Bad press is a fact of life. In spite of the fact that you are a well established company worldwide (or come to think of it maybe because of this fact), you can still get bad publicity. Of course, being a small company does not make you exempt from this possibility as well.

More often than not, there are two ways of dealing with this problem. One is to sit it out and ignore the allegations. If this is not possible, then companies have to give their own side of the story. This would entail PR firms and a lot of expense.

Yet there is another solution – blogging.

Let’s imagine a scenario wherein an “independent” entity conducts a study one some of your products or services and they find something to criticize. Normally this should not be that big of a concern – we should be open to criticism. But let’s say that the results of the study are totally unfair, somewhat untrue, and gives a deceptive picture of your company and your products or services.

If you have a business blog up and running, it would be an easy matter to post an entry refuting the allegations against you. More so, you could easily refer to previous posts that could bolster your case. Even more importantly, your readers – who we assume are your customers as well – would be part of the whole thing. They probably follow your blog already and know the real deal. They would probably even throw in their 2 cents worth.

Get the picture I am painting here?

These two characteristics are perhaps some of the two most important advantages that a blog can bring to your business.

Ask yourself, why have you jumped into the blogging bandwagon and set up a blog for your own business? Why didn’t you just stick it out with the more traditional means of marketing and advertising your business? I am sure there is a plethora of reasons behind this move but I am also certain that one consideration is speed of getting your message across to as many people as possible, am I right?

Now think about your blog. How many people can access it at the same time? Theoretically, limitless. How fast can these people receive any new information that you have posted on the blog? You might think that if the check the blog daily then they can gain access to new information as soon as the blog is updated. Right. Yet there is an even better way of distributing your information – through RSS and pings.

That’s right, with this technology, everyone who is subscribed to your blog will receive the posts each time you put out an update. Recipients of the posts include directories and search engines which you are subscribed to. It is as simple as that – write, post, and distribute. No waiting time, no nothing.

Along these lines, updating your blog is just as easy. As long as you have the necessary information, you merely have to write an entry and then post it. Not considering the writing time, updating can take you less than a minute. Compare that to the traditional press releases and printed newsletters.

There is no doubt about it, small businesses everywhere are realizing everyday that making their presence felt online is integral to the success of their activities. More and more, you will find small businesses creating web sites of their own just so they can have a form of contact online. This is good news, to say the least. However, the sad part is that many of these small businesses also tend to think that the mere fact that they have established a web site is enough. Many times, the web site is left alone and neglected. Updates are far and few in between. In short, they have done the bare minimum to establish online presence.

What is the bare minimum? To merely have a web site – or even a web page – that lets people know that this business exists. Yet is this enough? Most definitely not! A web site can taken advantage of and used to its fullest potential to make a strong impact online. More so, you can go one step further and set up a business blog. Now this, with its fresh content on a regular basis is more than the bare minimum.

A blog can be designed separately from the web site itself. It has to be visible, pleasing to the eyes, and easy to read. With this set up – both web site and blog working hand in hand, you are bound to establish connections with a wide variety of people and make a name for yourself online.

A picture paints a thousand words – or so the saying goes. Call it cliché but I believe that this saying holds a large amount of truth. Now imagine your business blog. Why does it exist in the first place? There could be many answers to this question, I know, yet one of the main reasons businesses set up a blog of their own is to catch the attention of their customers. They want to gain new customers and retain old ones. I am sure that you don’t think differently.

So back to using pictures for your business blog…Let’s say that you offer a certain service. Whatever this service is, there might be aspects that you just cannot explain in words. Though words can be powerful, sometimes they are just not enough. What can you do? This is where pictures come in.

If you put photos in your blog detailing the service that you offer, you can present a visual image to your clients. They can see for themselves just exactly what you are offering to them. Sometimes, people need visuals in order to fully understand the message that you want to get across. Take for example a spa service detailing all that they have to offer. Contrast that with a post which has text and this picture:

Do you see what I mean?

Just a note on using pictures for blogging, though. Be careful to represent your product or service as realistically as possible. Sometimes, pictures can be larger than life. If this happens with your blog, then you might be in for customer dissatisfaction.

One of the core activities of any business is to gather information regarding their customers. In order to provide services or products which cater to their target market’s needs and preferences, a business has to have an accurate gauge of the market’s pulse, so to speak. As such, market research is one of the most important endeavors of any business.

Any businessman would know that in order to obtain results which are as accurate as can be, market research has to be conducted with as wide a coverage as possible. In order to achieve such a coverage, money has to be expended – a considerable amount. Yet there is another way to conduct market research without having to expend too many resources – both in terms of time, money, and personnel.

A business blog can do just that. Take the example of Stone Creek Coffee, a coffee store chain in the U.S. When they to make their presence felt online, they chose the blog to do the job. Tom Pionek, technology and marketing director, shares that their blog present more opportunities to interact with customers as compared to press releases and similar forms of business communications. Their blog also went on to serve as way of getting feedback from the customers – a form of market research.

According to consultant Dana Vanden Heuvel, blogs are “one of the largest free, for what that’s worth, market research test-beds. It goes beyond the focus groups and some of the other market-research vehicles that people have used in the past or companies have used in the past.”

With more and more people turning to the Internet for information, a business blog could give you the edge that you need.

The other day I was talking to an Italian guy who works for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. He works in the I.T. department and pretty soon he was telling me all about his latest pet project. I couldn’t help but notice how proud and excited he was of this endeavor – he just completed setting up a blog for the company. Naturally, that caught my interest and prodded him for more information.

One of the main things that stuck to my mind is the idea that a blog can humanize a corporation. That I.T. guy was saying that for companies as big as theirs, the consumers don’t even have the barest clue of the people behind the scenes. For us customers, all we see are the products themselves and advertisements on TV or magazines perhaps. As such, the corporation is a mere abstract idea in the minds of people – there is rarely any person associated with it.

He continued on to say that with their new blog, they are putting on a new spin to customer relations. The way he set up the company blog was for different people from within the company to contribute to the blog. In this way, there is freedom of expression. Their target is to reach out to customers so that they can see that there are real people working behind the scenes to deliver the products that they use.

I couldn’t help but agree with this guy. His arguments made sense – show the customers real people behind the scenes and they will be able to relate to the company more.

Communication is the key to most relationships in society. From families to friendships to business relationships, communication is integral to the success of the interaction. In business, communication does not come automatically. Perhaps within the company, the flow of communication is a bit easier to facilitate.

The communication between customers and businesses may be a bit tricky, however. Despite the honest intentions from the business side to have a free exchange of ideas between them and the customer, you cannot blame the customer for thinking that there is a hidden agenda. After all, we want them to purchase our goods and services.

Advertisements and traditional media is the bridge between the corporation and the customers. Just how effective this method is, we cannot really discount as it has been working for countless years now. Yet taking things one step further – short of the CEO walking around and talking to customers face to face – the business can reach out to its clientele in a more personal manner through a blog.

Blogs, by their very nature, have a personal down-to-earth touch. Though we do have business blogs, people tend to associate blogs with a “real” person. If you take advantage of this fact and work your business blog as an ordinary person would, you can enjoy an open channel of communication between you and your customers.

You can post anything relating to your products, your services, and maybe even insider tips. At the same time, customers who read your blog would have the chance to air out their concerns and questions through the comments section. In this way, your blog serves as a venue for open forum, which is always good in the eyes of customers.

A business blog can bring many advantages – that is the general consensus. Yet many times, this sweeping statement is not really backed up with concrete ideas and information. Here is one incentive for businessmen who are not yet fully convinced of a blog’s power to increase your presence online – a blog can position you as an expert in the field.

Before delving into how a blog can do this, let me answer another question: “So what if I can acquire expert status?” Isn’t it pretty obvious? Take any topic under the sun – say, English learning online. If the average person wants to know more about this topic, what does he normally do? Consult with someone he believes to be knowledgeable in the matter, right? In the absence of “real” people he can consult in “real time” what does he do? He goes to his computer and searches for reputable sources online.

Now if you have expert status – that is, if you gain that reputation of being knowledgeable in your field, you will have countless people knocking at your door.

So how can you acquire this status with a business blog? Simple, maintain an active blog with regular posts. Make sure that the content is updated and indeed accurate as befitting an authority in your field. Of course, you would also have to engage in some promotion so that your blog can be discovered by readers. If you are starting from scratch, your readership may be limited but with great content and proper marketing, you will be reaping the benefits before you know it.

Blogs are everywhere and they have their own pros and cons. It is about time that businesses – big or small – realize and accept that. No matter how some people may want to ignore this fact, it does not really change. Have you ever thought about how you can use blogging to expose a new product or idea?

I am sure there are some of you who are thinking “but we have our marketing and promotions campaign taking care of that already!” Here’s my question to you then: “Exactly how much are you spending on that campaign?” I would not want to guess, really.

Blogging, on the other hand, presents a cost effective alternative. If you already have a blog for your business then it would be a small matter to present something new. If you don’t have a blog set up yet, it is quite simple to get that done.

So how does a blog help you get the exposure that a new or a relatively unknown idea or product? Many times, the case is that customers or prospective customers do not have a clear idea of what you have to offer. Other forms of advertising and marketing can probably get the point across given enough time and resources. However, that would cost an arm and a leg. On the other hand, a blog can be as detailed and as specific as you like regarding a product or an idea. Customers – prospective or otherwise – can then be more informed about your product. This can then easily translate into more business for you.

If you are a small business owner and you think that going to seminars and conferences is a waste of your time, you may want to think again. While speakers are discussing advances in your field or how to manage your employees, there is also something else important going on. Conference attendees are networking with each other. In fact, many people attend conferences solely for all the networking opportunities they provide. To successfully network at a conference, there are a few things you should be sure to do:

* Dress neatly and professionally, but be sure you aren’t overdressed. Most people attending a conference wear casual business attire. If you aren’t sure whether you should wear a suit, ask someone who has attended the conference a previous year.

* Take along a nice supply of fresh, crisp business cards. Scribbling contact information on a napkin is a great way to make sure other attendees don’t call you.

* Make sure you have a small notebook and a pen to jot down notes. Its amazing how fast you can forget that Joe Smith wanted you to call him after the conference because his friend’s brother needs your services.

* If you usually are in a hurry and aggressive, approach people in a more laid back, casual manner. For most people, a conference is a bit like a mini vacation.

* Take advantage of opportunities that seem to have nothing to do with business, like the line dancing class being offered after dinner that evening, but be sure you don’t have so much fun that you leave people with an unprofessional image of you.