Loudoun Small Business Blogging - Multi-Author Blog & Digital Marketing Help for Loudoun Small Businesses

Need help, as a Loudoun small business, in getting started with blogging?
Join the "Made in Loudoun - Small Business Blogging Community"!

The community of Loudoun Small Business Bloggers, and our stewardship role in it, is a long and storied history....all the way back to the early 2000's - well, basically back to 2005 or so...(Check out this blast from the past - this list of Loudoun bloggers from 2011!)

As a small business in Loudoun, you may have already tried your hand at blogging and social media - Facebook's typically the easiest first route (it's really a "micro-blogging" channel) - followed then by Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Instagram, etc....Really a lot to keep on top of. This doesn't even include "paid" online advertising - i.e. banner ads, Google Adwords, Facebook promotions, classifieds, etc.

The less comfortable route for blogging is "long-form" - i.e. traditional blogging on your website, or someone else's - like Wordpress.com or Blogger. It requires a bit more thought, creativity, planning - but is ultimately the most effective form of online marketing, or "digital, inbound content marketing"!

Looking for help to get your first blog posts out there, to try it out? In a way that not only promotes your message and business, but truly "markets" it online to the surrounding, hyperlocal Loudoun or more broad Northern Virginia communities? On someone else's platform - i.e. the "training wheels" approach, with very little risk?

Blog here, at Made In Loudoun!

We're currently accepting new Loudoun small business blogger candidates - who are looking to jump into the blogging arena, with a bit of very professional, locally-experienced help. To also kickstart a renewed "Made in Loudoun" small business and startup community - that will include some great updates to this site in the coming Month...

The kind of help that's ONLY available through those who have gone before, stewards and experts at promoting Loudoun's vibrant, diverse and truly exceptional small business community via digital media. That's us, here at KME Internet Marketing - Loudoun's small business, resident marketing experts. It's also a Loudoun County-owned, multi-author blogging platform - the only one of its kind - that's been around a while (5 years!), and is therefore already trusted by both the local community, AND by the search engines' "domain age" filters.

Contact us here - to start your online, Loudoun small business blogging adventure - promoting your business online, attracting new customers and partners.

For No Cost to You, Available Nowhere Else - You Get:

• Exposure, online, of you and your business to the Loudoun business and consumer community - exposure that's unlike any other, already developed, and not available anywhere else
• A search-engine-optimized (SEO'd) page representing you and/or your business on Made in Loudoun's blog - that links directly to your business website
• Blog topic creation/curating, authoring, media supplementation, SEO, hyperlocal amplification* and editorial assistance from KME for posts on this blog, including extracts and mobile renderings.
• Contributors-only access to blogging and additional digital marketing, strategy resources available exclusively through KME Internet Marketing
• Publishing schedule planning and management assistance - keeping you accountable for consistent, effective, "fresh" publishing.
• Technical support for using the "Made in Loudoun" blog, using it as part of your new or existing online marketing campaign(s).
• Coordination support for linking, re=purposing or otherwise sharing your content (without duplication or copyright penalties) from here, to/from other local blog and social media communities (the more content you post and share, the better!).

We Get: ...to know more small, local businesses - the lifeblood of our County, to better understand and assist the needs of the local business community, and to showcase fantastic resources and perspectives shared by our Loudoun small businesses with possible future visitors, travelers, investors, and others seeking to expand the assets and economic development success of Loudoun County.

This is great, unique way for Loudoun small businesses to get movin' and groovin' in the blogging world - and an extremely important part of the overall Internet Marketing plan for new businesses - check out the definitive "Internet Marketing Checklist for New Businesses", created here in Loudoun.

This is "Guest Blogging" on Locally-Grown Nutrients -
Actually Made in Loudoun!

Blogging here, with our help, also connects you** directly to experience and hyperlocal business marketing expertise available through the Loudoun Small Business Development Center (SBDC - Counselor), the Mason Enterprise Center (MEC - Resident), the Loudoun Economic Development and Advisory Commission (EDAC - Commissioner), the Loudoun and Dulles Regional Chambers of Commerce (Members), "Loudoun Local" and all other Loudoun small business and startup marketing resources - KME Internet Marketing is and has been a contributing member, partner and/or volunteer of all of these, and only KME can channel this expertise directly into your successful blogging efforts here at Made In Loudoun.

*Loudoun Small Business Digital Marketing/Social Media Amplification is available *ONLY* through KME's hyperlocal, digital network of websites, blogs, social media channels (see below!) - making your content accessible and available to thousands of additional readers and customers, beyond this site. These include @Loudoun and @LoudounBusiness on Twitter, our GoFFX mobile events App, NorthernVirginiaBusinessNews.com and NOVA@Home.com, our "Gateway to Loudoun" blog (the longest-running business-focused blog in and about Loudoun County!) and associated Twitter, G+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Paper.Li and Facebook channels - your blog entry here, will reach - when scheduled - the readers of all those sites, and more, extending beyond Loudoun, to Fairfax, Prince William, Northern Virginia, all of metro Washington DC!

Kme internet marketing loudoun digital content network from Ted McLaughlan

**"Made in Loudoun" as a KME-branded website and social media platform is not officially associated with these organizations, unless specifically indicated.

Loudoun Blogs and Bloggers - the List

Welcome to the 2011 Loudoun County Blog Roundup! (a.k.a. the "Loudoun B-List")Loudoun County residents, businesses and government officials are actively participating in the blogosphere, and 2011 is probably going to be a very busy time for the local digerati – as the County Board of Supervisor’s election heats up and we’re treated to a short-lived deluge of earnest, partisan constituent support online.

We’ve been blogging and critically evaluating local use of blogs and other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter by media, marketing, business and government publishers for quite a while now. We’ve seen the rise and fall of the LoudounExtra and its accompanying bloggers, the rise and fall of political and real-estate driven online chatter (driven by election cycles and the economy), the closure of blog-worthy material generated by past media hounds at the Independent, Observer and Easterner, the LCVA-driven introduction of Loudoun on the national stage of the SoMe destination marketing industry, and lately a rapid influx of hybrid social/syndicated hyperlocal blog/news platforms via the Patch and TBD networks – though each of these, as we speak, continue to struggle with their advertising and revenue models.

A few blogrolls and bloglists were created along the way, but most now reflect aged or inactive listings, and don’t adequately showcase the more popular and active bloggers in and about the County (FYI to our friends at Leesburg Today and the Washington Post). It may be, however, that the definition of “blog” is unclear, with all manner of social media channels, services and widgets infringing upon and taking liberties with the classic definition of a “Web 2.0” site. For simplicity purposes, we’ll define a public blog as demonstrating these characteristics:

1. It’s written by writers, mostly with original, authentic, non-edited and casually-attributed content
   
2. It’s written for people, to read, consider and react to
   
3. It gives more than it gets, on a fairly regular basis – mostly a volunteer effort, though many times lightly compensated
   
4. It best takes a few paragraphs to get to the point, or finish the thought
   
5. It accepts and engages commentary, but doesn’t necessarily solicit it
   
6. It doesn’t claim to be journalism, but sometimes it truly is
   
7. It’s not about the media types included, but about the message or value they contain
   
8. It’s a time-based, reflective record of a social community
   
9. It usually exhibits personality, or personalities
   
10. It’s actually a website, with the navigation, graphics, scripts and embedded links/content that reveal interactive context and authority
    
11. It’s findable, i.e. indexed by Search Engines, and without login requirements

So, a blog is not a discussion board, group or wiki, or an eCommerce website with product feedback, it’s not a daily update of local real estate listings or coupon deals (unless accompanied by witty and useful commentary), it’s not Twitter Tweets or Facebook Posts, it’s not news or newsletters, industry or education articles, it’s not predominantly marketing or conversational content, it’s not press releases and it sure isn’t an auto-syndicated collection of posts-for-hire strictly for generating inbound pagerank and embedding paid contextual links. That’s really what a blog is, it’s honest commentary, opinionated or not, successful or not, stupid or not.

Speaking of social media relatives of the classic blog, here’s a nice list of other Loudoun-centric social media channels from LocoMusings...From the number of older blogs no longer active (at least 20 good ones were deleted from this list, as no longer active, as of last year), yet the fast-growing number of Facebook/Twitter threads, it’s apparent that the short-form blog format is quickly overtaking the more traditional long-form...very apparent in the 2nd half of last year. Also check out Loudoun News Twitter, a hand-curated collection of real-time Loudoun news.

Face it, tweeting or Facebooking from your iPhone is SO much easier, convenient and with more instant gratification (like!) than thinking of, and writing, a big ‘ol blog entry – and then moderating the comments, deleting the spam...Is the art of blogging, like the art of journalism, falling prey to to the "Like" generation?

There are many useful, helpful, interesting and truly blog-worthy blogs in and about Loudoun County – we read and follow a bunch, and we’ve culled more from lists maintained by the newspapers (like the Loudoun Times), the libraries (like LoudounPedia), other Bloggers, Blogging communities (like ActiveRain) and so forth.

Here’s what we consider, at this time, to be a pretty definitely list of Loudoun County blogs. They’re categorized broadly as makes sense to us and reflect the relative maturity of the social media interest groups in the County. A critical factor for inclusion is activity; if the blog hasn’t been updated yet this past Fall or Winter, it’s probably not on the list (there are many, many blogs about Loudoun that were good, but petered out over the years – yet remain indexed by Google).

Another critical factor is whether the blog actually INCLUDES the word and/or concept of “Loudoun”, vs. simply being a blog from someone or some business IN Loudoun (i.e. Loudoun County, VA, vs. Loudon TN/NH or the recently closed Loudoun Castle Theme Park at Loudoun Castle Estate in Scotland).

Please let us know of other blogs that should be on the list – we’ll update and/or correct by Spring.

Loudoun Community Blogs (About an area or community)

Gateway to Loudoun County – a Dulles South business and community original blog, over 6 years and counting!
Living in Loco - one of the original Loudoun bloggers, undergoing some revitalization (looking forward to more, Tammy!)
Brambleton - a local Loudoun Times citizen journalist
River Creek and Lansdowne - really nice detail from this community
South Riding – regular bits n’ pieces from two South Riding moms
Sterling, Cascades, Countryside - Kathie's take at the Times
Every Restaurant in Leesburg – still going strong, up to #106
BrambleDirt – was fun before, seems to be back
Brambleton View - from Brambleton

Loudoun Life and Lifestyle Blogs

Community of Faith – Religious Observations at the Times
Loudoun Essence - Featuring the happenings of Loudoun's African American community ...
Odd Angles - monthly perspectives on life in Loudoun
Equality Loudoun – GLBT community and advocacy in Loudoun
Mommy Life - Montessori megamom serves up smorgasbord of parenting, cultural, political, and spiritual wisdom. And a few affiliate links, for the college fund.
Loudoun County Traffic – regular updates near the #1 worst traffic region in the Nation!
Viva Loudoun - Loudoun’s #1 source for High School/Prep Sports, News, Views
Loudoun Wildlife - "People and wildlife living in harmony – like with owls"
Loudoun Landscapes - Dave Levinson, Loudoun Landscape Photographer extraordinaire
Allergy Life in Loudoun - current, relevant, informative
Loudoun Moms' Network – hmm, 1 post so far, but more to come on this theme? (now that the The MomLink and LoudounMoms have retired)
Dulles District – some sports, some comments from Dulles
The Piedmont Virginian – pure Loudoun country
Sustainable Loudoun - local environmental stewardship, but is it petering out?
Loudoun Voice "Promoting renewable energy and sustainable policies." – Hopefully more active this year, as in the past, Mr. Eaves…
Ashburn Patch and Leesburg Patch - the patch editors and columnists are an interesting bunch, with blog-worthy Loudoun material and personally-flavored news commentary, though somewhat compensated...
Musings over a Pint...of beer
Loudoun Arts Council - really, arts in Loudoun
Bike Loudoun - Better bicycling in Loudoun County (when there's no snow)
Look Good Loudoun - Absolutely!

Loudoun Real Estate Blogs

Gina's Blog - a mix of modern mom and realtor
Loco Musings – Heather's mix of modern mom, realtor and social media award-winner
Loudoun Scene – another award-winning real estate digerati…
The Real Estate Bakery – Ashburn-centric NOVA real estate
Helena's Blog – well, keeps the news current, but the blog’s aging quick
Tanya's blog - on Loudoun living
Sonja's blog - on real estate in eastern Loudoun (it’s aging…!)

Loudoun Political Blogs

Democrats

Leesburg Tomorrow – and today, for the progressives
Loudoun Democrats - well, we’re gonna remove this from the blogroll, unless it starts including posting dates...
Mole's Progressive Democrat – newsletter issue 286, six years and counting
Loudoun County for Obama – "Sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist. However, the name loudouncountyforobama is available to register!" (it’s not too soon!)
Loudoun Progress, Doorbell Queen and Without Supervision (Without Supervision) - the Millers et. al

Republicans

Too Conservative - absolutely
Not Larry Sabato – at all
NOVA Common Sense - the newest GOP entrant
Novatownhall Blog – "Take it over and shut it down"
Hoodathunk - Mental Wanderings of a Common Man

Others, Unaffiliated, Independent

Big Loudoun - Lisa and Barbara take on the big cause(s)

Official or Government-affiliated Blogs

Visit Loudoun Blog (a.k.a. "DC’s Wine Country") – by far the 2nd best representative of Loudoun in the blogosphere! (well, we said it on THIS blog, after all...) Thanks Jeremy and company!
Our Loudoun Schools – Excellent and semi-official perspectives on Loudoun Schools from John Stevens
Becoming a Firefighter – Leesburg volunteer Fire Company #1, online
Loudoun Career Fire Fighters – IAFF Local 3756
Sterling Volunteer Fire Company – make a donation!
Loudoun Education Association - Loudoun Teachers

Business/Commercial Blogs

Made in Loudoun - highlighting Loudoun businesses and the business scene
Backstory - the #2 social media-connected business journalist/blogger in Loudoun
Loudoun B and B - Loudoun Bed and Breakfast Gild – off to a great start!
The DogDish - up and coming activity from our new Minor-league baseball team.
Briar Patch - Nibbles n’ Bits from the Briar Patch
Patty Schuchman Photography – nice Loudoun photographs!
Chester Records – Winchester’s own version of Tower Records
Families First of Loudoun - birth, children, families, couples, seniors, and health and wellness...all at once
Conference Center Blog - from the National Conference Center, experimenting in social media (you go, Kurt!)
Loudoun LinkedIn Group – because it’s ours, and it’s sortof like a blog...
Notaviva Vineyards News – a truly social Loudoun vineyard and graphic design shop - kudos Steve!
Wine Compass – all the wine fit to print
The Loyal Local - Local deals, specials, finds
Every Restaurant in Leesburg - Like it says...
Chapple Flowers - for weddings, special events, etc. in Loudoun
The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm - from farm, to table, to blog, as LCVA puts it
Corcoran Vineyards - by Lori
Lansdowne Resort - Blogging and golfing
BTI Whitewater - where's the snow tubing blog entry?
Loudoun Dental Smiles - Dental doings in Loudoun

Loudoun County HyperLocal News Online – What’s Next in Loudoun Social Media and Blogs in Suburban Washington DC

Quite a lot of news, analysis and conferencing has been going on lately about the challenges of the traditional news community, both online and in print. The advances of “citizen journalism” catalyzed by Internet social media tools like Twitter and real-time search are contributing to far-reaching outcomes - from the demise of long-lived newspapers like Colorado’s Rocky Mountain News and the shuttering of the Washington Post’s hyperlocal LoudounExtra.com experiment, to interesting conversations at the recent REBlogWorld and DC Twitter Conference regarding both opportunities and competitive animosities between journalists and bloggers competing for online “eyeballs”.

When we first moved to Loudoun County in the late 90’s, comprehensive local news was an afterthought to the large newspapers and regional broadcast media, and seemed mostly relegated to the entrenched local papers like Leesburg Today and the Loudoun Times. Of course, the citizen and business population was quite lower, too. Actual or “near real time” news was only gained via local radio and special TV reports, perhaps a radio-shack emergency band scanner, and the growing proliferation of neighborhood online chat, discussion and email groups. Very few non-personal blogs existed, but picking up the phone was still useful to contact local authorities and reporters.

Today, our “situational awareness” of local and regional events is multi-channel and immediate, and can be filtered to precise interests, sources or level of abstraction. This past Friday night, for example, large explosions permeated our neighborhood – a bit odd for this time of year, but immediately provoking both memories of a deadly natural gas explosion in 1998 and our latent, persistent homeland-security uneasiness. Finding out what was happening was pretty efficient – a few searches on Twitter, a look at the local events calendars, a call or two to the neighbors…a homecoming football game fireworks display was the culprit. “Traditional media” coverage was to be found the next day, in game reviews and search engine results…but event-to-analysis lag was at least 12 hours.

Where then, and why, should we be going to find the best “hyperlocal” news as a Loudoun County resident? Is “hyperlocal” truly relevant, particularly in this area of interstitial communities, long-ranging commuters and multi-county politic, economic and government service dependencies? Can traditional publishers of general interest news and the journalists they support coexist with or ultimately become the “Internet Media” Geoff Livingston alluded to in his prognostications for the future of social media?

This particular blog is an example of a constantly evolving solution to our Loudoun County and regional news interests. While started many years ago in response to a hyperlocal “Comprehensive Planning Amendment” (CPAM) issue in the Braddock Road/Dulles South area, it’s grown to include and syndicate information about mostly business, education and community interest items not only in the Loudoun County/Dulles South region, but in Western Prince William, Western Fairfax, and other Northern Virginia areas. We broadcast information through most online social media channels (such as @loudoun on Twitter), aggregate and curate great material from Loudoun-centric news sources, citizens, businesses and nonprofits (for example via @loudoun_news), and syndicate this material as necessary to regional and national channels (for example through BlogNetNews.com, our Loudoun Times blog, @northernva_news, and many social media sites including Mixx and LinkedIn.).

We asked other prominent local bloggers and journalists who’ve routinely covered Loudoun County local and regional news what their perspectives were to these questions. For example, Dan Sousa, a self-described “old newspaper guy who has worked for newspapers for more than 30 years” relates; “When I speak to high school journalism classes and ask how many kids read a paper daily and not a single student raises their hand - then the writing is indeed on the wall! What will replace the newspaper as the "hyperlocal" news deliverer? Probably not 1,000 competing blogs, but the future may lie in a collaboration or network of these new journalists into portals that present their niche offerings to the public as part of an overall patchwork of Loudoun coverage.”

Sousa’s broad and detailed coverage of local Loudoun sports (prep/high school and youth) at http://www.vivaloudoun.com and LoudounPrepSports reflects his opinion that “even though Loudoun is home to far-flung commutes and a wide array of interests and cultures, "hyperlocal" news still matters especially in those areas closest to home such as education and high school and youth sports. Where is the next high school going to be built? What about recent crime in my neighborhood? How did the local football team do Friday night? What time is the local book fair Saturday? These are all questions that tie a community together, whether the neighbors are transplants from New Jersey, lifelong Loudoun residents or a family that recently emigrated from India.”

A very similar perspective comes from Erin Rice at http://www.suburbanfizz.com (and the organizer of the very successful Loudoun “Bloggers for Good” charity support events), who says “I've found hyperlocal news to be incredibly helpful in ad hoc but frequent and repeatable situations. I use local sources to learn about community events, opportunities, and news events. When there was a violent crime in my neighborhood, local news was extremely important. I relied on it to find out what happened, the status of the investigation, and how it affected me. As rumors circulated and panic mounted, it was local -- and reliable -- news websites that kept me informed and even influenced my behavior, suggesting ways to get involved and stay safe. The importance of local news grows as community ties grow stronger. The more skin we have in the local "game," in areas like schools, public safety, access to health care, traffic, government, taxes, real estate values all increase the dependence we have on hyperlocal news. National news is critical, but access to local information is equally important. Frankly, on any given day, construction on Route 7 or a new school lunch policy can affect my world more than any bill before congress.”

Here at Gateway to Loudoun, we’re not journalists in the formal professional definition. We are, however, recognized subject-matter experts in many areas (mostly enterprise systems engineering and architecture, social media, internet marketing and business management), and we know many other SMEs who have much to add to the intellectual conversation and analysis of Loudoun-related material. The timely and relevant insight available from these SMEs ranges from widely-covered technology issues to very local Loudoun politics, sports, education, real estate, business services and wine making. This network of SMEs and contributors is a hugely valuable source of information, and does include trained journalists. Much of our own analysis and research for use in publishing (whether for business, marketing or community use) certainly leverages the work of journalists, and much of it doesn’t – especially the more “real-time” material, or very subject vs. event-specific topics. I’ll point out that information posted by SMEs, journalists, media, bloggers and everyone else on the Internet is equivalently classified as “unverified open source” by the government when it comes to authoritative sources of information for real-time incident management operations – it’s all scanned, it’s all considered and much very quickly does become “verified” in context, on merits of trustworthiness and substantiated relevance.

Therefore, we’ve created a citizen-sourced “Loudoun Internet Media” hub of sorts - that while somewhat subjective to our interests, is published, personalized, accessible and syndicated in a manner that it can quickly, in near real-time provide a broad cross-section of Loudoun news and information from citizen and business perspectives, and routes to find more. It’s also helpful to include some advertising – this ensures the capability to keep the hub operating and brings local businesses and nonprofits to the table to communicate their own events in an equitably recognized manner. We’d expect other blog-centric Internet Media hubs to develop, and the network of blog hubs with attending links of relationship-vetted contributors and SME-vetted material to become a truly verifiable source of news as you need it in Loudoun.

While Internet search will continue to be a primary channel find a lot of this, as Google and Bing move towards more “real-time indexing” of sites like Twitter, the need for a constant destination site or “dashboard” will remain (as will, we predict, the need for the armchair dashboard – i.e. printed newscopy). Some local news sites are evolving this way, for example the Loudoun Times with its local and well-known blogger corps mix of employed and citizen journalists, its balanced use of multi-media and granular RSS feeds, its not-too-intrusive advertiser promotion, and its quickly growing and conversational Twitter presence.

Keep up with Loudoun County Internet Media AND Traditional Media sources here at Gateway to Loudoun County, through the sources and web channels of those mentioned in this article (we’ve conveniently assembled a list of notable Loudoun-news tweeters here; all media sources are aggregated under @loudoun_news), and through subscriptions to other Internet Media services who cover or syndicate what our hyperlocal knowledge community produces.

The Loudoun News BlogRoll

Here’s The List of notable, active, general Loudoun news-centric blogs to follow – not just from Loudoun, but about Loudoun.

• Gateway to Loudoun County (http://www.dullessouthonline.com/loudoun_county_gateway/)
  
• Loudoun Stats (http://loudounstats.com/) – by Tony Arko, Realtor
  
• Our Loudoun Schools (http://blog.loudounschools.org/) – by John Stevens, Loudoun School Board
  
• Loco Musings (http://www.locomusings.com/) – by Heather Flynn, Realtor
  
• Suburban Fizz (http://www.suburbanfizz.com) – by Erin Rice
  
• Viva Loudoun (http://www.vivaloudoun.com) – by Dan Sousa
  
• Living in Loco (not the old LoudounExtra one) – (http://livinginloco.blogspot.com/) – by Vicky Chrisner, Realtor
  
• Loudoun Times (A whole gaggle of great Blogs) – (http://www.loudountimes.com/blogs/)
  
• Loudoun Education Alliance of Parents (LEAP) (http://leapforloudoun.blogspot.com/)
  
• Every Restaurant in Leesburg (http://every-restaurant-in-leesburg.blogspot.com/)
  
• DC's Wine Country/Visit Loudoun (Loudoun Convention and Visitor's Association) (http://dcwinecountry.blogspot.com/)
  
• Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy (http://www.loudounwildlife.org/blog/)
  
• Loudoun Landscapes (http://www.loudounlandscapes.com/pastoral/)
  
• Realtor Ramblings (http://ginatufano.blogspot.com/) - by Gina Tufano
  
• Loudoun Scene (Real Estate) (http://loudounscene.com/) - by Danilo Bogdanovich
  

There do exist other blogs, directories and websites associated with Loudoun in one way or another, though not as focused on actually delivering news and information about Loudoun - or simply not very well-maintained or delivered. KME Internet Marketing has the entire list of Loudoun-centric online traditional and social media websites, blogs and directories, along with the return-on-investment estimates (ROIs) for local advertisers to use them (if they accept advertising)...contact us if you'd like to take advantage of this.

- Ted & Kelly