‘Working Mother’ Magazine Builds Business Via Blogs
In her monthly column, Working Mother magazine’s CEO, Carol Evans, explains how challenging it was to build a virtual community where the magazine’s readers could connect—until they started blogging.
At workingmother.com, they added a MomBlog, where they set up working moms with their own blog so they can share stories, tips, and advice.
Carol’s blogging, too (sporadically). She writes:
I thought blogging was going to be another layer of work on top of everything else. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I’m sharing with a friend…
…I’m blogging a lot right now, too. I wake up in the morning and have this urgent need to say something to you through the ether. Then I find out about your needs and ideas through your blogs.
I checked Carol’s CEO Mom blog to see what her definition of “blogging a lot” is. Turns out her blog hasn’t been updated since March 31. Tut, tut, Carol! You have to update your blog more than once a month or so if you want people to keep reading it.
To give her credit, Carol is a very busy woman. She probably wrote her April column in January, when she did manage to write five blog posts. And the MomBlogs area of the site includes a dozen other momblogs that have been updated recently.
While Carol’s time-crunch appears to have dampened her initial enthusiasm about posting “a lot,” Carol appears to “get” it. She understands that:
- Businesses need to focus on building a healthy virtual community with their customers.
- Blogging is a convenient means to build that community.
- Blogging teaches business owners a great deal about the needs and interests of their customers.
- Blogging shouldn’t feel like work; it should be fun. Whether the muse beckons every day or every other month, bloggers respond to the urge to blog in the same way that they’d respond to the urge for, say, a giant bowl of double chocolate chunk ice cream. Which I have a hankering for right now!
Also in this series:
Tags: Blogging, Carol Evans, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com, MomBlog, virtual communities, Working Mother magagzine
