If you publish a business blog, you probably know how easy it is to get stuck in a rut, writing the same articles over and over again.
Clearly a great blog thrives on a mix of content -- but what type of mix?
For this blog, I focus on five categories of posts. Last week Jurgen Appelo got me thinking about food as metaphor to describe them, so I thought I'd share what I came up with.
Raisin Bran - Useful, Everyday Posts
You should work hard to make sure you're good at these posts -- that you can whip them out, and that your readers engage with them and like them.
Spinach - Healthy, Thoughtful Posts
These are the posts that establish your business and your blog as a thought leader. They're posts that probe new developments in technology and changes in your industry. They're generally a little longer than typical posts, and they take longer to write. My Post "
Inbound Marketing & the Next Phase of the Web
" is a good example.
Make sure you do these from time to time (and take the time to do them well), but don't do them too often. Too much spinach, and your readers will get tired of it.
Roasts - Big, Hearty Projects
These are posts that take a lot of time, but that get a lot of attention and inbound links. Our
State of the Twittersphere
report is a great example. It took a lot of time to pull the data together and do the analysis, but it got great traction.
Because of their exceptional traction, roast will introduce your blog to new audiences -- the State of the Twittershere introduced the Inbound Marketing Blog to newspaper readers and France and Canada for the first time. This, in turn, will help expand you blog's reach.
The challenge with a roast is to make sure you pick the right project. It's a lot of time to invest in a single article, so you need to make sure you're producing interesting, unique information.
Tabasco - Articles That Start Fires
Every so often you need to write an article that asks tough questions. These posts might upset a few of your readers, but they also launch important, valuable conversations. For example, last week I did a post called "
A Message for the Post Office: Direct Mail Is Dying
." This upset a lot of our readers who rely on direct mail. They spoke up -- sometimes in sharp tones -- in the comments, and we had a lively discussion. Lots of people linked to the article with posts of their own, and the result was that a lot of the nuance about direct mail and its status was uncovered.
You can't do these posts everyday. But they're an important part of your overall blog mix.
Chocolate Cake - The Sweet Stuff
Every blog needs fun stuff that goes down easily and shows that you don't take yourself too seriously. These types of posts come in all sizes, shapes and forms.
On the Inbound Marketing Blog, we've been using cartoons and videos to add levity. However you accomplish it, the key to successful chocolate cake posts is simple: have fun.
What do you think? What kind of posts do you publish on your business blog?
Like this article? Download the free Advanced Business Blogging webinar I hosted.
Flickr Photos: runaway wind , Ian-S , rmburnes , barron , massdistraction
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Diamond 9:45 AM on January 23, 2009
great post but now im hungry thinking of food lol! what would you consider this post to be? Id say its a raisin bran for this one
Rick Burnes 9:47 AM on January 23, 2009
Well, I'd say this post is raisin bran -- except it has some extra fruit on top, so it's kinda sweet:)
George Fassas 10:01 AM on January 23, 2009
Do you think you can make a version with Greek Cuisine so I can comprehend the whole idea better?
The Roasts can be Mousaka and the Chocolate cake can be a Baklava.
Doug 10:15 AM on January 23, 2009
Of course it's good to keep a balance in mind. Raisin bran makes you poop, while chocolate can be binding!
Sam Mallikarjunan 10:29 AM on January 23, 2009
Great article! Quick question, although it's clearly important to have a diversity of content and tones, what do you think is an effective mix of content? For example, too much cake may lead people to not take you seriously, too much tabasco may alienate too many readers and make it too confrontational, and too much raisin bran may make it too boring and you may lose readers anyways (or at least, they may not look forward to your posts like I've started looking forward to Inbound Marketing blog!).
Any thoughts?
Rick Burnes 10:34 AM on January 23, 2009
Sam, thanks for the comment. In general, I think the best approach is to do a lot of raisin bran, but to sprinkle in the other stuff whenever you have good opportunities. For us, this works out to about 50% raisin bran, 50% other stuff.
Amanda Steadman 1:03 PM on January 23, 2009
Hi Rick. Just watched the webinar. Great content thanks! If you guys are doing anything else I'd love to know how else you can monetise it apart from the link backs you mentioned. Super thanks and Great Job!
Brian Hargreaves - BH Photography 1:35 PM on January 23, 2009
Thanks for the blog pointers and the webinar!
Chad 2:09 PM on January 23, 2009
Very creative article! I run a few blogs, but am just starting a new one. I'll definitely try to keep this post in mind!
Gordon Gates 6:43 PM on January 23, 2009
Thought I left HubSpot's blog and landed on Karen Rubin's food blog! What sort of post would homemade pasta be? http://www.gormandizing.com/
Brandon Walker - Internet Marketing Online 1:50 AM on January 24, 2009
Interesting post. I think a good blog needs a combination of these posts. For example too much of one of these could upset the balance of a good blog.
I tend to find posts which have a strong opinion for and against spark a lot of comments and attention its amazing what an opinion can do...
Andrew B. 5:19 PM on January 25, 2009
I will definitely bring this up to my employer. They operate a blog (run by a series of bloggers) and we don't seem to have a lot of people reading it. I really think that using this "recipe book" for blog posts will really help. The trick is to keep them well balanced though. I'm not too positive about the "Spinach posts" though. Are these posts discussing new and innovative things in our industry? Also, is it possible to combine some of these topics into one post? For example, a Spinach post with Tabasco? I guess this post would be something new in the industry that causes a heated discussion with others.
adrienne 4:18 PM on January 26, 2009
This is a pretty awesome post - I'm more of a Tabasco girl myself ;)
fred 4:26 AM on January 27, 2009
There is no doubt surely it would be a mix of Raisin and Chocolate will make a good businee blog.The tiredness due to hard work ie,raisin can be removed by a chocolate.
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fred
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