SMBME #18 – Blogging for Business
We were really excited about this particular breakfast. Blogging is so helpful to your social media strategy. It is a great home base, they are easy to update and easy to share around the web. We got three very experienced speakers: Rich Brooks, Carl Natale and Chantal Young to share with us their thoughts on Blogging.
Carl started out the breakfast and gave us some great tips for better blogging and to make blogging easier. He also tackled the popular question about if you are giving away your company secrets by blogging. We loved his response “If you can give away all the value of your business with a blog, is it really that good of a business model?” Perfect. View Carl’s slides below.
Rich Brooks came next and got really in-depth with SEO elements for your blog. He gave us tons of information. If you would like a copy of his slides you can reach him on Twitter (@therichbrooks), he said he would be happy to send them along.
Last up for the morning was Chantal Young, our case study of the morning. Chantal owns and operates the clothing store, Chantal, down on Commercial St. She touched on how she got started blogging, struggles she had writing, how she over came those challenges and how she makes time for writing and running a businesses. She also showed us some examples from her blog that worked and some that she wished she had done better.
Another absolutely wonderful breakfast with record attendance numbers. This breakfast was sponsored by The Internet Educator and the Cohen Tracy Team. It was streamed live and recorded by Filmosity Productions and help at the Eastland Park Hotel.
Some other people’s thought on the Blogging Social Media Breakfast:
- Carl Natale – Business Blogging: What I can’t tell you about blogging at Social Media Breakfast
- Carl Natale – What I Learned While Sharing My Blogging Lessons
- Rickie Bogle – Social Media Breakfast
Who was there? View the Eventbright page to see a list of the attendees.
View the full recording for the Blogging for Business SMBME
Rich Brooks
Rich Brooks is founder and president of flyte new media, a Web design and Internet marketing firm in Portland, Maine. His monthly flyte log email newsletter and company blog focus on Web marketing topics such as search engine optimization, blogs, social media, email marketing, and building Web sites that sell. He is currently an Expert Blogger at FastCompany.com and a featured blogger at MaineBusiness.com.
Carl Natale is a blogger who finds tips and advice for small business owners. He writes at CarlNatale.com, about blogging and content strategies; On Blogging Newsletter, about blogging for non-writers; and Expensiccino.com, about making sense of pricing strategies. When he worked for MaineToday Media, he managed MaineBusiness.com, recruiting and supervising bloggers. He also wrote The Takeaway each day.
I am Chantal Young, Managing Partner of CP Ventures, LLC dba chantal. /shopchantal.com. Chantal. is located at 229 Commercial Street and is a contemporary women’s clothing, denim and accessories retail boutique. Chantal./shopchantal.com focuses on carrying exclusive designer collections. We have been in business for 5 years.
In 2006, we developed an e-commerce website and in 2008 did a major overhaul of the site design and navigation. This was completed with the partnership of fellow speaker, Rich Brooks of Flyte New Media and his team. The redesign paid for itself in 6 months with an overall increase in sales for the site exceeding 25% each year consecutively since.
My advertising and marketing career began immediately out of college when I was recruited by for Foote, Cone & Belding, Chicago. I worked at several small agencies over the years whose emphasis was on the high end home furnishing industry. I moved to Maine in 1998 to specifically work in the marketing department of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers. I also worked at Brown Design & Company and at Angela Adams, both of Portland. While at Angela Adams I opened my first women’s clothing store, Wallis girls. After selling that boutique, I opened chantal. and shopchantal.com.
I am highly successful, passionate online marketing professional with solid track record in leading, developing, and executing upon branding, merchandising, and marketing strategy. I provide expertise in e-commerce site design & development, online marketing, social media outreach, search engine optimization (SEO), research & analytics, and branding strategy. I excel in marketing to varying consumer buying patterns, behaviors, and trends.
I currently live in Cape Elizabeth with my husband, Aaron and our two boys, Roan, 5 ½ and Dash, 3. We enjoy spending time as a family going to the beach, riding our bikes and, of course, we all love shopping. I am a runner and am looking forward to my 3rd Beach to Beacon this year. I spend most of my free time gardening and working on projects around my house.