Does your business have a blog? Many businesses do. As a cornerstone of their B2B marketing strategy, a good corporate blog can generate leads, boost your SEO, provide content for newsletters and be an interactive resource for your customers.
Is your blog working? You may be making some common mistakes:
Your press releases double as blog posts.
They’ve been approved to the nth degree and hit all your key messages and have “quotes” from your director of … zzzz … Sorry, what was the question? Right, a media release is not content, not an article, not a resource. It’s marketing. No one’s primary reason for visiting your blog is marketing. They may not even really want to read your “news.” People are diverse, but everyone wants content that is useful and relevant to them. (Sometimes job seekers might want to learn more about your company via your blog(s), but they are unlikely to be your target audience.)
One size stretches to fit all.
Think about your favorite blogs on the Internet. Chances are they are highly specific in their subject matter. Successful business blogs should likewise have a strong focus. If you have several different audiences and topics you want to cover, maintain separate blogs—or a clearly defined list of topics. For example, Cisco Systems’ suite of B2B blogs are segmented by technology, industry, region, and more. HubSpot’s marketing blog is easy to browse by level and subject. If a post fits into more than one of your blogs/topics, you can always post it in both.
No sharing.
Not including easily integrated social media sharing buttons with each post could mean missing out on potentially thousands of opportunities for readers to like, pin, tweet and link to your blog. And that means traffic, and potential leads and conversions, are lost. Those inbound links also signal social activity that can boost your Google PageRank. For optimal shares, strive to include an image with each post—graphics enhance the look of a share and drive engagement.
Mobile what?
Make sure your blog has a mobile template or a responsive design that senses when it’s being read on a tablet or smartphone. Mobile devices put your content in the palm of your customer’s hand, so don’t miss the opportunity to get them on the go.
Now that you’ve fixed these things, how to get eyeballs on all that great content?
Subscribers.
Make a subscriber call to action (CTA) part of the blog post template. Something simple like, “If you like what you read, subscribe to receive future posts.” Popular blogging platforms like WordPress have functions built in to help you manage subscribers automatically. Subscribers will get an email each time you post or a ping in their RSS reader.
Social media.
Of course. But don’t just set automatic syndications of posts, and sit back and wait for traffic. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., are different animals, requiring different types of link bait text and timing. Twitter moves fast, so it needs a newsy, catchy tweet, preferably with a hashtag. LinkedIn updates should capture the professional benefit of your post. Facebook and Pinterest are especially visual, so strong images are a must.
Email.
Ensure that you include links to b2b blog posts with your email newsletters. A small section entitled “from our blogs” with three to five of your catchy-titled posts may be all that’s required. Create tracking links so you can analyze web traffic coming from email.
All you need now is useful, engaging content—and to keep it coming regularly. No problem, right?
