With small- and medium-sized business playing such a critical role in the health of our nation’s economy, it is no surprise that there are thousands of blogs aimed at helping people grow or manage their companies. However, with so many blogs written for the entrepreneur or business owner, we felt it important to highlight the ones we believe offer fresh insight or the most value.
In addition, because many of our clients want to reach these influential bloggers, we have also provided counsel and perspectives from industry bloggers surrounding best practices for approaching these writers with story ideas or suggestions.
Below is our list of the 10 best small business blogs:
- Get Your Biz Savvy by Alex Monroe. This is an all-in-one source for entrepreneurs, which offers a different and exciting twist on information such as how to overcome limitations within your business and various interviews with entrepreneurs.
- Seth Godin Typepad by Seth Godin. As a well-known entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and marketing expert, Godin’s blog is ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as the No. 1 marketing blog and offers tons of creative insight on a variety of topics.
- Michael T Hanley. This blog is written by a certified public accountant (CPA) and is phenomenal at helping small businesses focus on things that will improve their company. The information is concrete and helpful.
- Chris Brogan. Brogan offers insight on marketing and social media. He frames advice and commentary within a broader business and professional scope, so that marketers can better understand how strategies developed on behalf of clients and organizations can fit into the totality of a business’ goals and plans.
- Carol Roth. Carol Roth is a business strategist who has worked with hundreds of companies ranging from a single entrepreneur with an idea, to Fortune 500 businesses, on all aspects of business and financial strategy. Her blog offers business advice and often brings in collaborators, including expert participants as part of the blog’s ongoing content.
- Business Insider. Silicon Valley Insider, the flagship blog of Business Insider provides insight surrounding the financial, entertainment, green tech and digital industry verticals. Using a multi-author approach consistent voice and theme, Silicon Alley Insider largely covers the business side of the digital media space.
- Small Biz Trends. Great blog for small business owners and entrepreneurs. This blog offers a variety of information about the small business market and trends affecting small businesses. Podcasts and press releases are also featured on the blog.
- Mashable. Mashable is the world’s largest tech blog focused exclusively on social media news. With more than 25 million monthly page views, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new websites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the Web and offering social media resources and guides.
- 504 Blog by Chris Hurns. Hurn’s mercantile blog is written specifically for owners of small- and mid-sized businesses. He keeps readers’ attention and gives useful information that causes readers to get involved in the discussion and keep checking back again and again. These are blogs by a CEO for other CEOs and executives.
- Best Small Biz Help by Dawn Fotopulus. This blog provides wonderful insight into knowing exactly what small business owners need to know and provides that information in concise video blogs and posts. Her latest video post explains small business bookkeeping.
Best Practices for Reaching These Bloggers
To come up with this list of best practices for working with these bloggers, we asked them for input on the most effective way to approach them with story ideas. Here’s what they said:
- Come up with fun, interesting and relevant story suggestions. Alex Monroe, editor-in-chief of www.GetYourBizSavvy.com suggests taking some time to review his content and reiterates that suggestions for stories should not be a sales pitch for a product or service. This is a total turn off for him.
- Be flexible. Carol Roth of Intercap Merchant Partners, and blog writer of www.CarolRoth.com, explains she likes it when a person “reaches out to her in a focused and flexible manner that is consistent with the message and philosophy of the blog.”
- Be clear on what you want. Roth also mentions that it is important that someone pitching a contributed guest column can clearly articulate what he or she wants. According to Roth, she wants to understand why someone wants to collaborate – this is a must, if they want to be taken seriously.
- Remember bloggers are passionate about their subject matter. They often want a personal connection to the topics they’re writing about and to actually connect with the people who send them e-mails suggesting ideas or reading their material. Consider Louis Rosas-Guyon, president of R-Squared Computing, Inc. He has been blogging for about three years and uses his blog as a public journal where he writes about the issues on his mind.
We hope this list of blogs and tips for working with the bloggers writing about business are helpful to you.