I recently ran an event (with my two marketing buddies Tamsin Fox-Davies and Alicia Cowan) called “Your 3 Part Formula to Online Marketing Success”. The event was amazing and we are so grateful to our hosts K&L Gates for their beautful venue and our lovely events organiser guy, Wil Watts.
There were some people in the world who couldn’t make it. Were you one of them?
Well it’s your lucky day – I wanted to give you a little piece of what I covered in my section – which was all about blogging. I really set out to do the following things:

• Explain why blogging is a wonderful thing to be doing for your business and a worthwhile use of your time
• Outline the rules to successful blogging and getting people to read your blog
• Give ideas on the types of things you can blog about
• Give even more ideas of what can be done with blog and how it all fits in with your overall marketing plan

This post is about the 3rd point- what you can be blogging about. I am going to go through the typical and not so typical types of things you can blog about – and give examples which I have in my own selection of blog posts. I have also included links to some of my favourite and most useful blog posts. Enjoy and comment below if you have any feedback or questions.

9 things you can blog about if you’re stuck for ideas

Team News

If you have people working in your business you can write blog posts about what they have gotten up to, the training people have done (which they can blog about) or about team building events.
Examples:

• Geek Appreciation Day – July 11th every year – 6 reasons we love geeks
• TLD Treasure Hunt – the best treasure hunt in the whole world!

Company News

This is what typically people use their blogs/latest news pages for. Its good to update your blog with big things happening in your company, especially things like moving offices and new members of staff. We had our website plagurised and started a full on PR campaign to get it taken down – and it worked!

Example: The shocking story of how the Top Left Design website got ripped off — and what we did about it.

Education

Using your blog to teach people things that you know all about and do every day will show you as an expert, and also show you as super generous with your knowledge. Bonus Tip: For these, I usually put text on the image so the image has it’s own headline, and also I can pin the image onto my “Marketing Ideas” Pinterest board.
Examples:

• Three FREE online image libraries you can use
• Do you really need a blog? (here’s 11 reasons you’ll want one)

Successes

Anything that happens in your business, no matter how small, is worth blogging about. Make the most of it, milk it! For example we were listed in the top 100 of design blogs – 100 is a big number, but still, I blogged about it!

Examples:

• We’re in the top 100 of all the design blogs to follow in 2013! Woohoo!
• Excitement! I was featured in the ’124 Not-So-Boring Marketing Ideas’ post, and been awarded the “Anti-Boring Marketing Advice” badge of approval!

Speaking Engagements

Not everyone does public speaking but if you do, you should also blog about it. Public speaking shows you off as an expert enough to have an audience listen to you, and that’s a good thing to show off about!
Example:
If you want to stalk me this week, here’s where I’ll be (Social Media Week London)

Guest Blog

This is one of those blog post types which are really easy to do – since you dont have to do this. You just send a topic to someone you know and they can write the post. You do need to edit the post and make sure it’s appropriate, and has images that fit into your blog.
Examples:

• How to make sure your online advertising is legal – a legal guest post by Nóirín McFadden
•  007 Totally Unrealistic things that happen in Bond Movies- a guest post by Lewis Malka

Interview

Another easy to do blog post type – you just need to write an intro and send a few questions to someone else. I recommend you write a list of people you can interview for your blog, then send them each an email (or call, or text them) asking if they would mind answering interview questions. If they agree then you can send the questions. When the answers come back, you have most of the post written, and you just need to do an introduction. You can also ask your subject to send pictures along with their answer.
Example:
I got to interview Joshua Harris – “The A Board Dude”

A long email

Sometimes, you will get an email from someone asking you a question that requires not a quick answer but a long one. If you are going to spend time writing a long email why not write one which is for more than one person but is for many.
Examples:

• How to supercharge your testimonials to attract more clients and opportunities
• I want you to remember these 8 things about social media

Show your relationship with someone

Do you have a client or a strategic partner who is especially smart, impressive, or well connected? If so, show your relationship with them and blog about them. Talk about how they are great, feature them, explain how you know them. I wrote a post about our friend and client Gina Romero, which highlighted her unique business and personality, but also showed how closely we have worked together, how we have done 2 websites for her and several more for her clients, and how I went to Singapore to speak at 3 of her events.
Example:

• Want to see a great example of online personal branding? Meet Gina Romero!
• Twitter Addicts – a video of appreciation
• My trip to Ibiza to plan our “3 Part Formula for Online Marketing Success” event

Hopefully that gives you an idea! There is more of course, there always is, but now that you have read this, you will be able to see there is plenty of stuff you can blog about. Be sure to mix it up and vary your blog posts so they aren’t always the same, and make sure that whatever you do blog about is clear, aimed at the right audience, and in line with your key messages. Please also share any thoughts you have by commenting below!