Blog Marketing: What Should I Blog About?

Yesterday I posted a blog marketing tip to my Twitter account: The Scrappy Marketer: Blog Marketing Tip:

Blog Marketing Tip: Use target keywords in your subject lines to draw in both search engines AND your intended audience.

A follower responded: "What should I blog about?"

Good question!  The answer depends on your goals for blogging.

Whether your blog is personal or professional, consider your audience when choosing blog topics.  What would they like to hear about from you?  What questions have they asked you?  What would you like to hear about from them?  As I said in countless Book of Me classes, if you want to know something about somebody else, chances are good someone else would like to know that something about you.

If you blog for personal reasons, or about more personal topics, then pretty much any blog topic is fair game. Just keep in mind that whatever you publish on the Internet is out there pretty much forever.  You may delete a post, but there's always a chance someone grabbed a screenshot or copied and pasted the text, and your wild weekend or frustrated rant could come back and haunt you later.   Prospective employers or recruiters can be particularly adept at finding just exactly what you wish had stayed hidden.

9 possible personal blog topics:

• Upcoming or recent trips
• Current reading or playlist
• Book or product reviews
• Holiday wishlist
• Holiday traditions
• Personal essays - memories or daily life commentary
• Current craft or DIY projects
• Local social scene or things to do
• sharing recent photos

If you blog for professional or business purposes, you'll be more effective if you have a goal in mind.

Top Blog Marketing Tip #1: As mentioned above, determine your target audience. This will help guide your topics and tone. A goal to determine here is who you want to attract to your blog, and what topics would attract them most.

Top Blog Marketing Tip #2: determine your marketing goal(s) for your blog – entice people into a brick & mortar store? Drive traffic to your main website? Increase class/seminar sign-ups? Determine a marketing goal for each post and let that goal guide your writing.

14 Potential topics for a local retailer:

• Upcoming sales and promotions
• Newly arrived stock
• Status of Backorders
• New classes schedules available
• Class changes: supply list additions, postponements, and cancellations
• Event announcements: make & takes, shop hops, retreat registration, etc.
• Tips for using specific products
• Project ideas and examples
• Top Ten gift-giving ideas
• Trade show reports and industry news
• Frequently Asked Questions – about your business or your field of knowledge in general
• Supply organization tips
• Product reviews
• Customer testimonials

So, to answer the question, "What should I blog about?", pinpoint the three W's:

• WHY you're blogging (personal reasons or marketing goals)
• WHO you're blogging for (or hope to blog for)
• WHAT you want to communicate (emotions, ideas, resources, expertise, etc).

If you set that foundation first, your blogging experience (AND results) will be much more satisfying.

P.S. Follow me on Twitter for more blog marketing ideas!