It makes perfect sense for businesses to get into the business of blogging, and lots of them do. Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere reported there are 7.4 million active blogs (active being at least one new post in the last 120 days), and 12% of their respondents identified themselves as corporate bloggers. And the blogosphere continues to grow in leaps and bounds. As I submit this post, Wordpress’s running ticker reports a staggering 201,242 active blogs on its platform alone. (When I started writing this post, that number was 194,795.) If Technorati’s 12% holds true with this group, it suggests OneSpot joined about 24,000 other businesses when we launched our Wordpress-powered blog last month.

Blogging is relatively inexpensive to set up and maintain, so it is no surprise that business blogging has increased during this economic downturn. You don’t have to buy any software to get started, it takes minutes to implement, and the tools are so easy that anyone can learn to use them. Multiple authors can write posts for the same blog, so companies can maintain decent post frequency by distributing the task across members of a team. Add a targeted content aggregation service that allows for your own commentary and selection, and a steady stream of relevant content for your audience takes little time and won’t break the bank.

But the fact that it’s cheap and relatively easy isn’t the reason that businesses blog. Whether you’re building a media property, selling products and services online, or simply trying to market your brand, blogging can be a very effective way to grow your business. MerchantCircle, a U.S. social network of local business owners, showed a 190% increase in blogging between January 2008 to January 2009, totalling 15,676 blogs written by merchants on their network. In their study, they also discovered that merchants who wrote one blog received 30% more traffic to their website. Sharon LB of Sharon’s Marketing Missive has put together a great Small Business Blogging Basics guide to help businesses enter the blogosphere. She suggests three reasons that businesses should blog: increase SEO, establish thought leadership and relate to your customers.

So how does a crazy-busy business blogger (who, by the way, didn’t need another ‘quick task’ on her to-do list) have any hope of succeeding? Lots of folks have lots of ideas about this, but in my opinion it comes down to 3 things:

• Focus on your customer, not your wares. The great business blogs do more than list product announcements and press releases. They show how well a business understands its customers. Whole Foods excels at this. One of my favorite Whole Foods posts this week has Scott Simons showing me how to cook and prepare a halibut with roasted tomato, garlic and olive relish. The picture and the video make my mouth water, and I learn something new about how to cook one of my favorite kinds of fish. And in the midst of a recent salmonella peanut recall, they also blog about every recalled product that is sold in any of their stores to ensure the safety and well-being of their customers. Their blog does more than push groceries — it teaches me things I want to know.

• Give them something useful. I appreciate blogs that post ‘really good stuff’ that helps me in my personal and professional life. Bazaarvoice does a great job with their blog overall, but this week’s post about their research with JupiterResearch and Rich Relevance will be particularly useful to retailers and manufacturers who are trying to win business in a tough economy. It makes a great case for their solutions by giving its readers new information that will help them address current business challenges.



• Have a unique perspective. The blogs that I spend the most time on are the ones that have a clear and unique point of view. Huffington Post is the standard in this category, but my latest favorite example of a unique blogging perspective is Jessica Hagy’s Indexed. As a reader, her blog makes you want to buy her book because her stuff is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Her distinctive content also makes me read more/return more when I should be doing other things.

The OneSpot team is relatively new to the blogosphere. But we know that maintaining a quality blog will help us serve and understand our customers more, be a place to deliver ‘good stuff’ to online publishers of all shapes and sizes, and provide a platform to express our own perspective about the importance of content curation for every business.

Take a minute to share some of your favorite business blogs with us — we’d love to learn from you.