If you’re running a business or simply tasked with writing a blog for a company, this question does come up often.
What to write for a business blog?
We get that question often from business owners. So we decided, it’s time to educate people on the topic, helping new bloggers for businesses to learn what to write about in their blog. And provide some value definition.
The problem for business blogs is that people get confused on subjects that are ok to put out to the public. Companies get scared of giving away too much intellectual property or too much about the corporate strategy. But in fact, business blogging should not be about any of that information directly.
Let’s get something straight; blogs are personal. And for a business, a blog should be personal with a focus on the business and its people. Blogs need to attract people into their site so that you can continue to keep those potential customers close to them.
We’re going to cover five subjects that you could write about forever that would lead to a successful business blog.
Customer Success
Customer Success may seem obvious as you read it, but it’s not as inituitive for all business bloggers. We like to tell people, write about your customers’ success. If you have happy customers, write their story. And be real, not overly optimistic or overly perfect.
If you have a customer that struggled, but you helped them, write that story. If you have a difficult customer, write how you helped get reach successful.
Customer success stories should not be case studies or formulaic, but they should be real. We see this often in business blogs because they are attempting to use their blog as a sales tool for case studies instead of writing without a formula. Case studies are sales tools, not business blog topics.
Quality Blog Writing Starts With a Good Sentence
Why?
People love stories, and they want to connect with you. And feel like you’re a company that they want to associate with as a customer.
Imagine if you have a real estate company, and you write about help you helped a family find a home in the right school district, but then worked with them to sell their house. And you told a bit about the struggles and difficulties. Or you discussed the emotions of letting go and change they faced.
You should forget about the standard happy homeowner story – they were happy, look at perfect their new home we found for them. But you may want to write a real story about how the family struggled to get a loan or find a more beautiful place that fit them better. Or how you helped with a horrible buyer who wanted to negotiate everything after the inspection. Now that’s a real home buyer story. And you helped through the entire process. That’s a story with blogging about.
Business blogs tend to be formulaic instead of real. Our recommendation, put your success out there in a real story. You’ll end up building a better rapport with your readers.
Corporate Culture
Do you have a great corporate culture? Why are you not writing about the work effort, the customer focus, or the values you’re company adopts and lives every day? People want to duplicate great companies and do business with companies they like.
If you write stories about how your salespeople brought cookies in for the finance team during the quarter end, it shows to your readers that you have caring employees. If you write about how your employees or your boss helped out other employees while they are sick still deliver the outcomes to their customers, it shows dedication.
Put yourself in your reader’s shoes for a moment. If you were writing about the inside values and workings of a company, you might connect with that person even more than you did before. For example, let’s use the real estate scenario. If you have a small firm, but you wrote about how they all take turns reviewing advertising copy, or everyone has a habit of responding to customers within an hour, and the team takes pride in quick response. Wouldn’t that be something your customers would connect with at a personal level? I think so.
I know it’s not necessarily intuitive, but people want to do business with companies they respect. Share why your company is special.
Personal Stories
Along the same lines as a customer success story, share personal stories. Here’s a great example, so you’re a real estate agent needing to lose weight. Maybe you blog about your goals, struggles to do it, and your accomplishments. I don’t know about you, but that would be inspiring. I want to do business with agents that are open and honest. It shows that to your readers.
What if you have an employee who volunteers at a homeless shelter a few times per week, blog about that person. Or if someone had a special event like a wedding or baby. I would recommend staying away from every birthday, but make it a special occasion.
You don’t always need to make it a happy story, maybe an employee died. Yes, sad story, but share it. Again, people want to learn more about the company they do business with and connect with that company at a personal level.
Product Features
Here’s a tricky blog subject, product features. My recommendation, if you want to make a specific product tutorial or feature category then make that a specific category or add those posts within a knowledge base or tutorial section.
But what do you discuss with product features? Or should you?
Yes! But do it in a different way then descriptive and informative. Make product features blend with one of the other three subjects, customers success, corporate culture, or personal stories.
Let me give you an example using the real estate company from above. Say you’re agency business has a unique feature that other agencies do not generally use. Or even if you have the same features, but nobody speaks about it within their advertisement. Instead of sharing the implementations of the feature, share the outcomes of using those features. Say that the Jones family failed in their search, but with your unique home targeting, they found a home in less than one week after previously searching for two months. They are super happy now.
I know most agents would have similar capabilities, but do they blog about it? Probably not.
Using product features or capabilities are super beneficial to blog about but our recommendation is to combine that topic with another subject.
Recruiting
If you have employees or your company is hiring all those future employees will absolutely read your blog. Keep that in mind, and share how your recruiting process is working, personal stories of your recruiting staff, profiles of new people. Write to recruit and to educate the benefits and value you have for your future staff.
Or use those post also to weed out potential people that won’t fit. Maybe blog about how proud you are of the challenging recruiting process.
Write about how fun you have when hiring the best people. Readers want to be associated to great companies.
In Summary
Writing a blog post for your business should not be hard. I’ve read blogs that are just trying to sell me over and over again. Or they are so formula based; it’s annoying and not real. I’ve also read business blogs that make think, wow, how can I do business with them or should I try to work for them? Of course I don’t because, well I’m happy to be helping you.
That five subjects from above should give you a wealth of topic that you could write about forever. And you would have an incredibility successful business blog that most companies would never be able to touch. Make it real and make it personal. Business is personal and no matter your size from 1 person to 100,000 people, you need to build a relationship with your readers.
Comment below, I would love to hear if you have other subjects you believe businesses should consider. And if you have questions, please ask. We reply.
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Hey JB,
I’ve really enjoyed reading this post on “What to Write For a Business Blog?” as its informative, fun and interesting. To be honest, the only problem I have is with Personal Stories. After reading that paragraph, a bulb start glowing and I’m not able to wait in order to implement it. You’ve explained each and every aspect in such a way that even an infant can understand. Its very simple and there are other websites which just try to complicate things.
Thank you for taking your time in writing this blog post. Keep up the good work JB!
Thanks! I appreciate you. Great comment.
This is all great advice, fantastic article! In my opinion, the best idea is blogging about personal stories! If it’s personal, people will be able to relate to it, and people tend to lats on to things they can relate to. You also make a good point about many blogs just trying to sell us on something. It’s easy to pick up on and just isn’t engaging content, which is what ultimately does the best with people.
Keep up the good work,
Joey
Thanks Joey. I appreciate the comments. And being personal is something the connects customers to the business.
Hi there, you are so on point about a blog to be personal, hence the business blog should be personal as well. How come I have never thought of that?! Glad I came across this post. I guess when you are more ralatable and resouceful, that is how you build your potential customers. Will Always keep in mind that no one is perfect and it is okay to write about it as well. Thanks for a very informative post.
I’m so glad it as helpful. Business blogs that bring in a personal aspect connect with the readers.
Thanks for this post , I have to agree that most business blogs are focused on sales , it drives me crazy to consistently have ads put in front of me . i also agree that businesses would be better off to share the experiences that they have with there happy and unhappy customers . At the end of the day why select company A over Company B for there product or service , it boils down to customer or client service and support for me .
Absolutely! Thanks for the comments.
Hi JB!
Great post! Customer success is for sure something I will use more often this topic on my posts. Connecting to people is what a blog can do. And with these 5 winning subjects your business will go well and grow fast.
I never thought about adding all three subjects toghether (customers success, corporate culture, personal stories) on my posts. I think that will help my business step up. Thanks! Regards, Alvaro
Glad it helps! Discussing how the company operations attracts people because they can relate with your company. Awesome!
Hello, JB! You wrote an honest and hard review. This means that you have caught the pulse of time. Today, people have gadgets in their hands and ask normal questions.
It has always been this way: stubborn survive in business. And in study, as in sports, persistence is required. Perseverance is accompanied by time-consuming.
I spend a lot of time and am ready to spend it further, because I see that the result is achievable with time spent only.
As in physics, if there is a shortage of kilowatts, then you need to add hours and minutes. To produce the same work. Therefore, I agree with you and I’m ready to study for a year and more. I accept your assessment of things and circumstances.
I will try to get more people acquainted. Mark.
Thanks Mark
Hi JB great post! I did wonder at the start just what you were going to come up with for writing a business blog as I literally had no idea myself. However, you came up with so many great strategies and scenarios that any business reading this would not ever have a problem wondering what to blog about again.
And it’s such a good point you make about keeping it real with real life experiences and events. This is by far the best way to connect with potential customers rather than just trying to sell sell sell.
Thanks for the comments Stephanie. People want to do business with people, and getting a bit personal allows people to connect. Cheers! JB
I must commend you on your posts of value JB! I follow a gentleman named David Meltzer on social media who implements conscious living with business and he speaks about focussing on providing value in order to yield exponentially successful results. You hit the nail on the head when you stated that most approaches are formulaic rather than real and I have encountered this on many an occasion. When one is seeking genuinely good content and value, there is a discrepancy that is noted when the business blogs do not provide it. I think the suggestions you have delineated above are very dialled in. For so long there has been a segregation between personal and professional approaches when the two are inextricably linked – and when a mentor or leader that is distilling information has this awareness, then the content itself proves to offer greater value that connects and resonates with people. The formula based approaches seem to undermine the reader to a degree. I am very appreciative this is not your approach and you are consistently providing value and distilling empowering and helpful knowledge. Cheers to you!
Simply great comments! I’m honored and appreciate your response. That’s the goal, be real. Having been in business for a while, when we mature to a point that we just can be real, business gets much easier and more fun! Cheers!
Hi, JB thank you again for providing valuable information as usual. After doing some research of my own on blogging I do see the benefits of businesses having their own blog. Blogs are important because its more personal and it helps educate consumers on the products and services that the company provides. It also helps with product reviews as well as updates on any new information.
Thanks for the comments! Business is all personal, and when companies talk about that in their blogs, people connect with those companies and become loyal customers.
These are rather interesting ideas. I don’t think that my site “screams” sales, actually far from it. I have been trying to figure out what to write about to get more “call to action” on my site. Not sure yet how to go about it, but maybe a story about a recent travel would work. What do you think?
It’s a great idea. One thing I do before I start my post is to write out my call to action. I build an outline of my story or post, then place my call to action throughout. Then when I write, it’s more natural and feels good. Instead of writing a story and it’s incongruent to make a call to action. Hopefully, this makes sense. Good luck.