It’s now common practice the world over to use the internet as a prime business support tool and Africa should not been left behind. Some may consider this expensive, while others a necessary evil or simply a luxury of the few who can afford. internetworldstats.com estimates that there was an increase of about 638.4 percent in Internet use in Africa between the year 2000 and 2006. In Africa, you can reach over 33 million internet users if you choose to put your business on the Internet.

One easy to use tool is known as blogging.  There is no specific definition of a blog but it can be described as a kind of a website normally arranged in chronological order from the most recent published entry or post at the top of the homepage to older entries towards the bottom. Publishing information on a blog is what is known as blogging. 

A blog can be used for a variety of reasons but our main focus today will be harnessing the power of blogging to support business growth without increasing your marketing budget. Most blog-hosting sites offer blogging services for free for as long as you adhere to all their terms and conditions.

Blogging is simple; all you will need is a blog host, a plan and an execution strategy. Remember that the sole purpose of your blog should be to complement your marketing efforts but not to replace it. Before you start blogging, you will need to sign up with a blog hosting website for example, blogger.com, to be able to access this service and to prepare material to be disseminated to your readers. Most blog publishing tools are easy to use and are located on the home page of these sites with real-time online help just in case you have any challenges signing up. 

The information you post on your blog has to be very strategic to enable your blog stand out from among millions of other blogs. One way of ensuring positive returns from you blogging activities is to build and maintain a mutual relationship with your readers. Ensure that all your post offers a fresh approach to issues by giving constant and timely updates telling your readers why they should buy your product. It is worth noting that with time your readers will come to depend on your blog before making any purchasing decisions.

Blogging calls for patience because, as you will notice readers, at first, will or may shy away from commenting or reacting to any of your posts but with time this may change. I say may because it will all depend on the kind of information that you are disseminating. If your posts can initiate a response or discussion then you are definitely on the right track.

It’s also important to encourage your consumers to participate in your product reviews because they know better given that they are the ones using the product. This can be done through asking open-ended questions about your products or just asking for simple comments.

Ensure that you respond to all posts including critics, which will most likely rub you the wrong way. You should resist that urge to fight back any critics because you will never win. You should put your temper in check otherwise you risk losing all your clients by posting a comment you wish you hadn’t.

Setting high standards will more likely encourage positive responses but it’s not a guarantee. Avoid the use of vulgar language while posting or responding to comments. Just say what needs to be said in the most polite manner. When you get vulgar, you will get similar responses and to make matters worse the response may turn your sales returns into vulgar thus making you the net looser.

For your blogging efforts to pay-off ensure that you keep readers’ suggestions in mind when designing your next product or improve your current ones.  

As with conventional websites, you will need to build traffic to your blog. This can be done through search engine optimization. It pays to offer leads to your readers through word of mouth, press releases or newsletters. To wrap up, make a point of reading other blogs to see how blog publishing works.