In the early stages of writing their business blog, I find that a lot of people often worry about how they will find topics to write about. Don’t! I can guarantee that this will not be a problem. You know your subject inside out (or else the likelihood is that you wouldn’t be writing about it) and so you’ll find your main task will be picking the right topics for your readers.
For me, there are two main sources of ideas: you and everyone else.
Blog Post Ideas - You
You want to make sure that you capture all the ideas that come to you and personally I use a nice and easy solution for this: I keep a notebook with me at all times. Why? So that I can note down ideas that occur to me during the course of the day - and, believe me, they can come at the weirdest moments. They could be triggered by any event, by something that I see which sparks a connection or by a comment that somebody makes to me. I note down the idea and any associated thoughts that crop up at the time and then I go back, review and use these ideas as and when I need to.
Blog Post Ideas - Everyone Else
When it comes to “everyone else”, the best people to take ideas from are your customers, your prospects and your partners - these are all the sorts of people who are likely to ask those questions which others would benefit from as well, so can be a great source of inspiration.
So, make a note of the main ones and make a point of talking about them on your blog. Treat it in the same way as you would when you take questions from the audience during a presentation - that’s to say, repeat the question that has been asked so that the rest of the audience can hear and then go ahead and answer it.
Do the same in your blog - you will be providing information which will answer relevant and real questions that should help your customers use your product better and help your prospects to understand its potential better.
So that you have this resource developing on an ongoing basis, I suggest that:
- you keep a folder in your email system and make a copy of both the question you receive and the response you send back - this will in itself form the basis of your business blog post;
- after meetings with clients, prospects or suppliers, note down some of the key questions that they asked and which were clearly on interest to them;
- at Conferences and Exhibitions, keep a record of the questions or the areas that visitors to your stand keep asking about and are showing most interest in.
You’ll soon find that you have topics for your posts planned out well in advance and as you write the posts, you will hopefully also start to receive comments which will start to take the discussions and questions in other directions as well.
