How to use Blab for your business

Don’t know how to engage with a new audience for your business? Blab might be a solution for you.

What is blab?

Blab.im is an online platform to host, watch or join live conversations. The discussions are public and can be recorded or kept off the record.

In addition to the host, there are up to three seats available for you to jump on the show. The rest of the audience can ask questions or add comments in the chat window.

You need a Blab account to participate during the live conversations. The sign up process uses your twitter information. Without an account, you will watch the sessions anonymously.

Blab works on a desktop and has an iOS app. Chrome is the recommended browser for Blab.

I attended the first Blab town hall in San Francisco few days ago and it is impressive to witness how the Blab team listens to their audience to quickly launch new features.

If you want to know more about the platform, MaAnna Stephenson has created a course named Blab Like a Pro on Udemy.

Curious about how a Blab session looks like? Watch this discussion about Blab for Better Visibility  between MaAnna and Denise Wakeman, the Online Visibility expert.

Blab is still in beta, which is why now is the best time for your business to gain visibility on that platform.

Connect with a new audience

[Tweet “Use different strategies with Blab to engage with a new audience.”]

As a host:

• Show you expertise by teaching and helping your audience. Here is a show presented by Darren Rowse about blogging: 4 Key Areas to Focus Your Time Upon to Grow Profitable Blogs.
• If you are a coach, you can provide coaching sessions live.
• Organize live brainstorming sessions with your potential clients.
• Interview a guest.
• Organize Q&A or office hours with your tribe.
• Discuss strategy with your peers.
• Show your work live. I am learning about hand-lettering and it was a good surprise to discover this session where Aaron Bowersock shows how he creates his drawings.

As a Blab member:

• Attend a live session and ask questions to the host and her guests. You can ask to jump on one of the open seats.
• Connect with new communities by attending a session related to your topics of interest.
• Participate in the chat.

As an anonymous attendee:

• Watch a session to hear about the latest trends related to your domain of expertise. You can also find tech discussions such as this session with Robert Scoble.
• Discover other experts and business owners.

Use Blab with moderation

Watching Blab sessions could be time consuming if you start going from a conversation to another one: don’t passively watch everything that seems interesting.

Be intentional on how you want to use that platform so that you don’t get distracted and waste too much time online.

Search for the topics you are interested in and subscribe in advance to the sessions that you want to attend.

Check how much time you spend per week on Blab and set a limit to make sure that this platform is not taking some quality time from your business or personal life.

After few days of testing Blab, if you receive too many emails or notifications, modify your settings to limit or disable the notifications.

Your turn: any other recommendations on how a business could benefit from Blab? Post your suggestions in the comment section below this article.