Writing content for your blog is not a simple task by any stretch of the imagination. Your content has to be relevant to your readers, and that ever elusive inspiration as to what to write about is always a challenge. In marketing, particularly working in the healthcare sector, I have found that there are three golden rules to stick by in order to help you generate content for your blog.
Stick to what you know
The people reading your blog have found your previous posts interesting and engaging, which is why they have signed up to follow you on your RSS feed, Twitter posts and any other way you can tell them that you have a new post.
If you are a marketer, talk about marketing, new projects and campaigns that you have found interesting, things in the pipeline and anything else that is relevant to your followers. Don’t start going off on a tangent that is irrelevant to your readership. Ask a guest blogger to do that!
Keep track of things that you want to talk about
Seen a great campaign whilst browsing the internet? Why not use Pinterest as a means of a reminder for interesting topics that you can explore in a blog post. Seen a great infographic? E-mail it to yourself or re-tweet it, so that it’s on your newsfeed ready for later.
Some of the more creative types of us just ooze creativity and inspiration when it comes to blog posts (they’re called copy writers), for the less inspired of us there is a whole range of tools for us to use to keep track of interesting topics, news stories and visuals, and if all else fails you can always save it to your favourites on your internet browser.
Schedule time to actually write it
So you have your topic and you’ve done a little bit of research surrounding your blog post, and it’s definitely relevant to your readers, and yet the blog post still hasn’t been written. It’s probably because you haven’t actually found the time to write the thing! Important projects, meetings and day-to-day tasks can all get in the way and when there are deadlines looming, writing a blog post doesn’t seem to be as important as your meeting next week.
Set up a reminder in your calendar and evade all other invites for that set time to ensure that you actually have the time to write your post. Planning to write your post is half the battle, so once you know it’s one of your tasks for the day it will barely take any time at all.
A blog is a fantastic way to generate content for your website and can help you give a voice of authority on the topics that you write about. It boosts your all-important SEO on Google for your company website and gives you something to share with your followers on your social media platforms, so all in all it is well worth the effort.
Holly Waite
A new recruit to Purple, Holly has joined our healthcare team this year to help manage and grow our pharma accounts. Holly has experience both in house and agency side in delivering high profile PR and marketing campaigns across the sports and leisure, third sector, consumer and healthcare industries. When not in the world of communications, Holly a keen sports fan can usually be found court side at a local basketball game, in a kickboxing ring, or watching her favourite football team compete for the title!
