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What to blog about is a frequent content marketing topic on the Brainzooming blog. People are always looking for new blogging ideas. Responding to a tweet on what to blog about, @InnervateTF requested a comparable piece on “what to tweet about.” Since responding to audience questions is a great source of ideas for blogging topics, we’re covering their Twitter content marketing question – which amazingly, we haven’t done previously.

@brainzooming Enjoyed this piece. Thanks. How about one on “what to tweet about”? #blogging #Twitter

— Innervate The Future (@InnervateTF) March 2, 2013

Step One: Review Your Last Twenty Tweets

Before figuring out what to tweet about, review your last twenty tweets to see:

• How many tweets were intended to benefit readers (with valuable information, links, highlighting others, etc.)? ___ of 20
• How many tweets were free of sales-oriented mentions of what you do? ___ of 20
• In how many tweets were you interacting with others (i.e., answering questions, conversing, initiating dialogues)? ___ of 20

The higher the numbers, the better your tweets are already!

Low numbers mean you’re focused more on yourself, selling things, and not engaging. Using your initial answers and re-asking these questions in the future provides another social media metric for how you’re doing on Twitter.

Content Marketing on Twitter – The Basics of What to Tweet About

There’s no single answer for what to tweet about that works for everyone. What’s important is having a rich understanding of your audience’s interests and delivering social media content that addresses those interests and fits your objectives. That said, here are 37 ideas for adapting your content marketing strategy to Twitter.

Information Sharing

Information sharing is a primary opportunity to create a positive impact on Twitter. While you can squeeze beneficial information into the 140-character Twitter limit, ideally you have a place to point people for a deeper treatment on the information you share. That could be on your blog, website, or other online presence.

The best information sharing comes when you take advantage of the full range of content marketing sources available to tweet:

• Interesting factoids
• Ideas and valuable improvement tips
• Information about activities – yours or others of interest to your audience
• Links to photos and videos
• Content from other social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc.
• Updates and content from relevant events
• Intriguing information and stories from your organization
• Updates on where your brand or people will be – events, activities, etc.
• Relevant topics & content you find during online searches

Two-Way Interactions

While information sharing on Twitter may largely be one way, there are tremendous benefits from interacting with others. How to adapt your content marketing strategy for Twitter during these interactions?

• Participate in conversations
• Answer questions tweeted by others
• Retweet relevant and/or intriguing content shared by people you follow on Twitter
• Share answers, questions, and observations with others during Twitter chats
• Swap links to interesting and relevant materials, events, etc.

Personal Sharing

Twitter is personal (as is any social network) whether you’re sharing as you or for a brand. How you express your personality, however, may differ. Ultimately though, if you don’t have an engaging online personality, it’s much tougher for people to find compelling reasons to follow you. When it comes to personal information, tweet:

• Intriguing personal news and happenings
• Rhetorical questions (and maybe even some answer to them)
• What you’re thinking about
• Observations about current events
• Photos and videos from daily life
• Links to what you’re sharing personally on Instagram, Facebook, or other social networks

Tweeting with Hashtags

Hashtags on Twitter are created by putting a pound or hash sign (#) in front of a word (or string of words without spaces) in a tweet. A hashtag makes similarly themed tweets searchable. Simply clicking on a hashtag within whatever Twitter application you’re using should open a new window with all current tweets containing the hashtag.

Tweeting with hashtags allows others to easily find your content, especially if they aren’t following you already. Using the same hashtag repeatedly signals you’re sharing similarly-themed content. Hashtags are also the underpinning to track what’s being shared on Twitter chats. In this way, hashtags allow you to revisit topics in multiple tweets or link tweets to topics many people are addressing.

What to Tweet About – The Self-Help Magazine Approach

I was on a webinar where the presenter suggested looking at self-help magazine headlines for blogging ideas. This works for ideas on what to tweet also. Select any self-help magazine, especially those related to the three F’s (fitness, finance, food), and review headlines for Twitter inspiration. Some self-help oriented tweet ideas include:

• Easy Ways to Meet Challenging Goals
• Ways to Achieve Very Desirable Results
• The Financial Benefits of Taking a Specific Set of Actions
• How to Come Out Good While Being Bad
• Jaw Dropping Benefits from Doing Something Simple
• Celebrity Name Dropping
• Things to Not Do (with a Subtle Threat Attached to Doing Them Anyway)

Use hashtags with these ideas to create a series of tweets themed to a particular topic.

Picking Your Spots for Tweeting on the Sales Continuum

When you’re active on social media on behalf of an organization (even if it’s your solo operation), you’re looking to generate business. How salesy can your content marketing get on Twitter? It all depends.

Setting up a Twitter account that’s clearly going to be all offers / promos can work if your deals are so good that you can attract followers with 100% sales-oriented content.

If you’re trying to balance general and business-building content though, heavily overweight toward general content (i.e., all the other ideas shared so far in this post). When you introduce more business building content, consider this continuum from light to heavier sales focus, determining where you want to be on the sales continuum at any one time:

• Tweet a non-exclusive promotion or discount
• Announce a giveaway
• Feature a link to downloadable content
• Provide insider information or a sneak-peak at a new product
• Tweet a snippet about what you do with a link to a webpage with more info
• Provide an exclusive offer for followers
• Promote a link to your e-commerce page (on your own site or Amazon, etc.)
• Proactively tweet people whose tweets suggest a need for your product or service
• Tweet a link to an affiliate marketing program in which you participate
• Use a Twitter account to tweet promotional offers all the time

Decide for Yourself What to Tweet About!

Brainzooming blog readers know we’re not big on, “There’s only ONE WAY to do this” blog posts. We’re strategists, so we see the importance of variability and aligning with what fits your organization’s strategy. This is a starting point, however, to begin determining what strategic direction is right when it comes to how your content marketing strategy applies to Twitter.

And you thought it was a simple question, didn’t you? - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Today’s question seems like a straight forward one: Who is your customer?

First a Little Background

I was excited Tuesday to be having lunch with Social Media Club of Kansas City president, Aaron Deacon, and Barrett Sydnor because Aaron always picks great places to eat. He selected a restaurant with a Mardi Gras feel (appropriate for the day), and I was eagerly looking forward to beignets. I even had my wife look at the restaurant’s menu online early in the morning to see which type of beignet she wanted me to bring home.

Arriving and parking in the restaurant’s lot across the street, I was greeted by Aaron and Barrett walking to a different nearby restaurant. It turns out the restaurant we intended to go to was closed, so Aaron had another suggestion. Since the original restaurant was closed and the parking lot was adjacent to the new destination, I followed along for the short walk without a second thought.

As Barrett and I left the second restaurant later, we discovered my car had been towed at the original restaurant’s behest (although it was clear they hadn’t cleared the lot of all the cars there).

After a few calls, we found ourselves in a dingy office in Kansas City’s River Market, waiting in line behind a very angry woman who was mouthing off to the tow people about exactly the same experience. She had intended to go to our destination restaurant, found it closed, wound up at the same restaurant as us, and had her car towed. Based on her angry interaction with the tow people, it was clear anger wasn’t getting her anywhere. In fact, they were screwing her around to make it longer to get her car, delaying the process in every way imaginable.

When it was my turn, I quietly said I was in the same situation. The previously mouthy tow guy politely got me handled right away (especially after I was reaching over the half-door to pet the office dogs) and had me “fast tracked.” That meant driving me to the tow lot while the other woman had to sit and wait for someone to go there and get her car and return it to the office. While it cost us both $205 to get our cars back, our customer experiences, by that point, were VERY different.

Who Is Your Customer?

So back to the question: “Who is your customer?”

Clearly this question is open to debate. Looking at a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page, it offered an explanation of sorts about its towing policy laced with a hint of “stick it to you” contriteness.

In the post, the restaurant makes it clear that ITS definition of a customer is limited to the person who is currently sitting in the restaurant eating . . . sort of. I say “sort of” because one comment on the post mentioned a current patron that was about to have his car towed when he had to rush across the street to stop it.

Fair enough, that’s certainly an obvious definition of what a customer is, and it makes the restaurant’s tow policy (apparently) easily enforceable.

From my perspective, however, I had become a “customer” of the restaurant earlier that morning and for several hours before showing up at the location. Anticipating it for hours and already pre-planning what to bring home to my wife had me squarely in the customer camp. I was hoping we’d be able to return together in the future even though we have to be very selective about restaurants because of food reactions she has.

Even after I parked and had to settle for another restaurant, I’d have told you I was there to be a customer of the original restaurant.

It’s Not All that Clear, Apparently

Certainly there was a disconnect between the restaurant and me in defining “who is your customer.”  Clearly, the restaurant doesn’t even view money changing hands as part of a customer definition since it got some cut of my several hundred dollars (which is an interesting business model for a restaurant that doesn’t want to open during the day . . . simply have people towed and increase your average lunch check vs. actually being open).

While the restaurant has a very pragmatic definition of “who is your customer,” it suggests no understanding at all of that whole customer lifetime value thing. Maybe that’s fine, because having spent $205 to “not eat” at the restaurant, their cut of the fee used up my full customer lifetime value for their restaurant.

At least now the restaurant and I are on the same page and both agree – I’m not a customer and never will be.

Think About Your Business – Who Is Your Customer?

What types of definitions do you put around who your customer is in your business? Do you have to see someone before they become a customer? Do you have to actually be serving them? Or might someone be your customer well before you have any idea they are considering YOU first? That’s a big part of the Google Zero Moment of Truth work that potential customers are seeking out information about your business before they make a move in your direction.

But, What’s the Restaurant’s Name?

You may wonder why I didn’t name the restaurant and flame them. It crossed my mind. On the way to the tow place I found the @Brainzooming Twitter account has about 60 times the restaurant’s Twitter followers. I followed them, and they blocked me on Twitter even though I didn’t tweet one thing about them.

Ultimately though, trying to flame them on social media gets the restaurant more attention with a global audience of Brainzooming readers. Why would I want to do that?

Far better for the angry woman in front of me – who works for a local TV station – to try and work up the story for her TV station. The story of towing scams in Kansas City should be ripe for revisiting. If you live in Kansas City and want to know the restaurant, however, message me, and I’ll let you know where it was. And emphasize why you should join my boycott! - Mike Brown

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Download the free ebook, “Taking the NO Out of InNOvation” to help you generate fantastic new ideas! For an organizational creativity boost, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative plans to efficiently implement. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call us at 816-509-5320 to learn how we can deliver these innovation benefits for you.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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It’s easy to abandon fundamental practices we all know are the right thing to do when there are too many time pressures, too much work to get done, and too few options to cope. Those situations are when cutting corners often leads to eliminating practices to save time initially, only to pay for it with more time and problems later on in your process.

One easily abandoned tool is using a strategic creative brief to launch communications projects.

Asking both clients and attendees at recent presentations, too many people either admitted they used to use strategic creative briefs but don’t much anymore or had never heard of using them.

What’s a Strategic Creative Brief?

The strategic creative brief is a great tool to achieve various benefits. Developing and using a strategic communication brief to launch a new effort:

• Stimulates initial strategic conversations and expectation setting
• Documents expectations for the communications effort
• Permits those developing the communications piece(s) to perform better and apply their creativity within the guidelines laid out
• Allows you to more objectively judge whether the communication piece is delivering on expectations

One other related advantage from having a strategic creative brief prepared in advance is it helps minimize “I like / I don’t like” conversations when evaluating a creative piece. Without upfront documentation on what the piece is trying to do, assessing its quality typically devolves into who can win the personal preference wrestling match. Avoiding this is especially important when the people sharing personal preferences aren’t part of the target audience for the creative piece anyway.

We use strategic creative briefs with clients on both traditional marketing communications efforts and on social media content efforts. The brief may be developed for a single communications piece, or it can serve as the foundation for a campaign or series of communications pieces (such as for a collaborative blog with many posts from multiple contributors).

What should be included in the strategic creative brief?

We vary each one we develop for clients based on the particular types of communications efforts they’ll be addressing most frequently. Generally, you can think about three categories of information to include on the strategic creative brief:

• Objectives – Details where you want to go with the project (goals; audience definition, preferences, and call to action; metrics, etc.)
• Preferences – Details what you want it to be (brand standards; messaging; creative elements, etc.)
• Guidelines – Details what you don’t want the project to be (Acceptable tone and look; mandatory elements, etc.)

Using this more general description (objective, preferences, and guidelines) opens up the concept to how a strategic brief can be used to launch non-communications efforts with greater clarity and better input for project teams.

Is your organization using a strategic creative brief for communications efforts?

What types of additional benefits do you find if your organization is using them? And if you’ve stopped using them, how do you view reintroducing them into your communications process?  - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Here is my Super Bowl advertising recap from watching the game and the Twitter activity on the live #SBExp Twitter chat. This year, I hosted my own solo Super Bowl party, which is pathetic, but at least I got as many chicken wings as I wanted.

Amazingly, after a start where it looked like the 49ers couldn’t cover a Ravens player within five yards, the game got competitive after the lights went out (more about that later). The game ultimately came down to the last play of the game, making the football better than the advertising, in my opinion.

Nonetheless, let’s get to the ads:

The Super Bowl Advertising Winners

The first half Amy Poehler appearance for Best Buy was a satisfying change of pace – the brand was clear, Amy Poehler was funny as always, and she said the word “dongle” . . . The second half Tide ad for the Montana Miracle was product, benefit, and game-specific, plus it incorporated surprise and emotion. That’s a hard working ad from a familiar brand . . . Before everything got started on the Super Bowl braodcast, there was a pre-game ad for Buffalo Wheat Thins that played on everyone’s fears of Yetis and neighbors breaking in to steal snack foods that was amusing, and kind of made me remember the brand.

Several brands pursued sponsor bombs and got into the Super Bowl advertising mix without paying the premium rates on CBS by using promoted Twitter messages carrying strong strategic tie-ins. The Society of Human Resources Management took advantage of an NFL Network draft ad for its promoted Twitter ad, while Outback Steakhouse twisted its Bloomin’ Onion promotion to encourage patrons say “Super Bloom” for a freebie order the Monday after the Super Bowl. When you’re on a limited budget, sponsor bombs are a smart strategy to pursue.

Amy Poehler for Best Buy

Tide - The Montana Miracle

Really?

Doritos apparently used up all the good amateur advertising people in the world in previous years with its earlier crowdsourced Super Bowl advertising entries . . . I’m not sure any of the first half Budweiser ads (Bud Light or Bud Black Crown) worked. Calvin Klein on the other hand? It’s underwear ad featuring a guy with incredible abs (which was a complete rip-off  of the H&M – Beckham ad from 2012)? Budweiser only wishes it could sell six packs that well . . . Audi’s ad with a young man taking Dad’s car solo to the prom and all of a sudden becoming an apparent rebel seemed off brand until the tag line explained it was all about “Brave engineering.” Brave engineering? Can you say, “Reach!”

The chasing Coke ad gave me no reason to care about voting or who would win the chase, even if it meant deciding which pre-shot ending would be chosen. The other Coke ad with the security cameras shooting pictures of people was supposed to be representative of shared moments. Feeling like you’re being spied on with your every move is a connection we all share, I guess . . . Both Jeep announcing Oprah and Dodge RAM announcing Paul Harvey as voice overs is like an editorial cartoon labeling all the characters – you just shouldn’t have to do that. Both of these ads are getting attention as among the best. They stood out because of lower production values (photo montages in the Dodge ad) and heart-tugging messages, but the format is getting tiresome – especially when Chrysler does it in exactly the same place two years in a row.

The first Hyundai Santa Fe ad included pancakes, The Flaming Lips, bikers, and bubble boys, with nary a mention of Hyundai. A later Hyundai ad for their turbo-charge capability actually worked, i.e. it mentioned a feature (turbo charged engine) and visualized a related benefit (staying in front of bad vehicles to follow).

Calvin Klein

 Hyundai Turbo Charged Engine

And the Movie Ads

Movie ads just don’t work for me in the Super Bowl. Since nearly every ad looks like a movie with some attempt at a surprising twist at the end (such as finally mentioning the advertiser), the movie ads look like everything else except with no surprises.

The Skin

In a local pre-game break, Hardees tried to out-skin GoDaddy, but then GoDaddy changed things up with an international angle – couples worldwide and French kissing. How about if we all agree to buy a GoDaddy url if they stop Super Bowl advertising? I missed the 2 Broke Girls ad that supposedly put GoDaddy to shame, I can’t imagine what it featured.

Instagram and Oreos

In what you’d have to think was its first featured Super Bowl appearance, Instagram was at the heart of the call to action for Oreos and its Crème vs. Cookie debate. By half time, the Oreos Instagram presence had grown to more than 25,000. While the TV-social media integration was being applauded, others questioned the cost per follower Oreos had invested. The BIG question: Will Oreos continue to activate its Instagram presence throughout the year?

Lights Out!

Beyonce was in a pre-game commercial explaining that her skin is a unique story. Apparently there’s a recorded story about her lips, which she avoided by not even pretending to sing on Single Ladies. But right after Beyonce was done . . . there was a blackout? Did she cause it? As @rsarver shared on Twitter, “BREAKING: During the Twitter, Superbowl goes down” . . . Given the change in momentum in favor of the 49ers afterward, we now know which Harbaugh brother is the better Catholic whose prayers get answered. My main concern though was people would start blaming FEMA and the other Mike Brown all over again . . . They said during the blackout the coaches were busy organizing the players to help them deal with the delay. Really? I never had one boss who had to come help me cope with a meeting that didn’t start on time.

But speaking of coping, both Oreo and Tide were able to respond with real-time content about the 30-plus minute blackout in the second half.  Allstate and its Mayhem character also got in on the blackout on Facebook, with Mayhem saying he’d planned to simply shut off the scoreboard. It goes to show that social media IS the most flexible, broadcast-oriented marketing communications tool a brand has – if it’s ready with the listening and smart content creation talent real-time activity requires.

What’s Up for Future Super Bowls?

What Eminem was to 2011, Rock was to 2013 – who will be the multi-ad person be for Super Bowl XLVIII? Future sponsorship opportunity? An international airline should sponsor all the kicks out of the end zone and 108 yard kickoff run backs . . . Somebody needs to develop the app to let you know which break has the weakest Super Bowl advertising so you know to go pee then . . . Maybe it’s just me, but simply throwing random characters, celebrities, and objects at your brand in for your Super Bowl advertising push (i.e., Coke, Bud Light, Mercedes, Taco Bell and others) isn’t all that effective. I’d recommend less of that in future Super Bowls. - Mike Brown

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If you’re struggling to create or sustain innovation and growth, The Brainzooming Group can be the strategic catalyst you need. We will apply our  strategic thinking, brainstorming, and implementation tools to help you create greater innovation success. Email us at info@brainzooming.com or call  816-509-5320 to learn how we can help you figure out how to work around innovation and implementation challenges.

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Spend enough time on social media channels and you’ll see some amazingly narcissistic tweets and Facebook updates from self-fashioned or mysteriously-ordained social media celebrities, all in the name of social media sharing.

While there are so many ways to write narcissistic tweets and Facebook updates, these eight formulas (all based on actual messages I’ve seen or received) provide a handy guide if you want to increase your insufferability factor on social media.

Want to try the formulas yourself?

Use the words in quotes and fill in your own specifics for the ALL CAPS PHRASES to make the eight formulas work to your best advantage.

8 Social Media Formulas for Narcissistic Tweets and Facebook Updates

Knock yourself out!

Social Media Formula 1: Not (You) in My Backyard

“Spent time in my”

+ HOUSE LOCATION FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER LIVE IN

+ “house by the”

+ BODY OF WATER FOLLOWERS WILL WE’LL NEVER LIVE BY.

+ “Wow!”

Social Media Formula 2: The “Hey, Retweet this for Me” Direct Message

A SELF-CONGRATULATORY STATEMENT (i.e., “One of my best articles”)

+ URL FOR THE ARTICLE

+ DEMAND FOR A RETWEET

+ MY NAME

+ “Plz”

Social Media Formula 3: The Miracles I Work Despite Jet Lag

“Have been on 10 planes in the last three days, but I’m touching”

+ HOW MANY LIVES YOU’RE TOUCHING

+ “lives. I’m so worn out.”

Social Media Formula 4: You Shouldn’t Be Here

“I’m with”

+ CELEBRITY NAME

+ “at”

+ NAME OF REALLY HIP LOCATION AND EVENT.

+ CELEBRITY NAME

+ “is real people!”

Social Media Formula 5: You Wanna Know a Secret?

“I’m going to”

+ INCREDIBLE PLACE FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO GO TO

+ “, but it’s a secret, so I can’t tell you any more about it!”

Social Media Formula 6: Rubbing Elbows (and Noses . . . but my nose isn’t anywhere near the elbow) with Rockstars

“Great meeting today with”

+ SOCIAL MEDIA ROCKSTAR NUMBER 1

+ “and”

+ SOCIAL MEDIA ROCKSTAR NUMBER 2.

+ “Glad I’m me.”

Social Media Formula 7: Oh, the Places I’ll Go

“In a”

+  INCREDIBLE CAR FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER BE IN

+ “on my way to”

+ ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME EVENT FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO GO TO

+ “to do a”

+ COOL THING FOLLOWERS WILL NEVER GET TO DO.

+ “Can’t wait for it to be over.”

Social Media Formula 8: Faux Self-Depreciation

“Don’t call me a Social Media Rockstar. I’m not one of those.”

+ MAKING IT CLEAR BY YOUR EVERY TWEET, UPDATE & ATTITUDE . . . YES YOU DO THINK YOU ARE ONE

Do you have some favorite formulas to add?

This blog post idea has been sitting around for more than a year. Looking back, that’s probably a very good thing since these messages will ideally have been long forgotten by the people who inspired them!

What types of tweets and updates do you find insufferable? Care to turn them into formulas and share them in the comments? And I will understand if you want to wait a bit to share them! - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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We were wrapping up the current phase of a corporate communications strategy planning effort for a large B2B company and discussing our client’s social media content strategy. The topic was the how / when / why the company should be creating social media content more actively. One topic of the social media strategy discussion involved, as it typically does, achieving the right balance of blog topic ideas that are both interesting to customers and prospects while having natural, non-obtrusive connections to your company.

When you are a large B2B company considering a dynamic social media content strategy, there are definitely different content options than for a smaller organization. With more employees, customers, and functional areas, there are many more blog topic ideas your large B2B company can integrate into its content strategy.

22 Large Company B2B Blog Topic Ideas

For B2B marketing executives struggling to see where blogging fits into your customer growth strategy, here are twenty-two potential blog topic ideas along with six key messages your social media content sharing can actively support:

You Have a Dynamic, Learning Organization

• Learnings related to business and personal success for customers
• Business books, magazines, and blogs your executives find beneficial
• Interactions when company executives and personalities were meeting with customers and industry figures

Your Company Is Up-to-Date on Industry Issues

• Commentary on important industry stories
• Recaps of social media sharing by you and other industry players
• Perspectives on general news stories with an impact in your market

You’re Company Is Focused on Customer Service

• Challenging customer and prospect questions answered
• Solutions to frequent customer issues
• New issues you’re solving for customers
• Hacks you’ve figured out to help customers get more from their own processes
• Special things you’ve done to help customers achieve their goals
• Recent customer successes

Your People Are Smart and Outstanding Representatives

• How your company is making itself a better place to work
• Community service activities in which your employees are involved
• Ways your people demonstrate kindness in the workplace
• Perspectives from experts inside your organization

Your B2B Company Is Human

• A funny business-oriented event or occurrence
• A customer perspective on an event your company held
• An intriguing or off-the-wall story in your industry

Your Company Has a Community Focus

• Government or public affairs issues your organization is involved with that affect customers
• National issues your company is addressing that have local community interest
• Local issues your company is involved with that have a broader impact

What Could Your B2B Company Be Blogging About?

While someone suggested to us the other day that every big company has already nailed social media and is moving on to deeper integration of social business in their processes, evidence still suggests many B2B companies may be pursuing social media, but haven’t found the best social media content mix yet. How about your company – especially if you are in the B2B market – are you blogging? And if so, what is your brand blogging about?  - Mike Brown

If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to the free Brainzooming email updates.

If you’re struggling with determining ROI and evaluating its impacts, download “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track” today!  This article provides a concise, strategic view of the numbers and stories that matter in shaping, implementing, and evaluating your strategy. You’ll learn lessons about when to address measurement strategy, identifying overlooked ROI opportunities, and creating a 6-metric dashboard. Download Your Free Copy of “6 Social Media Metrics You Must Track!”

Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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Praise for Brevity

I am all about the essence of things. No time for the long form of anything. My attention span is 135 characters . . . There were a number of Brainzooming blog searches early this month on “how to get even with a sociopath boss.” So, I guess it’s going to be THAT kind of year . . . Whoever came up with wine in a milk carton is on to something . . . Sometimes you just want to check a conversation off the list and the other person is all, “Talk, talk, talk.”

Confession: I really need to pay better attention. To a variety of things. Apparently . . . Words that are kind of alike, but completely aren’t when you mix them up: alleviate and elevate . . .  If anybody needs some sorts, let me know. I’m running to the sorts store because I’m definitely out of them right now . . . Instead of “Join My Network,” LinkedIn needs an “I’ll make an effort to meet you in person, first” button . . . How many words can you swallow?

I’m still on the lookout for that one advertising agency whose slogan is: We’ve done the “offering integrated solutions” thing & now only offer “siloed, specific answers” . . . Overheard on television recently: “The crusades were notoriously bad for booty.” I kid you not . . . That moment in the middle of the night when you realize you have obviously done something heinously wrong to someone, and all the little things you’ve been noticing really do add up to a huge passive aggressive retaliation you’ve been too blind to realize, perhaps in part because when you have asked them what you’ve done wrong, they say, “Nothing.” Yeah, that moment.

Social Media and the Blogging Life

Blogging Forecast: There’s a strong sense of wanting to write blog posts this evening, but we’re only predicting a 10% chance of a completed blog post by midnight. Expect continued cold creative prospects throughout the weekend, giving way to heightened anxiety and scrambling to publish whatever’s done by Monday morning . . . For whatever reason, it amuses me to no end to leave Dr. Seuss-like responses to peoples’ Facebook updates . . . Commercials running during reality TV shows always seem to have a high correlation between someone’s cleavage and their claimed expertise – no matter what the subject . . . I live in the shadows where the snark grows. If I ever write an autobiography, I think I have my title: “Where the Snark Grows.”

Something I’m completely fed up with on Twitter? Blog posts explaining why Twitter rock stars are unfollowing everyone because it’s simply become too much for them. Puh. Leez . . . Opine: To state an opinion. Epine: To blast an opinion to thousands of your social media followers . . . Think about this: It’s tough to relax when you go camping because everybody is in tents . . . My mother asked me, “What are you into?” I told her, “Blogging. I’m into blogging. As in, ‘Thank you sir, may I have another blog.’”

Did you know that “pagophilia” is the need to eat ice? I got that really bad . . . You want a life lesson? Here’s one for you: Forgiving, forgetting, not hurting, and starting to care again don’t all happen at the same pace . . . A combination I don’t like = Winter + Sunday Afternoons + Lots of Work to Do + Sense of Being Behind + Haven’t Worked Out in Days + Anxiety . . . Notice how there aren’t any over/under disagreements on scotch tape? Maybe toilet paper should be sticky on one side, and presto-chango, the age-old toilet paper argument goes away? - Mike Brown

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Mike Brown

Founder of The Brainzooming Group, and a huge fan of strategy, creativity, and innovation. Mike is a frequent speaker on innovation, strategic thinking, and social media.

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