I was interviewed for a piece that appears in today’s Chicago Tribune: Blogs giving firms a human voice by Ann Meyer.
My clients The Contented Cow and Northfield Police Chief Gary Smith got mentioned.
Here are some paragraphs from that interview.
(And kudos to Meyer for getting both the quotes and content right from her phone interview with me… that’s a rarity.)
Many small businesses, from neighborhood restaurants to construction companies, understand the merits of getting to know their customers on a first-name basis. But they don’t necessarily know how to reach out in a personal way on the Internet, said Griff Wigley, principal of Wigley & Associates, a Web log coaching firm in Northfield, Minn.
“Your Web site can extend that personal touch in a way that’s not easily done” through other media, he said. “It doesn’t have to be dead boring press releases or canned Web sites.”
Instead, Wigley, who has encouraged dozens of small businesses and professionals–including the Northfield police chief–to start blogs, encourages his clients to tell stories online.
“Storytelling is the crux of it. The better people are at telling stories, the more people want to read it,” he said.
Tell the story of your business, how it started or where it’s going in the next six months. Talk about your employees. “Blog about an employee that’s done something important that you want to leverage. Get the word out there,” he said.
While you can talk about coming events, new products or services, avoid making the blog look purely self-serving or promotional. “You’re trying to set a tone that makes it more likely people are going say, `This is a guy I can relate to,’” Wigley said.
If you don’t like to write, tell your story through pictures, Wigley said. For example, Contented Cow, a pub in Northfield, Minn., uses pictures to communicate the ambiance and conviviality of the place on its blog, Wigley said. He recently posted a photo album of the pub’s Harry Potter festivities. He also posts video clips.
Audio blogging is another innovation that works well for people who can’t write or type. “If they can talk, they can blog,” Wigley said.
While Wigley acknowledges that maintaining a blog may feel like busywork initially, that attitude changes once the business owner starts getting feedback, he said. “It’s almost a gleam in their eye–`I’m going to blog this because I know the ripple effect it will have,’” he said.