Business Blog Wire

I recently emailed Kathleen Gilroy of The Otter Group (which I discovered via Mario Sundar) a few questions about her company’s blog.  Here are her responses.  Hopefully you can learn something from Kathleen’s experiences.

Easton: What prompted you to start a business blog?

Kathleen: I was following what was going on with the Dean campaign blog and I believed that the principles of interlinking and quick, regular posting could be beneficial for my business.  When I started the blog in February, we had almost no traffic on our web site.  Now we are averaging 160,000 page views a month, and we just appeared in Technorati’s list of the top 10 corporate blogs.

Easton: What is your blog about?

Kathleen: We write about strategies for success in the networked information economy.  We cover topics like blogging and podcasting for learning.  And we have a series of podcasts that we host called our "Tip of the Week" series.  The most popular podcast in that series–the Negotiating Tip of the Week–has had over 200,000 downloads since its inception in April, 2005.  And it is growing exponentially.

Easton: How has your blog helped your business?

Kathleen: We have gotten a number of clients from the blog.  Our traffic has grown exponentially, and we turn up number one on some important Google searches on topics like "podcasting for learning."

Easton: What have been the biggest challenges in maintaining your blog?

Kathleen: It requires some commitment to post regularly.  I try to post daily but average about three times a week.  I am a passionate learner and like to share what I discover, so I don’t find it a burden to do the work involved.  And it is so rewarding to hear back from people all over the world that they find value in our blog.

Easton: What advice would you give others looking to make a successful business blog?

Kathleen: Figure out your passions and where you think you can make the most contribution.  Make that the focus of your writing.  You are better serving a narrow audience deeply than a wide one shallowly.  Link to others who are writing about your passions.  Use photos where you can to illustrate your ideas.  Get an aggregator and populate it with feeds so you can track what is being written about in your area of expertise.  Have fun.

I appreciate Kathleen Gilroy for taking the time to answer my questions and I invite you to check out her company’s blog at http://www.ottergroup.com.

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