Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? Don’t worry – you’re not alone. Blogs began life in the 1990s, rising to popularity as a generation found a new way to share (and often over-share) their personal musings. Fast forward two decades and blogs have evolved into a mainstream digital marketing channel – but creating content for business blogs can take more thought than for personal, diary-style blogs.
New research this month from Blogging.org finds that 60% of US businesses have a business or company blog. Yet the same study reveals that a paltry 35% of these actively blog at least once a month, while 65% haven’t updated their blog in one year or more. The most common reason for stale blogs is a lack of ideas, so here are 12 of the most shareable, tweetable, Facebook Like-able blog genres to use as a starting point:
1. Industry news
Subscribe to email newsletters for all titles relevant to your sector and use RSS feeds to keep up-to-the-minute with industry happenings. Always offer a fresh angle or perspective to provide your audience with something extra.
2. Compilations
Make the most of your existing blog posts, compiling them into tight topic groups to create new, useful resources.
3. Answering questions
Browse LinkedIn, Quora and Twitter to discover what your counterparts and potential customers are asking – or think of questions your business is commonly asked either in-store or over on the phone. The chances are that these are also the questions being searched for on Google.
4. Overviews of research
Monitor all research, studies and white papers relevant to your sector. Offer a succinct topline and summary to save your time-stretched readers having to trawl through the originals themselves.
5. Event round-ups
Have you or one of your organisations attended a roundtable or conference? Take time to feedback the most pertinent takeaways via your blog. It positions your company as up-to-date, social and, with your own angle added, lends an air of thought leadership to your posts.
6. Lists
Create long lists of tips and pointers (like this one for example) that will serve as useful reference points.
7. How-Tos…and How-Not-Tos
This type of content is snackable, solution-rich and informative – perfect blog fodder. Jeff Bullas, creator of the fantastic jeffbullas.com blog on all thing social media, points out that the same information presented with a negative title such as “30 things not to do on social media” drives more traffic than with the alternative positive slant.
8. Interviews
It’s well worth getting face time with experts in your industry. Whether presented in Q&A format or preferably as video, a great interview will always be shared.
9. Reviews
Today’s time-starved consumer is bombarded with choice in the form of books, products, apps and so on. Offer savvy recommendations and reviews to help them with the decision process.
10. Infographics
Infographics are an attractive and appealing way to present complex data – they also get a lot of shares. Consider investing in creating your own to take ownership of the data – if it’s executed well it should get plenty of embeds and drive traffic your way.
11. Case studies
A good starting point for case studies is your own customer base, but you can also research existing ones from recognisable brands for added search visibility.
12. Repurposed video content
Monitor video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo for clips that relate to your niche. Embed videos within your post and start a conversation by inviting comments from your readers.
In our experience these content genres tend to rack up the most social media shares and comments. Try them out or mix them up into new hybrids to see which work best for your sector and please share your experiences in the comments section.
