Last month I was contacted by Clare Baker of Patch.com (owned by AOL) for an invite to guest blog on their just-launched Small Business Patch. I honestly never heard of Patch.com – perhaps it’s due to its hyper-local nature: Patch has many US cities’ local sites – more than 1,000 of them – offering local news, including local business listing; I’m not even living in the US!
However, since I get the great offer to guest post and for the opportunity for my post to be read by millions of small business owners (Patch claims the local sites are visited by more than 12 millions of unique visitors every month, plus an access to AOL’s entire network,) I can’t simply refuse the offer!
Since the offer, I regularly check Patch’s sites to learn more about their audience and site culture, especially Small Business Patch. I am becoming a regular visitor of this page and I would like to recommend you to visit the site. Why?
Exclusive interviews.
I love interviews in any form. Why? It’s because I can learn a great deal from them. Their success stories; their struggles; their ideas; their tips… that’s also the reasons why we have a section for business stories on onSMB.com.
As mentioned in their press release, Small Business Patch features interviews with well-known founders and CEOs and small business industry experts who share their experiences, advice and tips for success.
I have in fact feature a video interview on one of my business blogs.
More stories, news, trends and tips!
Not only exclusive interviews, there are also hard-to-be-missed additional features, such as the latest small business news, trends and tips; profiles of successful small businesses from Patch sites across the country; small business events and associations; and so on.
Local business listing.
A local small business publication and community is not deemed as complete without business listing! You can add your local business to be listed on Small Business Patch (as of today, there’s not many business listed – perhaps you would be interested in listing yours?)
Publish your blog, announce yourself and feature your event.
Need to share your insight or simply promote your event or services? Just do so on Small Business Patch. Love blogging? You can start one easily. Want to make an announcement or sell something? Post to boards. Want to feature your event? Post to events.
Network with other small business owners
Although it’s not a specialized social networking site, you can definitely build relationship with fellow small business owners, leaders and experts (like the real estate mogul and business expert Barbara Corcoran!)
Ready to join the community?
If so, you can start by visiting http://smallbusiness.patch.com/. If you are social (of course you do!) you can get started by visiting their Facebook and Twitter account, https://www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessPatch and https://twitter.com/SmallBizPatch, respectively.
Photo credit: Small Business Patch
