Why I Closed My Small Business Blog
It's not that I was retiring or tired of writing. It's not that I wasn't still interested in small business and writing about small business. And it seemed crazy that I would discontinue "Linda's Business Blog," a blog that was gaining in popularity and readership. And to be truthful, getting my domain name changed to link to my new blog destination was a great, huge, lot of work. What it boiled down to was, in a word, integrity.
Integrity to my own business. I was honored this year to have been chosen as the 2010 award winner in the Art category for the Hot Momma's Project. I wrote about that honor in a March 24 post on Linda's Business Blog. I included in that post the sentence from the letter I had received, "...Congratulations. You are the winner of the Arts category for the 2010 Hot Mommas Project case competition for your important demonstration of the arts in your life and work...." This phrase stayed in my mind for awhile.
Art is important to my life, this is true. What is even more true, and more to the point, is that Art is also my business. I am an artist-preneur - a solo business owner. I started an artist blog in August of 2009 and was dividing my writing time between the two blogs. However there came a day when it occurred to me that my blogging efforts would be best served by devoting my writing efforts to one blog - combining my interest in small business with my own personal business. So on September 26 I discontinued Linda's Business Blog, "...Retirement is no bad thing when it's more of a transition to something cool. Linda's Business Blog is now, today, officially retired...."
On that same day I explained the change on my artist blog:
- "...I started the business blog a couple years ago because I loved to write about small business and all its various concerns. It's not that I don't still enjoy it, but now my own home-based artist-preneur business has grown to the point when it needs to be my main concern and my art blog, this blog, my main writing endeavor. I love art and I've been working my fingers-to-the-bone this year [so-to-speak] in building up a body of work in mosaics, going in a new painting direction and perfecting abstract art photography...."
A friend asked me if I was concerned about having to start over, in a sense, by closing my business blog. In one way, yes I was, but mostly not. I think building readership for an artist blog is a slower process than for one with its emphasis as small business because the interest audience is a different size. It will take longer to build an audience but it feels better. My business is Art. One of my interests is writing so it made sense to keep my writing in line with my work.
Blogging is quite a phenomenon. Before there was the Internet, there was the telephone and the post office. If you wanted to talk about your business [what it is, what it offers, how it can be contacted] you needed to use traditional promotional means: newsletters and other kinds of postal/direct mail methods; paid advertising [radio, tv, newspapers]; and publicity [press releases, flyers and business cards].
Weblogs - blogs - are possible because of the internet. You can write your journal [basically what a blog is] and talk about your business all you want. It's a great way to connect to customers, potential customers and other people who have an interest in your niche.
For me it was important to focus: "...So. Linda's Business Blog has retired but Linda's business is active and going strong. In this blog I will still occasionally write about the essences of small business including customer service and entrepreneurship. Mostly, however, I'll write about Art and the art scene and art business issues, and the business of being an artist. I might from time-to-time offer a quick art lesson or give a review of a book or movie. I could interview an artist or write about photography. Whatever I do will be for the love of Art and of having a home business I love...."
It's perfectly okay to start and stop a blog and start again.
Image credit: Shutterstock
Why I Closed My Small Business Blog is a post from: BizChickBlogs
The following is a guest post by Linda C Smith.