posts that
may sometimes irritate people. You could say that I have different voices on
different blogs because I use different blogs for different reasons.
JH
What do you feel about blogs as a marketing tool for
small businesses?
PS
It depends on what you are trying to do. I find that
newsletters are very effective because far more people use e-mail than RSS
right now. A lot of people are not very familiar with RSS. Today I shifted one
of my health newsletters to a blog and I had to explain to my subscribers what
RSS was. There's a lot of confusion and many of them said they preferred to
receive posts by e-mail. They don't want to go through the process of
subscribing to them by RSS. It depends on what you are trying to achieve, it
depends on who you are trying to reach, where your market is. You have to ask
yourself those questions and then decide if a blog is suitable for your
business. It's not suitable for everyone but if your business is creating a
brand and creating a name for yourself online, expanding your reach and
building a network online, then I think that blogging is fine.
JH
What advice would you give to a small business
thinking of starting up a blog?
PS
I would suggest that they first learn as much as they can
about blogging and how they should go about it. Don't jump into it headlong.
Don't just start blogging. Then decide what kind of platform is the best for
you because you have to decide whether you want to spend more time posting or
customising your blog. You assess exactly what you want to achieve with it and
how you're going to measure the success, whether it's more in terms of sales or
search engines or whatever. Then go into it, only after you've assessed what
you are trying to achieve.
JH
Can you think of any weaknesses or threats with
regard to blogs as a marketing tool?
PS
There's always a possibility of biting off more than you
can chew. You have to be careful about what you post sometimes. You can
alienate people. A blog is a place where people can respond and sometimes the
comments can be nasty, so you have to be very careful how you respond to them.
You have to be cool-headed, you can't just shoot your mouth off, especially
when people take the trouble to comment on your blog and respond to your posts.
There are always people who will try to provoke you and there will be people
who post nasty comments. You've got to maintain your dignity when you're
responding to people's comments.
JH
What are you plans with regard to blogging?
PS
I'm planning to start a blogging consultancy service in India. That will probably be the first
one of its kind over here.
JH
Is blogging big in India?
PS No, not really. In
fact, I'm going to have an uphill task trying to educate people about the
benefits of blogging out here. A lot of CEOs and marketing people have no idea
what a blog is. 
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