Blogging and online networking leads to multi-million dollar business

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an interview with businessman Gary Vaynerchuk, who successfully turned his immigrant family’s small wine business into an impressive $60 million enterprise. The secret of Vaynerchuk’s success is his effective use of the internet; particularly blogging and social networking sites, which have ensured that his firm’s sales are now fifteen times what they were when his father first launched the family business, back in 1997. Vaynerchuk is invited by so many major organizations to give lectures and talks on successful internet usage that he has to turn down 90% of these requests. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur did tell the Times that blogging and social networking boils down to good marketing skills. Blogs allow business owners to offer clients “virtual handshakes.”

While Vaynerchuk is clearly an extrovert, the successful entrepreneur believes that even businesspeople who are shy can become effective bloggers. The goal, after all, is simply to connect on a personal level with potential customers and also provide readers with useful tips and expertise. Vaynerchuk suggests that content-rich websites and blogs have essentially turned into store windows for an entire generation of youth under 25 years of age, who will be too busy using a BlackBerry or iPhone to expend energy looking at physical store displays, as they walk down the street.

Vaynerchuk does concede that creating and maintaining blogs can be a time consuming and occasionally cumbersome experience, but this is when freelance content writers can jump in and lend a hand to busy entrepreneurs.

Thank you to Jan M. Rosen of The York Times for the initial report.