to make ours enjoyable and interesting to read. I think if it were just strictly "real estate" it could get old quick.

The blog was created on typepad and flyte new media did the original set up for us when we had them overhaul our website. Those guys (and ladies) are terrific, I only understand about half of what they say but they are very patient and don't laugh (too much).

So far Tom is the only other broker here who will give me content, he's just a little younger than the others and I think the rest of them are somewhat intimidated. One of our brokers had a moose sleeping in his back yard for a couple days and I asked him to get a picture and we'd put it in the blog. I thought that was something folks would be interested in. Well the next day he told me that his wife had a terrific picture of him and the moose. Great, email the picture and we'll get it up. Well the film is still in the camera and we have to wait until his wife uses up the roll.

Some weeks ideas just seem to be there and posts just write themselves. Other times selling real estate and running an office gets in the way and that's why there are fewer posts. My goal was 2-3 per week and we haven't quite gotten to that consistently.

Thanks again. I've got to go get this on the blog!

Jim Cosgrove

Thanks Jim. I'll be looking forward to seeing how the blog develops.

Technorati : damariscotta, flyte, flyte media, jim cosgrove, maine coast property, maine realtor, maine realty, newcastle, newcastle maine, newcastle square realty, pemaquid, pemaquid peninsula, realty blog, tom field

Mary Baker of Dover Canyon Winery: Small Business Blog Interview

Mary Baker responded quickly to my interview questions. We reviewed her blog yesterday. It's a winery blog called Dover Canyon Winery in Paso Robles, California.

[Pajama Market] How has the blog impacted your company?

Mary Baker: We're a very small winery, and we do not usually submit our wines to mainstream wine publications and critics. We appreciate the good scores, but it's just not an effective way to reach our audience. For instance, the 2003 Zinfandel Reserve that Robert Parker scored 91 was sold out two months before the scores were published. Another wine, a syrah, was sold out ten months before the central coast Rhone scores were published!

The blog has connected us with a whole community of people interested in wine that would not otherwise know about us. Other bloggers have been very complimentary and generous about providing links. This creates a buzz that is about the winery-our wines, our people, our hospitality, even our sense of humor.

After starting the winery blog, I was asked to start the Women Wine Critics Board blog, which brought me, and therefore Dover Canyon, to the attention of writers like Mike Steinberger at Slate magazine. And recently I was interviewed by a writer working on a piece for Business Week. These are amazing connections for a business of our size.

Writing the blog has also helped me clean up my monthly enews. I feel less pressured to include everything. I can keep the email simple, and provide links to more information on the blog. On the blog I can say more about our limited production wines, and the information is viewable far longer and to a broader audience than in emails. In turn, this encourages people to visit the blog regularly-and it's a much more personal interface than emails.

We've also been pulling in new people to our email and wine club lists because they read the blog and become intrigued about the winery. My stat counter shows that people looking for general wine information or even recipes come to the blog and end up staying for awhile. Sounds like our house!

[PJ] What has the response been from your customers/clients?

I began the blog as a way to create a personal connection with existing customers and wine club members. I think it has done that very successfully. Although we're not getting much comment activity yet, we do receive compliments via email and in person. Also, customers and readers ask me about ongoing projects . . . how's the new cookbook coming? Things like that. I think it really helps them feel that they are on the inside track with us. Which is exactly where I want our customers to be.

[PJ] What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

Writing the blog has cleared up my writer's constipation forever. The exercise of writing short pieces has awakened me to a whole universe of potential stories. Everything that falls in my inbox or passes by my window is potential blogmeat. All I need now is more hours in the day!

I try to balance my material between customer questions, production insights, shameless promotion, and a pinch of controversy.

[PJ] What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

Well, as I said before, the sense of community and appreciation in the blogosphere. And due to that, the blog has become a much more effective marketing tool than our website. I constantly update the information on our website, but the blog is the marketing outreach that creates conversation.

The blog has taken preeminence over our website, which I had not anticipated. Our website is a homespun Microsoft Publisher effort. I've clung to it because fancy-schmancy web designers sometimes takes weeks to update material, can't spell wine names, have rigid ideas about web design, and often have no real idea of what a small winery's needs are. With the blog software, I have a professional-looking, very interactive interface with consumers and a whole sphere of customers-to-be. The website has become a pantry for our more staple information-contact info, order form, wine club application, etc. The blog is our kitchen-it's where wine, food and life are discussed.

[PJ] What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

I did create the blog, and I use Typepad, because it was recommended by Mike Duffy at the The Winery Web Site Report blog. I have been very pleased with it. I can customize the look of my blog, and experiment with different functions.

It has issues with cut-and-paste-it garbles the html and I have to sort through the coding to straighten it out-but that's understandable as cut-and-paste usually picks up formatting that is different that what the blog software expects to see. Still, I often c&p because I prefer to write in a word processor; it's easier for me to read and edit my material.

Another criticism I have is that the Search widget they provide doesn't work well. I'll test-search for material I know exists in my blog, and I get all kind of weird results, mostly links to material outside my blog, and no link to the article I'm looking for . . . try searching for 'cooking with wine' and you'll see what I mean.

Still, I like the clean appearance of Typepad, the creative options, the widgets, and the Help Support staff is great. They always respond right away.

[PJ] Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

The blog is a great place to refer people to when they visit-we had postcards printed with color photographs of the vineyard on the front and the blog address on the back, with suggested post titles, and we drop one inside every purchase. We want our visitors to stay in touch.

I'd also recommend that anyone contemplating an online presence also visit their industry discussion boards and really get involved. I am a wine forum host for the eGullet Society of Culinary Arts & Letters (www.eGullet.org). I am proud to be a part of their global volunteer staff, and the exposure has been tremendous. Whatever your industry, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the numbers of people who appreciate some insider insight and advice.

Mainly, I think that for small businesses a blog is all about the "cottage" industry feeling, it's about having a place where customers and visitors can vicariously visit. You want them to feel comfortable and welcome.

---

Thanks Mary! I have a huge recommendation for you regarding search. Add a Google-run search box like the one I have on Pajama Market. As you can see, the formatting can be adjusted so it looks like a pretty plain search box and the results are Google-like. I hear what you are saying about the Typepad widget. If it's anything like the Typepad Knowledge Search then it doesn't give very good results at all. For help installing one, check out this post I recently wrote called Using Google search on Typepad.

Technorati : dover canyon, dover canyon vineyard, dover canyon winery, mary baker, paso robles, vineyard, wine blog, winery

Jim Reams of Mothership BBQ: Small Business Blog Interview

Mothership BBQ responded to my interview questions super-quick. We reviewed them yesterday.

"...I have done no advertising. The day I opened I had 50 customers, all of whom had been reading the blog."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Jim Reams: The blog has been instrumental in my success. I have a small restaurant in an out of the way location, and I have done no advertising. The day I opened I had 50 customers, all of whom had been reading the blog.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

JR: My customers feel as though they know me before they come in for the first time. It has personalized it for many people. Plus, many local bloggers tell me they feel as though they have a personal stake in my success.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

JR: Anything unusual from the everyday grind of running a restaurant will appear on my blog.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

JR: The number of mainstream media outlets who have written about it.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

JR: Blogger. I like it fine.

Thanks Jim.

Technorati : dr. funkenswine, jim reams, mothership bar b que, mothership barbeque, mothership bbq, mothership nashville, nashville knucklehead

Jennifer Pasquill of jintrinsique Pastries: Small Business Blog Interview

Jennifer Pasquill of the jintrinsique blog wrote in with perhaps the most inspiring answers to my interview questions I have received so far. We reviewed her blog for her pastry company on September 13.. Just reading the interview makes me want to blog! Oh wait...

"I have many new mail-order customers. I had hoped for this, but I wasn't expecting anywhere near the response that I have received!"

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Jennifer Pasquill: I have new customers from all over the globe! It's amazing how many people you can reach, just by sitting in front of your pc!

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

JP: They LOVE that they are able to see what I am doing on a daily basis. They also enjoy learning about different specialties that I make or new things that they aren't aware of yet.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

JP: Anything & everything including: ingredients, finished orders, photos of process, & of course, my readers favourite - 'Customers from Hell'.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

JP: A) I have people fighting as to who will visit me next, in person! I started a new feature called, "There's a Blogfan at my Door!" to honour my first visitor from Blogger. She lives in Virginia & had to fly into Chicago for a few days. From there she drove 3.5 hours just to visit my shoppe!

B) I have many new mail-order customers. I had hoped for this, but I wasn't expecting anywhere near the response that I have received! Plus, it didn't cost me a penny! No expensive colour brochures, no outrageously priced advertisements...just a few hours of my time every week. Brilliant!

C) I have made new FRIENDS. Obviously, with owning a small business, I do not leave it very often. This does not allow one much social interaction away from the workplace. I chat with fellow bloggers online & over the phone. People who share my interests. Friends can be a great stress reliever...of course, so can chocolate! ;-)

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

JP: I'm on Blogger. I love it! It is very easy for novices to use yet it also allows for those of us who can work on the HTML to create our own customization. It's great that their templates look the same in all browsers. I have just as many readers running Opera, Safari & Firefox as I do Explorer, so it's wonderful that I don't have to tweak the blog for every browser. I don't suppose I technically 'created' this blog myself as Blogger starts you out with everything you need. I picked the template, but I do all my own customization, writing, uploading, etc. It's FREE. Need I say more?

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

JP: My husband had been telling me to start a blog for my shoppe for over a year & a half. I suppose I didn't really know what they were & didn't care. All I can say now is that I can't believe I waited SO LONG! It is fun! It is relaxing! I have lots of new friends! I have lots of new customers! So, what are you waiting for? Just DO IT!!!

Thanks again Jennifer. You are a true inspiration to those who are considering, but haven't quite made the jump yet.

Technorati : bakery, jennifer pasquill, jintrinsique, manitowoc, manitowoc wi, manitowoc wisconsin, pastries, pastry shop, uniquely yours, uniquely yours pastry shoppe, wedding cake, wedding cakes

Susie Quick of Honest Farm: Small Business Blog Interview

Susie Quick wrote in with some answers to my probing questions. We reviewed her organic farm blog, Honest Farm, last week.

"I noticed a lot of links to it today from news sites, which was nice."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Susie Quick: All feedback has been very enthusiastic. We pretty much started the blog at the same time as the farm intentionally as I wanted to be able to enlighten and educate people about our mission at the same time we were starting a farm stand.

We're a bit of a hybrid as a company, a nonprofit that's attempting to support itself by selling the vegetables and flowers we grow on our organic demonstration farm in Midway, KY. We have educational programs we've begun and want to expand for next year. I hope to get some funding from private foundations and some government programs that fund sustainable farming education projects for the children's garden and programs. Midway, KY is a bit like Mayberry, wonderful and idyllic and inhabited by a lot of interesting people. They've been hugely supportive and use the site to keep up on the latest in organic food news and to get recipes.

I also have links to my cookbooks on amazon and have a place for donations for our nonprofit organization, which is convenient for our customers and supporters.

It's been difficult starting both a farm and a blog and keeping up with both. The physical labor involved in the farm is demanding and not for everyone. I work 14 hour days planting, cultivating, and picking. There hasn't been a lot of time to create all the content I wanted on the site and to keep up with the blog. You mentioned I hadn't had a lot of posts in September and that's true. But if you would compare my farm blog with those of other farmers I think you'd discover that by comparison, I'm almost obsessive compulsive.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

SQ: Mostly stuff I find interesting or the sort of things people talk about at the farm stand, like the recent tainted spinach from California. So, after discussing it with customers this past Saturday I decided to update them on the latest news and also offer the perspective of an organic farmer and a cook. I noticed a lot of links to it today from news sites, which was nice.

I also blogged about the 'ugly side of organic farming' as I think a lot of people think of having an organic farm as this hip and appealing, simple life pursuit. But when the insects arrive to destroy your spring crops, the worm turns, so to speak. I included pictures with before and after shots of my gorgeous cabbages that were terrorized by cabbage worms, now the bane of my existence. I want to educate people about farm life and also show them organic food and living isn't a vegetarian hippie pursuit (though there's nothing wrong with that) it's for real people who just want the healthiest and most delicious food they can get for their families. And for people who want to support local farmers and protect farmland from development, which many people are interested in here in Kentucky.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

SQ: I have to be honest, I am a self-denying blogger. I mean these days it's a bit like the 80s bumperstickers: Blogs Are Like Assholes, Everyone Has One. I just wish someone had come up with a different name for it. Though there are bloggers I find interesting and intelligent and I think the revolution of new journalism is exciting, many seem so in love with themselves and their imagined importance in the universe that they fail to communicate anything substantial. These I call "Blah-gers." And they're littering the internet with inanity.

I wish someone would start a site and call it something like www.worthreading.com. It could be the answer to the modern newspaper. And I want to be the food editor!

But seriously, as a former newspaper reporter and a magazine journalist (and cook book author... order one from my site!) I rarely had the freedom to communicate in my own voice, unedited. It's fun. For instance, I was an editor in Glamour for some years and I had to channel the voice of a 19-year old college girl because that was our audience. Now I can be my crotchety self. I try to keep it all on topic in the organic/green lifestyle and cooking and gardening vein though. I doubt many people care to know about how cute my dog is when he goes into the field, picks an ear of corn and peels and eats it. But I could be wrong.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? How do you like the program?

SQ: WordPress, love it though there are a few glitches. For instance, I use a mac and it doesn't work with Safari so I use Firefox for writing and editing in it. But I love the fact that a Luddite such as myself who never took an html class can update her site, add photos and videos and not screw it up completely. I still have a lot to learn but that's the great thing about it. So easy you can blog nearly instantly.

PJ: Did you create this blog yourself?

No, those really smart (and affordable!) folks at newdrone.com, Tom and Cathy, designed my 'unbloggish' blogsite for me. I think of it as a 'stealth' blog in a way as I really detested the look of all that text ad nauseam most blogs contained. Working for magazines like Real Simple and Weekend I know how appealing photography and design are so I wanted something that looked great visually but that also functioned as a blog. A place where you can find a great recipe for brownies and see nice pictures of farm animals and vegetables as well as get the latest food news. What I'd really like to do is make it more of a place like Mayberry, with video of farm life and some cooking demos. I'd like to create an enewsletter -- I have a lot of people signed up already for the weekly email I send out -- that looks like the site that I could send out once a week. But that takes money and this year I am most definitely a nonprofit in every sense.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

SQ: I would encourage people to dare to be different. Too much of media (and business sites) is copying what others do and already to me, many blogs are now "Blah-ogs." I go to Huffingtonpost.com now for instance, and I can tell you what the attitude and topics are going to be that day. So predictable. No surprises. In order to get attention I think it's important to be spontaneous in your words but also keeping pushing the envelope and thinking deep thoughts about what your customers/viewers want to know about. If you don't blog or update with graphics and photos then you're just another static information site, right? I'm guilty of this to a degree but this winter (now that corn, tomato, and bean picking are nearly over) I hope to add some more video and keep things lively.

I'm also launching some tasty food products I hope to sell via the internet as well as to local customers. So we'll likely be emphasizing that in the design in the near future.

Tags: honest farm, susie quick, midway ky, midway kentucky, organic farm, organic farming, childrens garden, children's garden

J.D. Iles of Lincoln Sign Company: Small Business Blog Interview

The Lincoln Sign Company is located in Lincoln, New Hampshire. Their blog, Signs Never Sleep, is written by JD Iles. We reviewed them in March (but I forgot to send them interview questions until last week).

"We have gotten new customers who found us randomly from the blog, and that of course is great."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

J.D. Iles: Our blog has impacted our company in several unexpected ways in addition to helping us stay in touch with customers and finding new customers.

a) I think the blog keeps me motivated: As keeping the blog is kind of a "hobby" for me, I enjoy it and I am always looking for something fun or interesting to post. Since I feel this internal desire to post, I of course want to have interesting signs to do, and even though we always try to do the best possible jobs on our projects, knowing that "the world is looking over my shoulder" motivates me to give everything 110%.

b) The blog makes me think about my business: Since I write about my business every day, I am always focusing on what the business it, and that helps me really explore and think about the issues. For example, lately I have been really focusing on the customer service experience here at Lincoln Sign Company. I always talk about our "customers", but lately I have been wondering "do our customers always get 110% from us when it comes to customer service?"

To date, painfully, the answer to that question would have to be "no". For example, if you called us prior to this month, your chance of actually talking to a person would have been about 10%, but we just made some changes that will hopefully allow just about everyone who calls to get to talk to someone right off the bat, and that is just one of the things we are doing customer service-wise.

To be frank, I don't think I would have even taken the time to think about "the issue of customer service as it relates to Lincoln Sign Company" if I weren't blogging.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

JD: We have gotten new customers who found us randomly from the blog, and that of course is great. I know that we have some customers who are regular blog readers, and I get occasional feedback from them.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

JD: We usually post about projects we are working on or just completed, and we always have alot of photos.

One of the things we would eventually like to do is tell the story of every sign we create. Here is an excerpt from my blog:

One of the things that we end up doing on this weblog is telling stories about how a sign is made, why a sign is made, etc. We are a "custom signshop", which means that every action we take to make a sign is unique from the shape to the lettering to the color combination. The signs we make are not built on an assembly line or come whizzing out of some fast, sign-making machine. They live in our shop, for days or weeks, and we treat them like guests.

Why am I telling you this?....

I know that there are some people who have enjoyed watching their signs being created via this weblog. Allowing them to get a glimpse of the whole process. They end up getting something a little greater than just a sign at the end of the transaction. They end up with a few stories to tell...

Right now this pretty much happens by accident, but one day I want this to be a customer's intention. I want customers to seek us out, not only because we try our hardest to make great signs, but also because they get to watch the process as their sign is being created via this weblog, and this allows them to share the process with friends and family.

So, if you have ordered, or are getting ready to order a sign, feel free to tell me you want to watch it being made via the weblog, and I'll be happy to tell the story of your signs creation...

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

JD: Probably just the fact that I really enjoy doing it. There are many days when I sit down and blogging is the first thing I do in the morning.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

JD: I use Typepad and I am very happy with it.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

JD: It is an unfortunate fact that the nature of my business sometimes makes it a difficult task to show a customer what we do on a daily basis. We make signs, lots of signs, and the nature of a sign is that it goes away fairly quickly once it is finished as it is either picked up by the customer or installed by us. So that means, when a potential customer stops by to visit, usually either all the nice signs we made recently are gone and there is nothing interesting to show them in the shop, or we have just spilled a gallon of paint all over the floor and our woodshop is a disaster area. It is rare that a customer visits us on a day we have a beautiful Gold-Leafed sign sitting in the shop in all its glory, and of course, that is what we want a customer to see.

It occurred to me, if I had a way to show a customer a daily progression of jobs and events through our shop, a customer could get a good, overall view of what we do on a daily basis. In effect, they could get a "shop tour" whenever and wherever they were, and see us at our best and brightest.

That is the power of having a weblog.

Thank you very much J.D. for that great interview. Signs Never Sleep is an absolutely fantastic example of a company blog where the company makes handcrafted, unique products.

Tags: business signs | wood signs | wood business signs | business sign | signs never sleep | J.D. Iles | Lincoln New Hampshire | New Hampshire | New Hampshire signs

Nicola Hewitt of glassybaby: Small Business Blog Interview

Glassybaby is a candle holder company located in Seattle. We featured their site on July 31.

"Someone just proclaimed last week that we are their favorite Blog...it was great to hear."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Nicola Hewitt: We have had quite a few hits on the Blog...it is nascent, but the response has been extremely positive.When I talk to out of town customers on the phone they reference having read the blog, its content ; they have seen my photo etc... The impact is hard to perceive this early on...but if anything it has been positive. The photo gallery included on the blog has generated orders as well.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

NH: Again, positivity. Someone just proclaimed last week that we are their favorite Blog...it was great to hear.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

NH: Human interest. There is such an emotional response to glassybaby...whether joy, celebration even grief...customers openly share their stories...they invariably explain where the product will find its home and for what reason. I feel like a Blog sleuth when I am just having store banter with our customers; but it adds dimension to my work and interest. I try to use good judgment with what I share.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

NH: Being the featured Blog on the Typepad site was suprising and exciting. I am also suprised by the number of hits on the blog...it is rather staggering.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

NH: We use Typepad...great customer support, very affordable...user friendly in terms of posting...I can not say enough good things about our experience with Typepad.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

NH: Blogging feels like a powerful phenomena...we are learning to pay closer attention to our Blog.

Tags: glassybaby, glassy baby, candles, candle holders, nicola, nicola hewitt

Jeff Stai: Small Business Blog Interview

The UPS guy came today. He asked if I was 21 and wanted to see some ID to prove it. When I opened the box to check out the two bottles of wine I was expecting, I was met with a bit of a surprise...a rubber chicken. Furthermore, the chicken was wearing what can only be described as a yellow neck warmer with the words, "please turn chicken" on one side and the name of the winery, Twisted Oak, on the other. Please note that Twisted Oak did not package the kitten with the shipment. Tubbs inspected the box only after I had opened it (oh, and there were two bottles of wine in the box too!).

Jeff Stai from Twisted Oak spent some time telling us about his blog. We reviewed them last week. I hope you enjoy...

"If I didn't have other things to do I could spend all day blogging it up."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

JS: Not very much so far, but we only started in May. I can at least see it is getting our name out there, potential customers have started finding us, and we are getting samples into the glasses of writers we might not otherwise reach right away. At some point all this word of blog to word of mouth will hit critical mass, or one would hope...!

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

JS: It has been a bit of a challenge getting our current customer base to check it out, but we're getting there.

One thing we are doing is putting things on the blog that before would have been just another web page. For example, we had a big event at the winery recently called the "Cave Loot Extravaganza". We dress up as pirates, "loot" wine from the barrels in our wine cave, and sample them to our "Twisted Few" (wine club) members. Many of our members also dress up as pirates and I post pictures to the web. This year I posted them to the blog instead and got a nice flurry of hits.

As you can see some of them are pretty imaginative - in the past, we've even had "software pirates"!

(In hindsight I probably should have made it one post rather than four for easier linking, and used some of the other composition tools you have mentioned to improve the layout. Still learning.)

Another thing we are trying is something we call "Show Us Your Twisted" - the idea being to send us pictures of you and your friends drinking the wine or just being somewhere "having your Twisted on", so to speak. Many of these pictures seem to involve a rubber chicken, which is our sort-of mascot. We've gotten a decent response so far.

Yet another thing I'm trying is using the blog to augment content in our printed materials. For example, the law changed last March and we can no longer call it "Port" on a new label design - that's now reserved for the Portugese. (Similarly, US producers can't use words like "Champagne" and "Burgundy" on new label designs. Old designs are grandfathered.) Calling it "Touriga Nacional Fortified Dessert Wine" (which is what Port is) doesn't sound very good, so we're calling it "Pig Stai Pour't". Really.

Anyway, I write a newsletter for the Twisted Few that goes out with every club shipment. There is a blurb in the next issue with a little advance hype on the release of our "Pour't" wine. I wrote a blog post on the subject a while back, so the blurb in the newsletter directs the reader to the blog to find out why we call it "Pour't". Thanks to your prompting me to set up a search box, I can direct the reader to this link:

http://www.elbloggotorcido.com/

and have them search for "starboard", rather than printing a long link.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

JS: What doesn't? I could be a total blog slut with everything that goes on around here! If I didn't have other things to do I could spend all day blogging it up. And if I get stuck, a little product testing...

One thing I need to constantly remind myself is that I do have new readers, and many of these readers have not been exposed to the many things around here that are everyday things for us. For example, right now I am already behind on crush (grape harvest) reporting. I need to remember that, even though we have previous years' pictures on the web site, this year's crush is new for the new readers and will (hopefully) be interesting to them.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

JS: Well, this interview for one...!

Also, the degree of interaction with other bloggers, and what I have already learned and been inspired to do. The help from Josh over at Pinotblogger on the Geek Sheet redesign is the best example, which you mentioned in your first post about El Bloggo Torcido. Josh's post on a desire for better representation of geeky data led me to go back and implement a half-baked idea I had been knocking around. Josh and a few other commenters made some really good suggestions for improvement. And our printed materials are now better for it, while still being fun and obnoxious.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

JS: Last year we tried a brief experiment with a "crush blog" set up just to report on the progress of the harvest. I wanted to use the blog format mostly for content management so I didn't have to design a web page every day. I set up a WordPress blog through our web site host. I'm sure WordPress in its latest version is a fine program, but the version offered by our ISP was down several revs and was a pain to manage. The comment spam was especially horrible - no filtering and no way to just trash them all at once.

Last Spring I was inspired to look at blogs again by finding your blog when you did your "Winery Week". Both you and "The Winery Web Site" report have said great things about Typepad so I went with that. I've been very happy with it after some initial concern...

When setting it up for the first time I found the "standard" themes to be pretty disappointing. I feared that I would have to delve into "templates" to get the blog to have a similar look to our web site, and I didn't really have time for that. The good news is that, if you spend time poking around, you can change quite a bit about the look and feel within the custom theme interface. It ended up being a lot easier than I first thought.

One feature that I think is lacking is the ability to easily answer comments as comments, which seems to me to be the right way to do it, at least within a week of the initial posting. You want your conversation right there. I feel like I should be able to do this from within my Typepad interface. Instead I have to enter the comment as a regular commenter and then go approve myself. Way too many steps. (If you agree let Typepad know - I have. Their current suggestion is to edit your comments into the commenter's comments. That seems non-optimal.)

Interesting. I haven't encountered that many steps with my comments because I don't have to approve them before they go live. I can see where this is a royal pain if you are moderating your comments though. The suggestion to answer a comment within a comment is totally out there. I've never seen this done on a blog and I think it would be considered bad form. As far as letting Typepad know, I have my own long list of suggestions for them. The more I use Typepad, the more I like it, but I would like to see a few things added here and there.

Tags: el bloggo torcido, the twisted blog, twisted blog, twisted oak, twisted oak vineyard, twisted oak winery, twisted oak wine, calaveras county, calaveras county california, calaveras county ca, calaveras county wine, vallecito, vallecito california, vallecito ca, wine, vineyard, winery, el jefe, jeff stai,  geek sheets, pirates, arrr that's good wine, rubber chicken, tubbs, ups

Dan Germain: Small Business Blog Interview

Dan Germain joined innocent in 1999, shortly after his three college buddies began the London beverage company. Since then, the growth of the company has skyrocketted and Germain found himself in charge of a very vibrant blog. We reviewed them a couple of days ago, and despite his busy schedule, Dan sent replies to all of my questions promptly.

"The big stuff, like procuring fruit ethically, and the small stuff, like what we had for breakfast."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Dan Germain: The honest answer is that we don't know - we've only been doing it for a while. In a way though, we've been blogging for about seven years - we've been sending out our news to subscribers since we started selling drinks - our blog is just a more responsive and accountable way of doing that.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

DG: They like it. We have an open and honest tone that hopefully makes them feel part of what we're doing. We crave their input - it's a no-brainer - they buy our drinks, they make the business possible, so what they think is the most important thing in our world. We like hearing from them.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

DG: Everything. The big stuff, like procuring fruit ethically, and the small stuff, like what we had for breakfast.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

DG: The response. When we post stuff, we usually get a good response from people. There are folks out there somewhere who care about the way we run our business and who want us to make it even better.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

DG: We use Typepad. It's clean and simple. A bit like us really. We've embedded it in our site so that it looks a bit more like our stuff.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

DG: If you want to get something from your blog - ideas, advice, feedback - you need to put a lot of effort in. Don't be afraid to bare your soul.

Great answers Dan. Simple and complete, just like innocent.

Tags: innocent, innocent beverages, innocent london, dan germain, smoothies

Kenneth Lu: Small Business Blog Interview

About a month ago we featured a lighting distributor that made wonderful use of client questions on their blog. Answering clients' questions created a great platform to provide content that people actually needed. In my further comments I asked, "Who writes this blog?" and today we find out that the man behind the Arcadian Lighting blog is Kenneth Lu.

"Our blog acts as an archive for the plethora of questions that our customers ask us."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Kenneth Lu: Our blog acts as an archive for the plethora of questions that our customers ask us. It's a useful tool for our employees to learn more about lighting.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

KL: Customers see our blog as a good educational tool. It also gives Arcadian Lighting credibility.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

KL: Everyday questions from our customers and also knowledge that we think will help customers learn more about lighting and how to make it better for their application.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

KL: No big surprises.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

KL: We use WordPress. It's a hosted application. We like the program. It does the job well.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

KL: It takes good effort to keep the blog updated. We think we will be spending some additional resource to make the blog more user-friendly. We do see value in keeping a blog and will continue to do so.

Thanks Kenneth for your insight. Your blog is a fine example of creating a resource for customers by doing nothing more than answering their questions in a public way that is forever searchable.

Tags: arcadian lighting, la verne california, lighting blog, lamp blog, lamps blog, kenneth lu

Shoelover: Small Business Blog Interview

Sholover gave us something to think about with their answers to the classic interview questions. We featured them on August 31.

"Most people find it amusing and a little bit different from most corporate hot air."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Shoelover: The blog actually started before the Shoe Stor. The blog allows the company to maintain a personal/interactive side. It is also a great keyword catcher.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

SL: Most people find it amusing and a little bit different from most corporate hot air.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

SL: It all depends what I drank the night before..........just kidding. Most of the thing Shoelover writes about are really just spur of the moment, on the spot type creations. It could be current events, it could be fashion, shoes or just random thoughts.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

SL: The challenge of generating traffic and fostering reader interactivity.

Thanks Shoelover. Different from most corporate hot air indeed! Lets hope most companies take this approach.

Tags: Shoe Lover, shoelover, shoe stor, shoes, hal 9000, hal, shoe box, shoebox, shoe boxes

Marshall Lebovits: Small Business Blog Interview

Today's interview comes from Marshall Lebovits. We featured his financial resources company last week and he is a great example of someone who is just starting out in this blogging phenomena.

"At the end of the day, I’m having fun and it has increased my awareness about this still relatively new medium for transmitting information."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Marshall Lebovits: I’ve been blogging a little less than 90 days so the jury is still out on the real impact. As I have had no prior Internet presence of my own, it is nice to be able to tell clients and prospects that they can now find me and my “point of view” on the web. In the long run, I believe my blog will add to my credibility and increase a prospect’s comfort level with my credentials. The majority of my business is from referral so if my blog generates a few new clients, I would consider it icing on the cake.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

ML: My clients and referral sources claim the information on my blog is helpful to their understanding of a financing issue or structure. Frankly, I think many of them are just curious about blogging and find a blog about business financing issues to be quite unique. I’ve searched the blogosphere and have found very few blogs on this subject. The blogs I have found on these issues have been a pure sales pitch or simply spam. I hope that as more people seek information on financing in the blogosphere that they will find my site to be informative and useful.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

ML: I find that companies that apply for financing are often rejected for two reasons – they have either knocked on the wrong doors or they have told their “story” in the wrong way. I try to write about things I encounter in my work day that address those two reasons.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

ML: First, the amount of traffic that was driven to my blog when I was “quoted” on the Small Business Blog for USA Today. Second, I’ve been very surprised that very few others are writing a quality blog on the financing issues that impact the majority of business in the United States.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

ML: When I started blogging, I wasn’t sure about my interest level nor my ability to commit time to the endeavor. Thus, I chose Blogger simply because it was easy to use and free. I have spent a considerable amount of time learning how to manipulate the Blogger template – I’ve added categories via Technorati and Del.icio.us, installed Feedburner, an email subscription service and Haloscan along with a couple of other minor adjustments. The Blogger program seems to get the job done, but frankly I have no other basis for comparison.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

ML: At the end of the day, I’m having fun and it has increased my awareness about this still relatively new medium for transmitting information.

My biggest concern was and remains whether or not I will succeed in attracting traffic by being a Blogger sub-domain rather than having my own URL. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be my only reader. I’ve done my best to follow much of the available advice including search engine registration, publishing quality content, using the right key words in the right spots and publicizing my site. I’m open to helpful suggestions.

Interesting concerns at the end of your interview Marshall. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the industry of getting websites to show up at the top of search engine results. The ability to do this is significant as any website at the very top of a search result is basically getting free advertising and, potentially, thousands of visitors as a result.

But Blogging is completely destroying this industry. All the old rules of SEO are flying out the door as blogs are dominating the three major components that search engines look for: 1) tons of content, 2) manually inserted tags, and 3) tons of links from other websites. The keywords on your website don't matter anymore. What matters are the keywords other websites use to link to you.

The moral is, don't worry too much about SEO when working on your blog. Focus on your niche marketplace, create valuable content for that audience, and the SEO will take care of itself. Good luck and good blogging.

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

Marcia E. Brubeck: Small Business Blog Interview

Last week, we featured a psychotherapist who is using her blog to educate her audience and create a resource for solid advice in her field. Professionals like doctors can benefit greatly with a blog because it supplements a "bed side manner" by helping to create a relationship with customers. We all feel more comfortable dealing with people we know something about, and Marcia's blog gives us a chance to get to know her.

"The written posts reinforce the spoken message—and they make useful information available over the Internet to anyone who might be able to use it."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

   

Marcia E. Brubeck: My blog has increased my visibility with current clients. Also, when potential clients call for an initial appointment, I invite them to check out the blog. That way, when they come in for a first session of psychotherapy they have a better idea of what to expect. I suspect that my blog is also giving me a bigger presence on the Internet and in the community of mental health professionals.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

   

MB: My clients have been enthusiastic. Some of them are sending friends (or, in the case of other psychotherapists, colleagues) to the blog. These are welcome developments from my point of view.

PJ: What types of things about your workday inspire you to write the post on your blog?

   

MB: I am inspired to write posts by the problems that I see people facing and by the questions that they bring daily into my consulting room. One main purpose of the blog was to make available in written form basic information and ideas that I routinely give clients during therapy sessions. The written posts reinforce the spoken message—and they make useful information available over the Internet to anyone who might be able to use it.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

   

MB: The blog is new enough that many surprises are probably still in store for me, but I was interested to see that in its first month most of the hits came from the American Midwest. Is this region a hotbed of online therapists, underserved clients, or what?

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

   

MB: I use Typepad for my blog. I am gradually adding design features (and, I hope, photos and music) over time. It is very much a do-it-yourself work in progress and separate from my website (www.marciabrubeck.com), which was professionally designed. I wish Typepad were more versatile than it appears to be as regards content and design options, but I am probably not the best person to evaluate it as I am not very html-savvy. I learn as I go.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

   

MB: I am using my blog to write a book—several books, actually. Over time I am hoping to post everything I know about how to help children, adults, and families solve the problems of daily life. Sure, I would like to become rich and famous (provided that I could stay happy!), but I would also like my posts to find their way to English-language readers all over the world. Wouldn’t it be great if people everywhere could make peace, listen to each other, and raise confident, tolerant, creative, and loving children?

Thanks Marcia. I love how you use your blog. Telling clients about the blog when they make their initial appointment is a fantastic approach! This is a real customer service winner as it acclimates a client into a situation that is completely foreign to them, making them feel much more relaxed compared to an office that does not offer a blog.

I can see this working for any company where customers call first for an appointment. The staff would always point out the company blog allowing interested customers the chance to really buy in to the company before even visiting, thus making the "sale" that much easier once they arrive.

Tags: marcia brubeck, psychotherapy, hartford, hartford ct, hartford connecticut, childhood anxiety

Phil Steinmeyer: Small Business Blog Interview

Phil Steinmeyer is a video game developer with such titles as Railroad Tycoon 2 and 3 and Tropico under his belt. In 2005 he founded New Crayon Games. We highlighted his blog on August 22 and he kindly replied to some further questions:

"In fact, a fair number of useful business contacts have come about partly or wholly because of the blog."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Phil Steinmeyer: I started the blog primarily for personal reasons (it's fun to have a mouthpiece to comment on my industry and the world in general), and I'd still say for me it's about 70/30 personal interest vs. real attempt to use the blog for business purposes. There simply isn't enough readership to justify the time I spend on the blog in terms of it's impact in reaching end-customers (the people who buy my games for $20 a pop).

However, I do think there's some positive, reasonably worthwhile effect in terms of establishing a presence (and contacts) with others in the industry. My games are distributed through a pipeline, via a publisher and then end-distributors, and it also helps to have others in the industry, such as reviewers, aware of what I'm doing. Even though these opinion leaders are few in number, they have a significant impact, and I at least humor myself that the blog is worthwhile because it reaches many of them. In fact, a fair number of useful business contacts have come about partly or wholly because of the blog.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

PS: Boredom, I think :) I work alone out of a home office, so I miss the coffee pot culture of a typical office. Posting on my blog, engaging in dialog with other blogs and those who comment on my blog, and participating in various on-line forums helps to counteract the isolation of working alone.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

PS: Well, I made some technical mistakes early on. I wasn't sure what form I wanted it to take early on - a straight blog or more of a blog/general content web site. So I chose a program called Xoops that was fairly flexible, but for which blogging was a bit more of an afterthought. It worked passibly well for a while, but then the comment spammers hit my blog, and I had to go through and manually delete about a hundred spam comments, because Xoops contained no advanced spam filtering or bulk e-mail moderation tools (that I could locate).

So I switched to Wordpress and have been happy since. I'm now getting 10-15 spam comments a day, but I use Akismet (a plug-in) for spam filtering and it catches about 98% of them painlessly. For the remainder, WordPress's own tools work well.

Later on, I did set up a separate web site for my company (www.newcrayon.com), using a conventional HTML editor (Dreamweaver).

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

PS: As mentioned above, I'm now using Wordpress and I really like it. I created a custom theme (based on the kubrick theme) and probably spent a bit more time tinkering with it that I should have, but I'm happy with the results. WordPress is very flexible, and just feels really easy to use.

Thanks Phil for the insight. For those who may be considering blogging, I'd like to explain comment spam.

Comment spam is when someone puts a comment on one of your posts in order to drive traffic to their porn/drug/scam website. The comments are left by automated programs, not by real people, and never say anything relevant to the actual post.

In my experience using the Typepad blogging platform, I have had almost no problems with spam comments. The few I have received have been easily removed and Typepad allows you to block any further comments from that person's computer in the future. Also, Typepad has recently switched to a verification process that makes it nearly impossible for a computer to leave comments without an actual person finishing the process.

As happy as Phil is with the Wordpress platform, I am equally happy with Typepad's.

Tags: philsteinmeyer.com, phil steinmeyer, new crayon games, new crayon, fenton missouri, fenton mo, video game, video games, video game designer, video game producer, computer game, computer game designer, computer game producer, mobile phone game, cell phone game, wordpress, typepad, comment spam

Larry Maiman: Small Business Blog Interview

One of my favorite blogs so far has been from a bakery/cafe in Los Angeles called Mäni's. I hadn't heard anything from them after writing the review in mid June until a few days ago when one of the owners left a comment on my review. He had found the blog using the Google blog search which means I never sent him an email telling him that Mani's had been featured. Whoops!

So I sent an email right away and Larry responded promptly. Here's some insight into one of the best blogs we've seen:

"For any business to be able to have a fast low cost way to be in touch with customers, this is fantastic."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Larry Maiman: We have been very focused on growing our company. We have a model of openess with both our team members and customers. So the blog allows us to dialog with everyone very regularly. As a matter of fact, at this point there are 5 of us who are regular writers on the blog and we need to adhere to our assigned publish dates so all our blog stories get top billing for at least the same day they are published. Since our blog and our website are one seamless site, it's easy to direct our customers to get the information and dialog they're looking for.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

LM: Our guests/customers are a pretty loyal base in the first place, since our concept is somewhat of a niche market. We have many customers logging in regularly to see what's new. Our blog consultant, Denise Wakeman from Build a Better Blog sends our customer base an email each week letting them know what's new and a link to go directly to our site.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

LM: There's quite a buzz here at Mäni’s on Fairfax. There always seems to be something new or news worthy to report. Doug Miller, our Culture and People Manager is always excited about something either regarding our team, new products, new training, new improvements, etc., so it's really not an issue to inspire one of our writers to write something. Check out the blog and you'll see what I mean. The stories are quite varried, so many interests are covered.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

LM: One of my biggest surprises with the blog is how much content is generated, searched, read and talked about. For a small bakery/restaurant (only 2000 sq ft) we really keep things happening. I think we surprise ourselves and our customers simultaneously.

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

LM: Our designers, Hop Studios in Vancouver, reccommended Expression Engine. We told them we wanted a system we could manage ourselves for the most part. We're quite happy with it. We're just beginning to start a dialog on re-designing our home page to accommodate the viewing of multiple stories at the same time.

PJ: Is there anything else you would like to share about your blogging experience?

LM: For any business to be able to have a fast low cost way to be in touch with customers, this is fantastic. There's just so much than can be done and said in a blog. Especially one that connects to the company's website. Also great designers like our visual/graphics designer gives us a great look that matches the feel of our restaurant/bakery, that's Michelle Beilner, mbeilner[at]sbcglobal[dot]net. And thank you Brian for writing a comprehensive summary of our business and our blog.

Tags: manis, manis bakery, manis restaurant, manis cafe, manis los angeles, manis la, healthy restaurant, good blog design

Dr. Dan Beatty: Small Business Blog Interview

I'm finally caught up on my interviews as of now. Dr. Dan Beatty responded a couple of days ago regarding his unique veterinarian blog. Dr. Dan specializes in holistic methods of treating animals which I happen to find very cool and a great business for a blog. We featured Healthy as a Dog, one of his two vet blogs, last week.

"The blog is a fantastic way to make a connection with your customers..."

Pajama Market: How has the blog impacted your company?

Dr. Dan Beatty: The blog is essential for my company in the internet world. My intentions are to have a large web presence outside of the physical business world, so that I can give all the information I can to as many people as I can - the internet is the best way to do that. The blog is a fantastic way to make a connection with your customers (readership) they get to know you and will allow you to help them and as a benefit they will trust you more and therefore tend to buy products you are selling or recommending more quickly than a total stranger coming to a static website.

PJ: What has the response been from your customers/clients?

DB: My clients in the "real" world love the site and blog. Many of them ask me why I have not posted another story or more pictures or they would like some advice put up there. They keep me motivated to keep posting.

PJ: What types of things about your work day inspire you to write a post on your blog?

DB: My clients! Usually when a concern has been expressed over and over or a feel good moment.

PJ: What have been the biggest surprises with your blog so far?

DB: People in the internet world emailing me about the blog. People that I did not even know were reading. It always interests me to know how did they find my blog (Speaking of that Brian, How did you find my blog?)

PJ: What blogging program do you use for the blog? Did you create this blog yourself? How do you like the program?

DB: I use WordPress, I did create the blog myself with help from a free template. I really do like WordPress. It has all the tools that I need