Do you guys have a blog currently and are you active in posting in it? Does it bring in any extra traffic and customers?

We have a corporate blog that we try to post in a minimum of three times per week. We don't have numbers showing how the blog has impacted visits to our Web site or sales, but we have had 23,863 visitors to the blog since we launched it on May 14.

Then again, you have multiple individuals posting, so the work load and creativity load is shared. I suspect that it being ThePlanet's blog had quite a bit to do with the number of visitors it had received. A small company cannot even dare hope for such numbers.

Are there plans to start measuring that, or has it been decided that a blog is something that ThePlanet just has to have... sort of like a friendly face towards the outside world?

That's a big part of it, actually. We wanted to add something to our customer relationship. We already had customer forums so adding a blog seemed like a logical step for us.

It was also strongly recommended by a handful of consultants for various reasons, but most cited an improved customer relationship as the main motivating factor. I don't know that there are plans to measure the blog's impact on sales, but certainly we hope the blog will improve sales and will have a positive impact on search engine ranking, which in turn would bring more sales.

We run a blog but not for hosting company the blog is just a bunch of videos. I think if updated regularly a blog for any business is good. Why because it creates a greater since of you are real and care just my opinion though.

Well depending on how big you are a Blog is a great idea. As many people above mentioned, if your not big, then there isn't much point for a blog. It's a great way to update your members on routine maintainence and upgrades

Yea we got a cooperate Blog also, but it just a update news system, has hosting is not the only thing we got our fingers in.

John

Why do you say that? Blogs can actually drive traffic to you. If you aren't big it might be a good FREE (well cost you lots of time) marketing and promotion tactic.

I noticed a few blogs at some hosting companies, but most are targeted toward their current customer base instead of toward gaining new ones.

I've been catching up on your latest entry about Sumofan very interesting

Yeah, I read that one too after the blog talk here.

yeah, but if your a small time host, a lot of people aren't really viewing it for support. Then again, as you said in terms of marketing and sales it could help. I've been thinking of blogs support tech wise. So yeah, I can see it as a marketing strategy, which could help out if your blog link is out there

I have a blog which contains some of my own "thoughts" and peculiar ideas on things. And despite it being seriously tongue-in-cheek it has actually led to some serious enquires for shared hosting

Kind of makes me think of making a bit more "corporate", but then where woudl I publish my rants ....

My company has a blog, and we try to update it at least once every 2-3 days, or twice a week. We release almost everything, we think of it as a web development blog, so we post on a wide range of topics.

It will help you a lot if you keep it active with adding unique content and get involve your some of the clients to post in your blog. The time you will find it will be like a good knowledge base.

I dont think that would help to our business. None of the clients would go to our blog and read what is written there. Rather they would ask you straightly about the service provided by you. Running a blog is a very old technique and I think that may not work at present.