When talking to businesses they often have difficulty in understanding the value of having a blog. Many just feel obliged to have one because their competitors do or they were advised to by their web developer. Yet used well blogs can significantly improve your social business presence, SEO (providing fresh content and relevant SEO keywords) as well as being a powerful marketing tool.However, many businesses are making some common mistakes that could simply be avoided. In a tough and competitive market it is important to focus on marketing your business and to do it better than your competition. A blog is ideal for BtoB and integrated well into your social business strategy can yield great results. Here are the 6 ways to improve:
- Writing a blog that focuses on your target audience
- Starting your blog (or post) by conducting some research
- Identify how you can add value to your customers
- Use a good layout to make it visually appealing
- Use a variety of media and material (not all yours)
- Harness your people to help develop your blogging
1 – Writing a blog that focuses on your audience
Can you explain to someone who your target client is? Segmenting your customer is important to identify the types of customer you are trying to reach and will help when you think about your strategy. Different markets will have different issues, topics of interests, news...
- Identify and segment your customer(s)
- Imagine you are them and write down a profile of them their likes, responsibilities, issues...
- Decide on your strategy - what is the purpose of your Blog, how do you want to be seen, what value will you add to your customers
- Use keywords: not only for SEO so that you will be found by customers but also to help you focus on your writing and research
2 – Starting your blog (or post) by conducting research
Many of your existing or potential customers may be blogging as well as some of your competitors. So it is worth spending some time researching and getting familiar with what has already been written about and what you competitors are focusing on. It is very important that you’re not just repeating what someone else already said. To research and find blogs here are some useful links:
After reading a few you will also see what is topical, popular and being shared. Make notes and come up with your own ideas for how you can contribute to subjects in your industry.
3 – Identify how you can add value to your clients
Add value to your customers:- demonstrate an authority within industry e.g. demonstrate analysis or evaluation of market
- add value to your customers – help them with useful information
- contribute to thought leadership with any topical news in your industry – opinion piece
- provide insights into their market that can help them e.g. summary of market reports and key actions they should take, your own market research...
Some ideas:
- Organise a focus group meeting with customers to discuss issues in the market and what difficulties they are facing
- Listen to the customer conversations on forums, social channels e.g. Twitter and identify those that have high rates of interaction - what subjects are your customers interested in
- Ask questions using Linkedin Answers or try searching using Linkedin Signal
- Produce a short list of topics and then rank them in order of how your business can add value to those issues through the knowledge, ideas and experience of the people in your business
4. Use a good layout to make it visually appealing
When I started to write I hesitated over the title, why? – most people’s first thought is probably to use the word write but I think a good blog is a production.
Blogs are increasingly a collage of media pulled together to help readers connect with the narrative as well as make it easier to illustrate your points. We know that a picture can paint a thousand words and well a video (or animation) can help us understand a lot more.
- avoid filling a page with text only
- use images in a blog to help explain pieces add humour or illustrate a point
- add interactive media - research to see if there are any good slides on the subject on SlideShare (not competitors) or use your own in the blog and/or add a relevant YouTube video
- simple but structured layout - structure, visually appealing, illustrate points
5. Use a variety of media and material
Don’t just write about your business. But your blog shouldn’t just be all about your business, not if you want people to keep coming back. You’re writing for an audience. Incorporate their questions, their concerns, their issues and those of the market.
- Refer to experts - reinforce points by referencing other people blog posts from your market
- Refer to articles in the press or market media e.g. magazines, news items...
- Refer to customers - if you think a valued customer has a good point to make phone them: tell them you are writing a blog and you would value their input and if they are OK for you to quote them (you will make them feel valued)
6. Harness your people You have the opportunity to post more frequently, harness more experts and provide a varied and more interesting range of content, if you use your people to blog.
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- Ask people to write a blog - initially select a few people in your business to help with writing a blog - by sharing this you will be able to blog more frequently and provide different views and perspectives on your industry
- Be individual - everybody is different and has their own take on things, language and so each person may appeal to different audiences. Let people be themselves and don't exert too much editorial pressure.
- Become an editor - different people will have different ideas so you will have to place some guidelines on blogging, provide some structure to the process (schedule, meeting dates, submission dates, topics) and meet as a group to evolve and improve
- Measure - put in place some clear objectives as a team and measure them regularly; build into your marketing plans and review as a team.
It can be extremely motivating and personally rewarding for people to contribute to blogging. Be patient and share mistakes and learnings. If you are recruiting and people can see that you are openly letting people have their own voice and using social business tools it will allow people to understand your business and be inspired to join.
The last and obvious point is to ask your audience for feedback and this is where I would love to hear from people if they are in a BtoB business:
- have had success with blogging (please share so others can learn)
- have problems and want any advice (I will reply to everyone that comments)
- want to comment on any points
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