Reading small business blogs is a great way to energize, inspire and learn new ways to approach your business. Here are eight blogs that I’ve been reading:

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I originally “met” Bradford Shimp by participating in #sbbuzz, a Twitter chat group for small business. Bradford writes motivating articles to get you to optimize your relationship with customers and your use of social media. Recently, he wrote Join Ongoing Conversations. I encourage you to stir up conversations on this blog by leaving comments about the topics that interest you.

Linda Dessau, another #sbbuzz participant, provides writing prompts and marketing ideas, with posts to spark your creativity and make your great ideas come alive. One recent post that you might find useful – Defining a Perfect Article Opener.

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Melinda Emerson writes the blog Succeed As Your Own Boss. She is also the host for the popular chat group on Twitter called #smallbizchat. Looks like she is writing a book, coming out soon.

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Nicky Jameson writes about social media, marketing and small business. I found her site while looking for ways small business can optimize their use of Twitter.

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Becky McCray and others write about small business and rural issues. Becky works with small businesses to maintain their web presence, and she helps city governments with project management and grant writing. On this post she was interviewed by Business Owners Toolkit.

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Connelly-Campion-Wright has an insurance blog that can help you with insurance matters for both personal and business needs. I designed their website, and it is a great example of a business using WordPress for an easy-to-update and search engine optimized site.

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Learn ecowise advice from Jennifer Kaplan to help your small business grow greener.

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Small Business Trends is an award-winning comprehensive online publication for small business owners, entrepreneurs and the people who interact with them.

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Here’s a link to many more small business blogs.

If you have a favorite small business blog, feel free to leave the link in the comments. Perhaps I will feature the blog in a future post.

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To prepare for my upcoming Twitter Research Workshop in November, I decided to compile a list of Twitter chats. All I did was ask one question on Twitter, and I got the following response:

That is a whole list of Twitter chats in a speadsheet format, compiled by Robert Swanwick (@SpkrInteractive). You really can interact with a lot of different folks these groups, on topics ranging from design to poetry to small business to catering.

So, you ask, what is a Twitter chat?
A Twitter chat is a way people with a common interest connect on Twitter. The chats are organized at a specific time and with a specific hashtag, such as #carchat for the car community. People in the community log into a Twitter site such as http://www.tweetchat.com/ or they can use a tool such as Tweetdeck and just add the hashtag to their tweets. If you have had trouble connecting with others via general Twitter, a tweet chat can be a welcome way to connect just with those in your interest area. If you really get ambitious, you can start your own group.

I am going to highlight three Twitter chats:

#sbbuzz – I wrote a post on the Small Business Buzz Twitter chat when I first attended a chat. A great community of smart small business people.

#DCTH – I have not been able to participate in Design Community Twitter Hours, but Mike Conaty of Brunswick Media Services (whom I have met in person) is a regular there, proving that there are real people on these Twitter chats!

#kidlitchat – I don’t know anything about this chat group, but I love the description: “Conversation about children’s literature from board books through YA. Writers, illustrators, editors, agents, librarians, readers and all others welcome.”

 

Have you participated in a Twitter chat? Did you find it useful? Do any of these appeal to you, and you might consider visiting the chat group?

Swan has an article about Twitter chat tools (and general comments about chats).

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This is a re-post of an article I wrote about #sbbuzz, a Tweet Chat for small business people.

What’s a tweet chat? A group of people (Twitterers) decide to “meet” at a set time and use a hashtag (such as #sbbuzz) to connect. And chat.

What is #sbbuzz all about? First of all, that # sign in the front means it is a hashtag. You will see hashtags all over Twitter. Hashtags are a sign that this may be a topic of interest to others in the general Twittersphere. Anyone can create a hashtag. #sbbuzz stands for Small Business Buzz (and that link will take you to the sbbuzz blog). You can also follow sbbuzz on Twitter. #sbbuzz chats are held every Tuesday night, 8pm–10pm Eastern Time.

How did I find out about the Tweet Chat? Much thanks to NJinsuranceGirl for tweeting about #sbbuzz. I found NJinsuranceGirl (Kacy Campion Renna) because jerseybites recommended her on Friday for #followfriday (what’s #followfriday? That’s a whole ‘nother topic: go on Twitter on any Friday and you’ll see lots of these #followfriday tags that are suggesting people to follow on Twitter). I met jerseybites in person last February when I attended a TweetUp. Here are some instructions on how to get involved with the group: http://sbbuzz.biz/instructions.

This was the chat from May 19, 2009:

What was discussed at the #sbbuzz chat? The topic this week was Insiders Tips for Small Businesses on Twitter. sbbuzz tweeted these questions during the course of the two hour chat:

• Q1. What advice would you give a small business owner brand new to Twitter?
• Q2. What should businesses talk about? What are businesses doing on Twitter?
• Q3. Any good resources for Twitter how-tos, reference guides, etiquettes, etc?
• Q4. Is your local community (govt/academic/private) doing anything to promote entrepreneurship/small business? What is working?
• Q5. How do you find time to stay involved, engaged and contributing to online and offline networks?
• Q6. How many social media networks do you actively participate in? Do connections overlap? How do you keep track?

There was more, but you get the basic idea. I felt since I was new to the “party,” I mostly read what others had to say (and I picked a few to follow regularly), but I did tweet this in response to Q6: “Q6 Social Media networks: Twitter, my own blog, Facebook – I’m on LinkedIn, too; much overlap because of my own blog. #sbbuzz”

Want to know what people had to say? A summary is posted at http://sbbuzz.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/small-biz-tech-advice-resources-may-19-2009/.

Have you ever participated in a Tweet Chat? Used a hashtag in Twitter to follow a topic with others? How would you answer any of the above questions? What questions would you ask?

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