Anita Campbell of BizSugar

BizSugar a Social Network for Small Business

BizSugar is the perfect resource and social networking community for Small Business bloggers. The BizSugar community is run by Anita Campbell of Small Biz Trends and her staff. I got to know more about Anita through an interview on Torrey McGraw's blog – Grind and Thrive. At the time I was already a member of BizSugar and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Anita is the owner and I was delighted to hear the story of how she got started with blogging. You might remember that I talked about the Small Business Influencer Awards earlier this year, and how the awards were established by Anita and Ramon Ray from Small Biz Technology, to celebrate others who make significant contributions in support of the small biz community.

Anita is an inspiration to entrepreneurs from across a broad spectrum of industries and I found this statement on her Google+ profile.

“At these sites, it's not about me.  It's about YOU.  We're committed to serving small businesses.”

 Anita Campbell of BizSugar

Tour the BizSugar Community

In this video, I take you on a behind the scenes tour of the BizSugar community along with a look at the companion blog and other resources. Watch this video:

BizSugar Small Business Networking Community

Submit quality articles and get traffic

I work with an awesome team of guest bloggers here on Basic Blog Tips and many of them own small businesses of their own. They can speak from personal experience and the expertise they've gained through trial and error over the years. This has allowed them to share high-quality articles in the guest posts published here which in turn I've shared on BizSugar. As a result, when I look at my Google Analytics report for the past three months, BizSugar is one of the top 4 out of all the sites sending traffic to my blog (including Google). That certainly was an unexpected surprise 🙂

BizSugar Traffic

Contributors of the Week at BizSugar

One of the cool features of BizSugar is the Contributor of the Week articles that can be found on the community blog. These blog posts provide an excellent introduction to members of BizSugar and gives them a chance to share their personal success stories. I was honored to be featured recently and take a minute to visit these other feature stories of some bloggers that you should be following:

You can also find news, tips and advice on Anita's popular website Small Business Trends. Many of the content marketers and small business owners who are members of this awesome community, see it as one of the best ways to get targeted traffic and build incoming links. Overall, BizSugar is a great social networking site where you can hang out and get inspired while learning from your peers.

89 thoughts on “BizSugar a Social Network for Small Business”

  1. Pingback: BizSugar.com

  2. Thanks for writing about Bizsugar Ileane. I registered there once but then couldn’t really interact and engage. Thanks for the reminder.

    1. Hi Jane, your posts will do well over on BizSugar. You should start using it again since it’s very similar to the other networks we use like Blog Engage and Blokube. I was pleased to see that I get more traffic from BizSugar than the others and I think it’s because the audience is so different. Thanks for your comment Jane, have a great weekend.

      1. I found the same as you Jane when I first registered at BizSugar.

        Over time I observed the kind of posts which get the most votes there, and have begun to submit some of my own and interact.

        With any of these communities, there’s a niche, and certain topics which will (or won’t) be relevant.

        Some communities are broader (such as Engage and Interact), others narrower. Finding the right content and tone for each is the key.

        Thanks for your overview and insight into the BizSugar community Ileane, I have no doubt after noting your results that it’s possible to generate a steady flow of traffic, and my own experience there shows me that there’s some excellent content to be found.

  3. valentine belonwu

    Hi Ileane,
    Good job. Since I started submitting my articles at Bizsugar, My traffic has increases to 90%. The teams there are very wonderful people to interact and engage 🙂

    1. Valentine, we needed to gain back some of the traffic we lost when BloggerLuv went down. I never would have thought that BizSugar would have filled those shoes, but it’s really awesome. Thanks for sharing your stats.

  4. Hi Ileane,
    I like bizsugar a lot too. I’ve been submitting my articles there and it’s one of the social bookmarking sites that tends to drive a good amount of traffic to my site.

    1. Richard, most likely you’re traffic from StumbleUpon is still higher though right? I know you and I run into each other over there more than any other network. I’ll be sure to look for you on BizSugar now too.
      What’s really interesting is that I don’t even have the BizSugar button up right now. I wonder if I would get more traffic if I did.

      1. StumbleUpon does tend to drive more traffic in spurts. I’ve had articles that brought in over 1000 Stumblers in a single day. But the bounce rate is high from that traffic. Bizsugar tends to drive steady traffic each day and the people tend to stay on the site longer and take the time to read the articles.

        So, yes, StumbleUpon brings in much more traffic, but it’s a different kind of traffic.

  5. As far as I can remember, I made 2 submissions there and freezes for quiet a while. Thanks for the heads up Ileane, I think will be active there again.

  6. @Ileane thanks for this post,after reading this I will surely join Biz sugar. Btw your blog design is awesome.

  7. Hi Ileane. Thanks for mentioning me. That was a surprise. I love BizSugar. It is one of the more solid social sharing websites, with a good cross section of the small; business folk online.

    1. You’re welcome David. I think I followed you over there. It means a great deal for you to speak so highly of BizSugar. You are one of the pioneers of successful bookmarking and networking. Thanks for coming by. 🙂

  8. Wow! What a beautiful review of BizSugar. And such kind words. Ms. Ileane, you are a sweetheart.

    We try awfully hard to make BizSugar a spam-free, welcoming and rewarding place for entrepreneurs and small biz peeps. Every single person on the BizSugar team is committed.

    We’ve grown BizSugar through bootstrapping. I’m sure most of you reading this know how that goes. You earn a little, you invest in site improvements, and the site grows a little. Next month, you rinse and repeat.

    Every month we’ve tried to invest a little more to create a better site. We know it’s not perfect — in fact, we on the team tend to be more critical than outsiders of things that need improvement.

    I just recently (in September) implemented full-time development support for all the Small Business Trends family of sites, and we spent a large chunk of September on some tech improvements to BizSugar, which we have started rolling out and will continue to roll out in October and November. So look for more to come! And give us your suggestions — we welcome them.

    Best,

    Anita Campbell
    CEO of BizSugar.com

    1. Anita, you’ve done a fantastic job serving the small business community and I’m very proud to be a member of BizSugar. I’m a big fan of your other sites and all of the resources you have available.
      I’d love to hear more about your book too. Feel free to share a link so I can do some promotion about it over here.
      Thanks so much for stopping by and for all you do!

  9. Thank Ileane for mentioning BizSugar. I’ve joined this after reading your article. It’s really not only a good place to submit my articles but also a huge community to take part and increase my knowledge :D.
    PS: I love your voice on video!

  10. I have never heard about community network – bizsugar. I hope it’ll increase my traffic. Thanks for share

  11. I have seen BizSugar button on many blogs but didn’t know about it. I think it’s great source of exposure if you can write some quality articles.

    1. Riya, quality is the key to success on BizSugar. Low quality articles don’t get much attention from small business owners. 🙂

  12. Yeah, I remember once registering there. I found that place very good but there Forgot Password link did not work well and I was unable to login then. Thanks for this post. I think it’s time to visit them back.

    1. Sahil, let me know if you’re still having problems logging into BizSugar, I should be able to put you in touch with someone that can help out. Thanks for stopping by Sahil.

  13. Hi, Ileane,
    I already heard for BizSugar, but never took the opportunity to get involved in it or find out something more detailed about it.
    It’s good that you added the video to your post here, so we can see what can it offer in more details. I think it is great idea if it can give exposure to the articles. So, why not trying it out?

    1. Kristina, I thought that doing a video tour of BizSugar on YouTube would be nice, since I don’t think it’s ever been done before. This way, people can see what’s going on over there versus looking at ads or post links.

    1. Awesome idea to boost interaction Marcie. Send me an email with a link to your profile page after you get it set up. Live Blogging is a cool topic that members of BizSugar should hear more about.

  14. Reading post about marketing online gurus just keep me sigh. How on earth they acquired such brain. Ms. Ileane hope you will post more people like Miss Anita on your blogs, they are such a product of Woman Empowerment.

    1. Roselowe, thanks so much for saying that. Anita Campbell is a great mentor and I’m glad to be part of the fold.

  15. Hey Ileane,

    I also found that I get more traffic from BizSugar than other blogging communities. Also, I have stumbled lots of great posts over there. Love this network 🙂

    Cheers,
    Ming

    1. Ming, that’s so true. The content found on BizSugar is totally different from what we’re finding on the other blogging communities. The site truly helps elevate us to the next level of entrepreneurship.

  16. Craig Sowerby

    Hi Ileane,

    I have been testing a few blogging communities and submitting blog post to various ones ranging from

    BloggerBase
    Blokube
    Serpd
    Bloginteract
    and of course bizsugar
    From my Google Analytics, bizsugar is at the top of all the blogging communities and postion 6 of the overall traffic stats. And your site funny enough is at position 5 so I thank you for that!

    Craig

    1. Craig, thanks for sharing that feedback. I’m happy to send some traffic your way. With CommentLuv premium installed you can see what links people are clicking on right in the dashboard.
      I’m not sure why I didn’t spend much time on BloggerBase, but of course I’m using all of the other sites you mentioned.

      BizSugar is a cut above the rest.

      1. Craig Sowerby

        It sure is and from your stats as well as mine, figures can’t be wrong. Also I forgot to mention Blog engage. I have been meaning to try it out but never got around to it.

        I had a few tweets from the owner Brian about joining, so need to put it on my to do list!

  17. Looks good but i don’t think we may really get networking opportunities that are currently with linkedin. Linkedin was and is still a best business networking site (be it a small or big). Heard of Bizsugar but they need to grow a lot atleast.

  18. Hey Ileane,

    I have been looking for a while for such a network and this seems to be exactly what my small business needs. Very practical share, thanks

  19. Great overview Ileane! I’m one of BizSugar’s moderators. Your video is a great guide to any BizSugar newbies. Thanks for the kind words, we love our fans!

    1. Hi Amanda,

      Great to meet another member of the BizSugar team. I’ll be sure to follow your tweets now too.

  20. Wow, Ileane! What a great overview and the video is really helpful to newbies, as Amanda stated. I, too, am a BizSugar moderator and would like to thank you so very much for such kind words 🙂

    1. Hi Staci!!

      Please feel free to share the video or embed it on any of your sites. I’m following your tweets now too 🙂
      Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

  21. I’m a regular reader of small business trends, and I had no idea she was involved in BizSugar. Thanks to your article and video, I’ll stop by and show some support :).

  22. Ileane,

    Nice job on your review of bizSugar.

    You now know what lots of other small business people know;

    bizSugar Rocks!

    The Franchise King®

  23. Ileane, thank you so much! I just took the time to check BizSugar for the first time, I’m very excited about it and your video is very helpful and pleasant.

  24. I’ve enjoyed BizSugar as a member for the past year. There are so many posts that you wouldn’t find anywhere else, not on Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. There is definitely a need for a business social media site. Thanks for BizSugar Anita and thanks Ileane for bringing this to light!

    1. Hi Emory, BizSugar has tons of valuable content. And I love that the content is vastly different from what I find on blogging networks. It’s a great way to meet people we would never run across on other networking sites.

  25. Hm. Don’t think that I have ever even heard of BizSugar. Heading there now to take a look. Thanks for posting this. I <3 networking and learning.

  26. Actually, I never heard of this website. It seems like a great tool to have, especially if you are a small business.

  27. Thanks for the exhaustive overview about BizSugar. Bloggers need to have a common platform to interact and hope BizSugar with its features could prove to be the best one.

  28. Joining the bizsugar right away……..every bloggers needs a community to engage other bloggers in their blog to have new friends,socialize with them……..good idea and great post……

  29. Many people don’t know or only have little knowledge about BizSugar. Thanks for this informative review about this kind of social network.

    1. Hi Noel, BizSugar is gaining in popularity and it’s a bigger network of users than you think. I like the fact that it brings very high quality traffic to my blog posts and the community has some great offerings.

  30. Ileane, from the minute you submitted one of my blog posts to BizSugar, my traffic jumped considerably. To quote you, “it was a pleasant surprise. ” 🙂 I’ve joined BizSugar and plan to be an active member. Thanks for submitting my post and for telling everyone about how effective and helpful BizSugar is.

    1. Hi Lisa, Well I guess you could say that from the minute I landing on your blog I could see that your content was BizSugar worthy. I feel like a match-maker. 🙂 I’m really happy you joined and you will certainly add value to the community. Cheers!

  31. Catherin Aughtry

    I heard so much BizSugar because one of my friend had join in this community and all of them says that it is quite good and he recommend me to join, I will probably join ver soon.

  32. Preston Schumacher

    I am always looking for quality places to share my content and syndicate with others. Thanks for the recommendation 🙂

    1. Hi Preston, It’s my pleasure to spread the word about BizSugar. I hope to see you hanging out over there.

  33. If you have a minute would you mind giving the video a thumb up or adding it as a favorite on YouTube. I would appreciate it. Thanks for the comment as well.

  34. This is an interesting article on Sugar Biz. What are the niches that they are most likely to be interested in? Also do they charge like Blog Engage?

    1. Hi Ann,

      BizSugar is free! They cover every topic related to small business ownership. If you get a chance watch the video and I give you a detailed overview of each of the categories they cover. I look forward to seeing you on BizSugar.

  35. Thanks so much for the headsup about BizSugar, Ileane. Gonna sign up right now and let you know how it goes for me.

  36. This is the first time I heard about BizSugar and it seems like a perfect place to promote a business. Thanks for sharing Ileane.

    1. Hi Karen, I’m glad you found out about BizSugar. Thanks for stopping by and let me know if you need help with anything.

  37. I just submitted my first “Article” on Biz Sugar since ILEANE don’t like me and would not let me submit it here…Okay I am just kidding!
    Yeah that article did not get any “sugar”, so it was probably wise I did not submit it here. Hey I am not claiming to be anything close to a “writer”, but I am not giving up either. But can get those websites found and mow that lawn baby!
    Thank you ILEANE for shooting me that email yesterday. I don’t know if I am cut out to enter any type of contest for writing. I will leave it to the Pros until I get a little more experience under my belt.

  38. Top fourth traffic source !!! its good to submit posts to such sites… i will also try bizsugar Ileane, thanks for sharing…

  39. Hi Ileane,
    Good job. Since I started submitting my articles at Bizsugar, My traffic has increases to 90%. The teams there are very wonderful people to interact and engage

  40. Hi Tauseef!
    Great to see you taking an interest in the BizSugar Community. If you have posts that are relating to small business or any of the categories available on the site by all means do submit them. However, you can’t submit too many in one 24 hour period. I can’t remember the cut-off but my personal recommendation is no more than two at a time. Also, being active in the community by voting, sharing and commenting goes a long way with the moderators. 🙂

  41. Have been hearing about Bizsugar before but not able to use it but i know using it will help in generating more traffic and am going there to register and start using it. thanks for sharing

  42. I am new to BizSugar going to sign up and take a closer look at it on it’s uniqueness. Thank you for the article.

  43. Bizsugar is no longer a unknown name.I have seen many bloggers are making its fair use. I am thinking to use it too, A great community and link source.

  44. I never thought of guest blogging on BizSugar for traffic generation and blog exposure. Thanks for sharing that bit. I follow Anita on Twitter. She’s such a joy to have on my timeline because the articles are always informative and her own tweets, inspirational. It’s nice to see other bloggers endorsing her and showing the value in the BizSugar community. Hope to see more of you there 😉

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