Why the NY Times Misses the Point on the Benefits of Blogging
Why one small French restaurant should ignore their advice and blog their brains out!
In a December 27, 2007 article, blogging got the attention of the New York Times. According to an American Express survey referenced in the article only 5% of small businesses with less than 100 employees have a business blog.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s way too low.
Although the NY Times headline, “Blogging’s a Low-Cost, High Return Marketing Tool,” seems to endorse the value of blogging, much of the article effectively limits the types of organizations who ought to be blogging.
As far as I’m concerned, they’re missing the point.
They say, for example:
But while blogs may be useful to many more small businesses, even blogging experts do not recommend it for the majority.
They later add:
Guy Kawasaki, a serial entrepreneur, managing partner of Garage Technology Ventures and a prolific blogger, put it this way: “If you’re a clothing manufacturer or a restaurant, blogging is probably not as high on your list as making good food or good clothes.”
Guy Kawasaki is right most of the time, but here he is dead wrong.
In particular, most good restaurants should have a blog. I’ll admit that your local McDonald’s or Wendy’s might not be a likely candidate, but most mid-market to upscale restaurants should take advantage of blogging software, a blog’s timeliness, and a blog’s interactive features. It will make a measurable positive impact on their success.
Let’s take a look at a very fine Naples eatery, Marie-Michelle’s Restaurant on the Bay. This enjoyable French restaurant (French restaurants in Naples are a threatened species, by the way) has been around for more than 15 years. They have an attractive, but outdated and very limiting website.
Here’s why they should make a blog the center of their visitor’s online experience:
- Blog technology, which permits easy updating of your website is absolutely crucial to keeping your site current and relevant. Most smaller restaurants have limited marketing budgets and can’t afford to keep paying web designers for constant updates. If you use WordPress, Blogger or Typepad, you can update you site instantly and include all kinds of cool features.
- Restaurants of any size today have websites, but many were built by 3rd parties and cannot be updated easily. The last entries on Marie Michelle’s site are from 2002–that’s 6 years ago. If I arrive on their website and look for news, I see that they won an award in 2002. What’s happened since then? I have to wonder.
- This static site mires them in the past. They don’t even let you contact them by email. Nor can you make a reservation online.
- Advertising is very expensive and for many smaller restaurants barely affordable and barely effective. Everyone searches online for restaurants these days. If you have a terrific, interactive, up-to-date, personality-filled site, that will generate lots more business than a yellow pages ad. If you build it on a blog, it will save money and make your life much easier.
- Locally-owned restaurants need to distinguish themselves from the generic national chains that are invading their space. A great blog can establish the restaurant’s uniqueness, its character, its charm, its fun-filled atmosphere. A fun, visual blog that highlights what’s special right now would add real value to Marie-Michelle’s.
- The website has some nice small images, but, because it is so picturesque, it would benefit from many more larger images that really capture the experience of being in Naples and of dining at Marie Michelle’s.
- They probably have a long-time loyal staff. Wouldn’t it be great to talk about them and what makes them interesting? This helps personalize the restaurant before you even go there.
- Small, upscale restaurants depend on regular diners. Why not feature pictures of regulars enjoying a special occasion. People love to see pictures of themselves and their friends. In fact, they would probably email their friends all over the U.S. with a link to the blog.
- Because this is a very fine restaurant, they almost certainly have daily or weekly specials. This would be the perfect opportunity to blog about them. As it is, all I see is a menu that is presumably 6 years old. Surely something has changed.
- How about a regular recipe section to remind regulars–and to entice new customers and future visitors? People love recipes.
- If this site were built as a blog, it could be interactive and allow people to comment on what a wonderful time they had when they were in Naples and dining at this restaurant.
- They could provide an RSS feed that keeps all their fans up to date on the latest happenings.
- Thinking a little further outside the blog, Marie-Michelle’s could comment on what’s hot and happening in Naples–perhaps what they learn from their diners, giving full credit to their source.
All in all, there are plenty of reasons for a restaurant to blog and plenty of reasons to build their web presence on blogging software.
So, the NY Times and Guy Kawasaki are wrong. But, with that negative attitude, no wonder only 5% of small businesses blog. Failing to understand blogging and its benefits is a huge content marketing mistake. Pay no attention to the old gray lady.
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Comments [10]
Bravo, Newt! Great catch and thanks for speaking up. Since we work with so many service professionals, I bought into what the old lady said about retail blogs.
My partner, Denise Wakeman, has been helping local bakery, Mani’s Bakery, blog for a couple of years now, and it’s been a great success.
The key is in knowing how to create great content that isn’t advertising. Anyone in business has stories to tell. It’s not rocket science…
Patsi,
Thanks so much. When I first spotted the article, I was expecting validation for small business blogging. Actually, although I didn’t comment, I thought the example of the sweetriot blog was fairly lame as they reported it. It seemed to be all about the company rather than being all about the customer.
One of my favorites is the Maui Wowi smoothie site I wrote about.
It’s simple, visual, reinforces why you might want to hire for an event. And, it’s one of my best read post of the last 30 days.
Well said Newt. Another good blogging example is the Californian surf clothing retailer Swell. They have an interesting blog attached to their Ecommerce website - http://www.swell.com.
I think it adds a lot of personality to what would otherwise be just another faceless Ecommerce website. Surely it would also cement the relationship with the brand for many customers.
The challenge for some businesses is to find out what is relevant to their customers so that you can start blogging. Of course the process of blogging will help you to determine that.
Brett,
I appreciate your comment. When you consider that small businesses in particular thrive because of their unique personalities, they should try to translate that personality to the web. A blog is a great way to do it.
As a blog ghostwriter and manager of a large portfolio of small business blogs, I am a firm believer that most small business owners who haven’t discovered the value of a blog can benefit. A blog has SEO benefits that a static website doesn’t have, it can be more personal and less threatening, and can receive valuable feedback from your target market. There is no other marketing tool that casts such a wide net of communication and is so affordable and easy to implement for the average business owner.
What ALL businesses need to understand is that abstention from the online dialogue is not an option. Either you are contributor to and influencer of what people are saying about you online or you’re not. Guy Kawasaki is not so much “wrong” as he is of-a-mind with many business owners, who mistakenly discount the importance of the web to their businesses. Most assume it does not affect them, because they can’t see or don’t understand the ways it does touch their business.
Allen,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. In terms of SEO benefit, I was astonished today to see that when you search for the term ‘content marketing,’ our site is #6. When we first began, we probably weren’t even on the 6th page of results. It’s all as a result of providing content in our blog/website combo that is specific to our niche and provides value to readers.
Newt
Jack,
I think Guy Kawasaki may just be mired in the tech world. He probably can’t easily relate to a restaurant or a tire dealer or a kitchen designer having a blog with value.
I think that the best small business blogs should be integrated with your website so that when prospects are searching for you, they will realize that you have something worthwhile to say on the product/service they’re seeking out.
Newt
Hey Newt - thanks for bringing this article to my attention, I had missed it. I am normally a Guy Kawasaki fan, but I think you hit the mark with your earlier comment about him possibly being to mired in the tech world to see the forest for the trees. Or potentially he’s too mired in “big biz” to truly appreciate the value a blog has for small businesses. I work exclusively with small business owners in my consulting practice from all industries, and I have yet to NOT recommend a blog to a client. It’s that important. Thanks for getting the word out!
Caroline
Great post. Two points in particular resonated with me.
“Most smaller restaurants have limited marketing budgets and can’t afford to keep paying web designers for constant updates”
“Restaurants of any size today have websites, but many were built by 3rd parties and cannot be updated easily.”
As a former restaurant manager and software engineer I knew there HAD to be a better way to handle this. So I started SandwichBoard to solve the problem. After 5 months of private beta testing, we’ve just opened up to the public.
We’re really proud of what we’ve done. After a lot of effort we think we’ve made updating a restaurant web site as easy as posting to a blog or updating a facebook profile.
Restaurant owners and managers can update their menus, events, locations, and news from a web browser without having to learn anything about HTML or web design. The best way to understand SandwichBoard is to see it in action, so please take a look at our introductory video: http://www.sandwichboard.com