Should a (business) blogger reveal h. buisnesses?

Hi,

I'm following several blogs about entrepreneurship and business. Some of them (like Yaro) reveal what their companies are, others don't.

Now, since I'm planning to blog about entrepreneurship myself, what would you do? When would it be better to stay anonymous?

Originally posted by elloco@Aug 4 2005, 04:18 PM
Hi,

I'm following several blogs about entrepreneurship and business. Some of them (like Yaro) reveal what their companies are, others don't.

Now, since I'm planning to blog about entrepreneurship myself, what would you do? When would it be better to stay anonymous?

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Why stay anon... part of the purpose surely is to secure your expertise in the topics via your blog entries. I try to link into what business services I offer on my blog.

[Yaro]

Well that's really up to you and what you want your blog to do. If it's meant to be a promotional tool for your business then obviously you are going to want to at least reveal your business(es). If it's early stages and you are worried about someone else stealing your idea and market first then maybe it's not a good idea.

Most people don't like to disclose how much they earn either. I'm about to post a series of blog articles on exactly how I make money online and how much I have earned doing so. I have to admit posting my earnings for BetterEdit was/is a hard thing to do but I'm not entirely sure why. I guess I am worried that someone might want to create a business to compete directly with BetterEdit in my market, but I never worry about that too much since it's not really a very large market so a competitor would be wasting their time if they wanted to make good money. I have a following of clients that are not going to switch companies easily because they are loyal to their editor. I'm not stupid, I know it's *possible* for my clients to be competed away and for me to lose my current market, I just don't worry about it too much because I know my industry well.

There're some reasons to stay anonymous. If you are starting out as an entrepreneur, you are going to have some challenges ahead and probably don't always feel good about it. Now, if you want to write about that, you *could* think that this might be not a very benifical marketing aspect. I wondering if very personal blogs work well with promoting a business.

Compare this to the anonymity of a forum; I guess, it is much easier to say what one thinks when the real identity is hidden.

We are all laying a long trace with our online actitivity, this might not always be good.

However, at the same time, I think a blog can boost trust. So I plan to be as transparent as possible to my customers. I will see how this goes.

[Yaro]

I'm a big fan of talking as much as you can about you are doing. The more self promotion the better. I find it crazy when people choose to hide an idea unless it really isn't ready and premature exposure might harm it.

Paranoia about public disclosure is like most paranoia I believe, a waste of energy.

[Knox]

My problem with disclosing exactly what you're doing as an entrepreneur comes from an article Yaro wrote back in November about niche content sites.The guy who Yaro praised with the sump pump site almost immediately had other people creating copycat sites. I'm not sure if that has hurt his site at all, but I can't imagine it helps.

How can you keep people from doing things like that, other than not talking about it?

[Yaro]

Regarding niche content sites, yes that is an area people should be worried about replication, however not that worried in my view.

The thing is very few people are good at execution. Niche content site building is possibly one of the easiest methods of making money online and can be replicated but it's not full-proof, you do need some skills. With Jonathan's experience he will do a lot better with his sump pump site than any people that decided to replicate his idea and in fact I would say that is why he is willing to discuss and reveal his niche sites on his blog. It takes time, energy and skill to do it well. Taking action and producing results is hard, most people don't know how or are too apathetic or "busy" to try.

That being said a lot of niche content site owners don't reveal some details, especially about untapped high paying keywords as the longer they remained untapped and secret the better.

It's really up to you, how confident you are in your own abilities, your ideas and money making methods, your business formula and whether all these are enough of a competitive advantage that you feel comfortable enough to give away many of your "secrets".

I stand by my opinion though - more exposure the better, even if you do open yourself up to replicators.