The Benefits of Blogging

As International Networking Week continues, I have a little story to tell. A few years ago, I attended a local networking event where I met one of the owners of Mabel’s Labels, a fairly new company at that time. Since I was still an active organizer, I was very excited to learn about their wonderful products, and began recommending them in my organizing seminars and sharing the information with my colleagues. On my suggestion, Mabel’s Labels was an exhibitor at the Professional Organizers in Canada Conference that year, thereby gaining exposure to hundreds of organizers with thousands of clients who were potential users of their products. Maybe they’d have learned about the conference through some other means, but I like to think that I was instrumental in making that connection.

While conducting research recently for one of my clients, I visited the Mabel’s Labels website again, and was pleased, although not surprised, to see how much the company has grown. At the same time, I discovered that they’re currently sponsoring a blogging contest where the grand prize winner will receive a trip to the BlogHer’s Annual Conference in Chicago this summer! Entrants must write a blog post describing the rewards and benefits of participating in the blogging community, which I’m about to do.

I started blogging in 2006 as a new way of marketing my business. Although I was already writing articles for my monthly ezine, I frequently had ideas that weren’t well-suited to formal articles, and I realized that a blog would allow me to share additional insights and resources with my subscribers, as well as non-subscribers. I had no idea at that time that blogging would become an important part of my daily routine.

I can absolutely say that I have gained new clients as a result of my blog. By that, I don’t mean that someone stumbled upon my blog, read a post, and said “I want Janet Barclay to be my virtual assistant.” Instead, by reading my blog on a regular basis, they acquired a sense of who I am and the way I approach business and life, and were comfortable with what they saw. After all, choosing a VA is an important decision, and it’s very difficult to gain trust in someone simply based on a static website. In addition, by developing,  maintaining, and promoting my own blog, I’ve learned a lot of strategies and techniques which have allowed me to expand and enhance the services I can offer to both new and existing clients.

Of course, there’s more to blogging than just throwing a few paragraphs online and hoping someone will read them. Whenever someone comments on one of my posts, I respond to their comment and pay a visit to their blog as well. I also make sure that everything I do on my blog is reflected on the social networking sites I use.

As a result of relationships grown through blogging, I’ve been invited to participate in joint ventures, such as teleseminars. I’ve also been contacted by media representatives, simply because I’d blogged about a topic they were currently researching, which has led to free exposure for my business. I’ve even been able to share some of these opportunities with other people in my network, when I felt that they were more suited than I was to address the subject.

The most surprising reward for me is a personal one. I love my work, but most of my activities are dictated by the needs of my clients. After all, without them, there would be no Organized Assistant! With my blog, on the other hand, I get to choose what to write about, when to write it, and how much to write, or even decide not to blog some days if I just don’t feel like it. I’ve never thought of myself as a writer, but my blog has become an outlet for my self-expression, as much as it is a marketing tool.