Blogging 101; Go Ahead, Beat The Dead Horse

Any individual or organization that has made the decision to begin a blog has soon thereafter asked the question, “What in God’s name am I going to write about day after day?” Naturally, if you’re blogging, you want your posts to impart some sort of meaningful content or revolutionary insight. Unfortunately, the simple truth is that isn’t going to happen every time. But that’s okay. The idea isn’t always to break new ground. In fact, more often than not, the idea is simply to extend the dialogue. Giving your opinion on something, even if it seems like every other blogger in your universe is doing the same thing. So go ahead, beat that dead horse!

You can start by not assuming that everyone knows what you know. At a minimum, they don’t likely share your exact insight or opinion, so take something you read and add your two cents. Pay attention to the responses you have when reading articles or other blog posts. Stop when you hear yourself saying “right on” or “what a load of bull.” Think about why you had that reaction and comment on it with a link to the article. Then solicit your readers to chime in too. When they do, be sure to reply, if for no other reason than to thank them.

Next, try looking at a topic from different perspectives—yours and your customer’s—and see if you learn something. Focus on the benefits instead of the features. For example, as an agency guy, I could write a bunch of posts extolling the virtues of social media and I might get a lot of praise and back-slaps from my industry peers, but what would it mean to my customers and prospects? They aren’t interested in Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube because they should be, they’re only interested if I can demonstrate how these tools can help their company establish a position of thought leadership or perhaps enhance their customer service operation.

Whatever approach you take, remember the first step is simply to become engaged. There are a lot of great B2B blogs out there (here’s one list of the tops in the field), so if you’re waiting for your revolutionary brainstorms to come, just take part in a conversation that’s already under way. Hold up your end, and have a little fun in the process.