Harlan Editorial

Connecting, engaging, listening.

I think these are my three big reasons to blog. I’m not sure they’re everyone’s, but they seem to resonate with me. Here’s how:

• Connecting with the community makes it easy for clients to find me, makes it easy for me, too, to find others in fields related to mine, to share knowledge and experiences. And by golly, I learn alot from these great blog colleagues!

• Engaging with the community — blogosphere as well as local business clients — pushes me to think further, past the generic to what works for each individual, to see that what’s working for me is not what might work for you, to combine and create. (That’s the sort of thing that keeps a writer’s brain engaged, too! And that’s always a good thing.)

• Listening helps me shape my business to meet your needs. That close listening led me to create a NON-blogging site for my client this month. Life lesson: Blogging’s not for everyone. Business lesson: Build for the client, not for yourself. And above all, listen. But back to blogging and listening: great place to tune in to you who email me and post here, as well as to lots of others blogging in the Web world. And who said, “listen and learn”? Probably mom, a wise wise woman.

Tags: Blogging, Small Business, Small business blogging //