The Write Stuff

© Iqoncept

How would you like to boost the perception of your B2B brand as one of your industry’s thought leaders, grow your blog readership over 2000% and develop relationships with the who’s-who of your business — all in less than a year?

This is exactly what Drillinginfo (DI) did. Today, DI, a SaaS vendor serving a sector not exactly synonymous with trendy social media, is positioned as a premier source of information in the oil and gas industry. And its forays into social media began only last September.

It’s been a given that a B2B brand’s social efforts are a long-term slog, so DI’s results merit a closer look. In fact, this report suggests that the company’s approach amounts to a study in best-practices that might be replicated in any industry, especially when it comes to blogging. To our way of thinking, these practical steps are actionable for any B2B blog:

1. Get your employees to contribute ideas and content.
2. Set an editorial calendar — don’t assign topics, assign people and let them write about industry-relevant subjects that they’re interested in.
3. Involve them in brainstorming topics and angles relevant to your products and customers.
4. Involve your contributors so they feel ownership. Teach them “blog-consciousess” by explaining what blog-friendly writing and content are all about.
5. Push content out to your email lists and social accounts (Linked In, FB, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.).
6. In your email to blog subscribers, include the full blog post, but include a custom call-to-action for readers to go to your website and make comments.
7. Compile interest-groups on Linked In (and elsewhere) of relevance to your industry and post your content there. Caveat: be absolutely certain that what you’re sharing is of genuinely useful value. If it isn’t, it’s spam.
8. Find out who the influencers are in your industry and publish your own Top 20, 50 or 100 list(s).
9. Set a big goal for your blog: Aspire to thought leadership.

What are you doing to promote your blog?