Your Blog Topic
Today, Ted Demopoulos – who will be joining us at NEDMA ’06 to talk about both blogging and podcasting – asks what you’re going to blog about if, in fact, you start a business blog…
So, you’re starting a business blog. What are you going to blog about?
Obviously this depends on your blog’s goals, your business, and your target audience.
You do NOT need to blog on your industry, your products, or even anything related — although this is extremely common — but your topics need to be interesting to your target audience.
Maybe you are a manufacturer of Yellow Gray Widgets and you want to “connect” somehow with your target buyers (your planning had better be more detailed than just “connect with target buyers via blog!”). As we all know, Yellow Gray Widgets are horribly dull yet critical for many people.
A blog on Yellow Gray Widgets would probably fall flat on its face – yes, some people might use it for research, which is good, but it’ll probably have few regular readers or interactivity. Your proposed Yellow Gray Widgets material may be better suited for spec sheets, case studies, etc. on your corporate web site.
Who buys your horribly dull yet essential product? Hmmm…if you know, you can tailor your blog to their interests. Maybe your research has shown most of your buyers are male, between 20-30, and have an income of 25-50 thousand dollars a year. What is this demographic interested in? Maybe sports? Cars? Women? I don’t know, I haven’t done the research, but write “stuff” interesting to them.
Washing machines are pretty dull – especially when they work like they should. What did Whirlpool do, start a blog on washing machines? They could have called it “Whirlpools are Exciting!”
No, they targeted families – families buy washing machines. Whirlpool started the American Family series of podcasts, covering topics like “homeschooling,” “positive parenting,” and other topics of interest to families (note: podcast – think audio blog with a show-like format).
So, your blog needs goals, and that includes a target audience. Write for your target audience. And hopefully, you are one of your target audience and share their interests and passions! If you don’t, maybe someone else should be writing the blog.
Add comment May 31st, 2006
