CT Biz Blogs

In scouring the internet in search of example blogs for small businesses, I found Hadley Spagna Photography (Actually, I just searched through CT Weblogs site.)

Hadley is a photographer, specializing in maternity and children photos. She’s got a regular website (just re-vamped) and a blog on Blogger.

Her blog is very informal and while it does have some photography, it’s a combo of a lot of things:

• info about cameras
• example pictures of her children
• info on where you can see her photos (such as Border’s)
• writing about child-friendly local restaurants and getting a child’s hair cut

It may seem like the last item is off-target – a miscellany of writing about things that don’t have a lot to do with photography, but she’s not just showcasing her photographic skills. She’s also showing her relationship skills and the fact that she gets kids and knows what to do with them – she knows how to bring out the best.

She’s showing that she has both an artistic eye to capture the right moments well, and a parental eye to know what that moment would look like.

There’s nothing wrong with putting in as much personal commentary or detail as you feel comfortable sharing. It’s not unprofessional if done correctly.

Amy Gahran, a professional blogger and explorer of new media, has done a survey on the issue of bringing personal info into a business blog. Also check out the analysis of write-in responses to the survey.

In Hadley’s blog you get to see that she is a mom, that she understands kids, and that the experience of hiring her is going to be the complete opposite of the slap-the-kid-in-a-suit, prop-him-in-up-in-front-of-a-fake-background, and make funny “ooga-ooga, squidgy-squidgy-woo” noises until the kid stops screaming, and then snap the picture experience.

That’s a good thing!

That being said, there are a few things that bug me, or that I think could be done better. But I’ll have to postpone that analysis until Monday’s post – I’m out of time. See you then!