Imagine you are sitting down at the dinner table and you have a big juicy steak right in front of you. You have a fork and a knife laying right next to the steak.

Do you:

A) Ask the person next to you to feed you
B) Stare at the steak and wonder why it’s not gravitating towards your mouth
C) Use the Fork & Knife to feed yourself

Simple Question right?  Now let me rephrase this question.

You just launched a web startup.  Do You:

A) Send an e-mail to every relevant blogger in hopes of getting covered
B) Stare at your website and wonder why there isn’t much activity
C) Start a Blog and bring traffic to your startup (e.g, feed yourself)

Stop trying to get other people to feed you, and feed yourself.

Here are some ways a blog can help your startup, feed itself:

1. It gives other people a reason to link to you multiple times

The keyword here is multiple times.  If you don’t have a blog why would they blog about your startup twice?  It’s the same startup it was 3 months ago.  If you have good content, they will link to different blog posts bringing attention to your main site (your startup website) that it otherwise wouldn’t garner

2. It gives you another reason to tweet

You know that saying: “I tweeted to let you know I blogged” ? It couldn’t be any truer.

It’s not “I tweeted to let you know that my website is still up and nothing has changed in the past few days, but in case you missed my tweet the first time here it is again and don’t worry I’ll remind you again in a few days to my websites existence”.

3. It gives you a platform to launch your next startup

What happens when this startup fails?  What happens to your customers that were loyal to you and not your startup?  If you don’t have a blog, they don’t know where to go next & they will have no idea that you even had a next startup.  When you do launch your next startup, use your existing readership to be your beta testers.

4. It gives you something to do when there is nothing else to do

Everyone has those “OK, What Now” moments after launching their website or while waiting for something out of your realm to be implemented.  Write down what’s on your mind and post it.  Get it out there.

5. It’s FREE!

WordPress is your friend. Use it. Stop trying to get other people to feed you, and feed yourself.

What other ways has your startup been able to “feed itself”?

Follow the author on twitter @robbieab.  

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