as the economy turns for the worse, merchants turn to blogs

Wall Street's displeasure with Tuesday's bank bailout announcement sent the Dow diving to a 3-month low (impressively negative, particularly in today's climate). America's consumers however, seem more optimistic (not to mention proactive) about a turnaround, as retail indicators actually ROSE, after a steady six month decline. Which got me thinking about how much transparent power that select segment of the US population (those who have, buy and/or sell stocks) has as a bellwether of economic trend while we, the consumer, are boldly asked to spend, spend, spend to help the struggling economy back on it's feet.

Small business owners, of course, understand the significance of the consumer's role...and are turning to blogs en masse to reach them, and convince them to spend.

In a release last week by MerchantCircle (the largest social network of local business owners in the nation with over 685,000 members) they report seeing a 190% increase in merchant blogs in the last year. More impressively, they claim that merchants who have blogs see an "average of 30% more traffic to their website". Traffic that can be monetized, culled for feedback, and turned into longterm customer relationships.

full press release here

as the economy turns for the worse, merchants turn to blogs