With the increased popularity of new social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, can blogs still help a small business in any way? Even if businesses no longer consider blogs their main online PR tool, many think they're indeed still valuable. Plenty of home-based companies started to alter their internet sites just a few years back, changing them from static html sites that lacked interactivity to places where they and their clientele could connect. A lot of this exchange of concepts took place on a blog, where new releases were pronounced or responses were made to purchaser input.

It's well-known in the business blogosphere the powerbloggers led the way and smaller companies and small businesses followed. Initially major blogs started more as media outlets, but ultimately became more social in nature, giving companies a way to keep an eye on customer feedback, kudos, and complaints. Then when home-based businesses and other companies set up to include comments on blog entries, the turnaround in its relationship with shoppers was remarkable. Put simply, both major companies and smaller companies had similar experiences in this way.

A home business blog can offer a supplement to regular e-mail newsletters as well, although some customers might still rely on the e-mails for updates and never think about visiting the website, while others are more proactive and check blogs continually to find current info. Businesses need to engage consumers in many ways. If it's updated regularly, the blog can provide fresh information that will not vanish down the page quite so quickly, say, as the more ephemeral tweets on Twitter. Up-to-date business reports can be posted in a friendly, casual fashion, allowing shoppers to raise questions or make ideas. And their remarks w't vanish down the page either.

Businesses should be careful about raising customers' expectancies, however. While an almost one on one relationship might be possible between a small enterprise and its purchasers, larger companies won't be in a position to reply to all questions or complaints, and this could damage its reputation if it's not very careful.

But another use for blogging, and one that companies may not even consider at first, is for internal communication. Although contractors can stay in contact thru email, meetings or conference calls, an internal blog can concentrate on a single project, providing a central place for a team to get regular updates or make an informal record of their progress. This could keep these contractors recent without their own email mail box piling up to an unmanageable level.

Blogs weren't the 1st tool in the social networking arsenal, but once the internet actually became established and blogging software was created to make online interaction simpler, blogs became convenient tools to help a business exchange info and feedback with its customers. These web pages can supply recent reports, in arather more permanent form than on other media, and keep the critical communication channels open.