1. Inbound Marketing - 6 raisons
d'investir dans vos propres Blogs!
Vous désirez sans doute profiter de l'effet de levier de l'Inbound Marketing [Marketing
d'attraction], du Content Marketing, du Social Media Marketing, du Paid Owned Earned
[POE] ou de toute autre forme de Marketing 2.0.
Voici mon point de vue sur l'exploitation de Blogs en propre par les équipes ventes/
marketing/bizdev/techniques des différentes entités de votre entreprise, et ce notamment en
environnement B2B.
Pour commencer:
6 [mauvaises] raisons pour écarter les [owned] Blogs d'une

2. démarche d'Inbound Marketing:
1. Les Blogs, c'est quelque chose de personnel [et non "corporate"]. C'est donc
à chaque collaborateur de décider de bloguer, mais pas à nous, Marketing/
Communication...
2. Les Blogs, ça prend du temps. Nos équipes Marketing se réduisent. Nous n'avons
donc pas le temps d'exploiter des Blogs.
3. Nous avons beaucoup de mal à mobiliser des Experts pour écrire des articles. Le
contenu des Blogs serait donc trop pauvre.
4. Nous préférons nous concentrer sur la création de contenus marketing et
publicitaires que nous postons sur nos sites corporate et dont nous faisons la
promotion au travers de Twitter, Facebook, LinnkedIn afin d'obtenir des RT et autres
relais de type "Earned".
5. Les blogueurs externes ont bien plus d'abonnés et de crédibilité que nos propres
Blogs. Il suffit qu'ils relaient nos contenus ou écrivent des articles sur nous et nous
aurons plein de trafic sur nos Landing Pages corporate.
6. Les Blogs, c'est du passé. Twitter and Facebook sont bien plus à la mode!
Je pourrais réfuter ces arguments qui sont clairement le fruit d'une méconnaissance des
mécanismes de l'Inbound Marketing [domaine en fait peu connu par nos équipes Marketing
traditionnelles!], mais voici plutôt:
6 bonnes raisons de mettre vos propres Blogs au coeur de votre
stratégie Paid Owned Earned:
1. Les Blogs générent des Contenus variés, ce qui est au coeur d'une démarche POE
2. Les Contenus créent des opportunités de partage au travers des autres médias
POE, dont Twitter, LinkedIn, Viadeo... et de relais par les autres blogueurs influents
[Earned].
3. Les Contenus partagés créent de la visibilité [de manière naturelle, organique, dans
les moteurs de recherche] et de la crédibilité [les blogueurs créent la perception
de "thought leadership"],
4. Les Contenus visibles et crédibles permettent aux prospects de vous contacter
[inbound marketing], mais aussi, avant, de nourrir leur réflexion [meilleur nurturing]
et de réduire leur cycles d'achat et de vente.
5. Blogs et Evènements sont complémentaires et se renforcent mutuellement. En
effet, les évènements créent du contenu [eg desccriptifs d'ateliers et présentations
postées dans Slideshare et intégrées dans des Blogs], et les Blogs créent du trafic
pour les évènements. Bénéfice complémentaire, un Blog exploité conjointement avec
Slideshare permet de mettre très rapidement des présentations à disposition des
participants à une manifestation.
6. Les Experts sont nombreux et beaucoup d'entre-eux disposent de contenus variés,
au delà des seuls points de vue originaux: Présentations existantes ou créées pour
un évènement [à poster bien sûr sur Slideshare], relais d'articles issus de leur veille/
curation, annonces de réunions et autres évènements liés à leur domaine...
Je peux témoigner de l'intérêt des Blogs propres en environnement
B2B:
Ma propre expérience d'animateur du Club Alliances [éditeurs SaaS] et du Club Cloud
des Partenaires [fournisseurs et partenaires Cloud] m'a montré la puissance de l'intégration
de Blogs au coeur de ce que Marketor et moi avons appelé depuis plusieurs années
maintenant une "Infrastructure Marketing 2.0".

3. 2012.06.17 - Owned Blogs - Club Cloud des Partenaires - Loic Simon
View more PowerPoint from Club Cloud des Partenaires
Alors, prêts à démarrer et à nourrir votre/vos propre(s) blog(s)?
Loic Simon
Cloud Channel Development Executive - IBM
www.clubcloud.blogspot.com
loic_simon@fr.ibm.com
+33 6 76 75 40 71
Content marketing : 5 bonnes raisons
de lancer votre blog
Le blog d’entreprise, un gadget ? Et pourtant, c’est grâce à ce moyen peu coûteux, au cœur
de toute bonne stratégie d’inbound et de content marketing, que vous pourrez durablement
vous démarquer de vos concurrents en créant une relation privilégiée avec vos cibles. Cinq
bonnes raisons de vous laisser tenter.
Raison n° 1 : pour attirer de nouveaux clients, ciblés et qualifiés
● Le Web vous offre un espace d’expression illimité, profitez-en : vous avez tout le
loisir de communiquer sur vos services, vos valeurs ou votre activité. Une publication
riche et régulière d’articles booste le développement de votre présence en ligne,
en adéquation avec votre identité et votre image de marque.
● Optimisé pour le Web, ce contenu vous permet de renforcer vos mots clés, et
ainsi d’apparaître plus facilement en première page des résultats de recherche sur
Google. L’objectif : être trouvé par vos cibles et générer du trafic !

4. ● Vous vous adressez à votre coeur de cible et l’amenez vers vous : l’occasion de
conserver la trace de vos visiteurs et de mettre en place un nurturing, en leur
fournissant régulièrement le contenu qui leur permettra d’avancer dans leur réflexion
et de revenir vers vous au moment opportun.
Raison n° 2 : pour communiquer directement avec votre public
● Le schéma de vente traditionnel a bien changé : aujourd’hui, l’internaute se met lui-
même en quête des informations dont il a besoin avant de procéder à un achat. Sur
le segment du BtoB, près de 93% des acheteurs vont chercher une réponse à
leur(s) question(s) sur Internet, via un moteur de recherche ou auprès de leur
communauté. A vous d’être là pour leur répondre !
● Abolissez les barrières : qu’elle soit en phase de sensibilisation, d’investigation ou
de validation d’une solution, vous avez tout à gagner à communiquer en direct avec
votre cible. Vous établissez un lien en direct avec vos prospects et vous montrez
proactifs dans la résolution de leurs problématiques.
Raison n° 3 : pour affirmer votre expertise
● Un blog reflète vos idées et votre façon d’appréhender votre domaine d’expertise et
votre marché. Même si vous n’êtes pas le seul à posséder ces compétences, vous
défendez votre manière de conduire votre business.
● Actualité de votre profession, analyse de tendances métier, partage de contenus
pertinents, retours d’expérience… Votre activité vous offre une matière solide pour
alimenter vos publications, et démontrer au passage l’étendue de votre expertise.
● Vous savez de quoi vous parlez, et vous le faites bien ? En partageant vos
connaissances, vous sensibilisez votre public à votre problématique.
L’occasion de booster votre crédibilité et d’inciter vos interlocuteurs à vous suivre.
Raison n° 4 : pour favoriser l’engagement de vos cibles
● Wikipédia a raison : « Le blog d’entreprise permet une communication moins
officielle, plus réactive et une interactivité en temps réel ».
● Grâce aux commentaires postés sur votre blog, aux réponses aux questions que
vous posez à vos lecteurs (live chat, formulaires de contact, etc.) et aux statistiques
de consultation (pages les plus vues, mots clés les plus recherchés, contenus les
plus partagés), vous affinez votre connaissance de vos prospects et de vos
clients. Vous êtes chaque jour davantage en mesure de leur proposer des solutions
en parfaite adéquation avec leurs attentes.
● Ecoutés, ces derniers se sentent plus proches de vous. Dans une relation de
confiance, ils ont envie de s’engager à vos côtés. Votre communauté grandit ; vous
vous démarquez par rapport à la concurrence.
Raison n° 5 : pour développer vos ventes, vos marges et votre
business
● Vous avez bonne réputation en ligne ? Grâce à l’ensemble des raisons que nous
venons de citer, nul doute que l’impact principal se situera sur votre génération
de leads et votre capacité à convertir un public séduit en prospects, puis des
prospects engagés en clients.
Vous l’avez compris, le contenu reste votre meilleur outil de création de trafic et
de fidélisation : selon une étude Forrester Research, il arrive en première position des
solutions pour faire revenir un internaute sur un site. Une stratégie de communication
efficace doit cependant être intégrée : il est nécessaire de faire vivre son blog en relayant
les messages sur les canaux pertinents, en prenant garde à adapter son message et son

5. contenu au relais utilisé.
Vous aimeriez lancer votre blog mais vous n’avez clairement pas de temps à y
consacrer ? Vous avez besoin de savoir-faire, de compétences et de stratégies
adaptées ? Découvrez nos offres et contactez-nous, nous avons la réponse à votre
besoin. A bientôt !
Posté par Faustine Amoré
Experte en stratégie de contenu
Depuis 2012, Faustine collabore avec 1min30 pour aider les entreprises à établir leur
notoriété et leur expertise autour de la création et la diffusion de contenus personnalisés,
notamment digitaux, via une approche et une méthodologie adaptés à l’univers du Web.
Entrepreneure spécialisée dans la conception et l'exécution de stratégies éditoriales,
Faustine est par ailleurs auteur et scénariste. Elle passe sa vie à écrire, donc.
Extending the life of your content
By Claire Atwell Posted Mar 29, 2012 Filed in: Inbound Marketing, Search Engine
Optimization, Blogging, Internet Marketing, Clients
One of the most important factors of
Search Engine Optimization is regularly
posting good content on your website. But
a list of your favorite TV shows or what you
ate for breakfast isn’t exactly ideal. In a
perfect world, you should be consistently
creating compelling content that is relevant
to your target audience and optimized for
keywords you’d like to rank highly for.
But realistically, coming up with something
brand-new to post to your blog every week
can be a huge time burden, especially
when your primary concern is to serve your
customers. So, why not extend the life of
content you already have? These can be
articles you’ve written for other
publications, marketing materials your
company uses or presentations from talks or seminars.
Here’s a recent example of some content repurposing we did for one of our clients we help
with SEO, the Raleigh business and intellectual property law firm Whitmeyer Tuffin, PLLC.,
which produced some very successful results.
1. It started with a lecture.
Randy Whitmeyer often lectures to classes at local universities on intellectual property
law. Such was the case a few weeks ago, when Randy spoke to Dr. Ted Baker’s
entrepreneurship students at N.C. State. Naturally, he put together a powerpoint
presentation to accompany his talk covering intellectual property basics for entrepreneurs.

6. 2. The presentation was uploaded to slideshare...
Rather than file it away for the next lecture, we added his presentation to the Whitmeyer
Tuffin slideshare account so the information could be viewed and shared easily. The firm
uses slideshare fairly frequently to publish presentations, which are then added to their
website. Not only do these slides inform current and potential clients, it also establishes the
Whitmeyer Tuffin attorneys as thought leaders in their industry.
3. And repurposed into a blog post..
Extracting and tweaking the information from this particular presentation would create
more SEO value for their website than just embedding the slideshare. So, we used the
biggest takeaway points to write an optimized blog post, the Top 10 Intellectual Property
Mistakes Made by Emerging Companies. Because Randy had already put thought in to the
presentation, it wasn't difficult or time-consuming to recycle the information from the slides
for the website.
4. Which was submitted to directories and shared on Twitter.
To get the most out of any content you post, it should be promoted across the web to drive
traffic back to the site and (hopefully) generate a few external links. This is usually pretty
successful for an interesting, informative post such as this one, particularly when shared in
the right places. The blog post became the subject of a Whitmeyer Tuffin tweet, and was
submitted to several directories geared toward entrepreneurs.
5. The result?
The post was viewed hundreds of times in the first five days after being shared, and is
now the second-most viewed page on the site (after the homepage.) The post’s link on the
Startups subreddit drove 136 new visits alone. Overall, traffic to the Whitmeyer Tuffin site
has more than doubled since last month, primarily due to directory referrals. The post is also
ranking on the first page of Google for intellectual property mistakes.
This is just one example of how content that's already been created can be recycled
into a successful website post. Where are some other places you look for site content to
repurpose?
B2B Startup Marketing | Blog Your Way
to Leads
By Joel York on February 29, 2012
B2B startup marketing is tough. It used to be that you
could polish off a high level message and a slide deck
and let the salesperson handle it from there. Today,
online marketing is the primary driver of revenue at the
typical B2B startup. The new breed of B2B buyer
expects your online content to be engaging, valuable
and deep, and is unlikely to engage your salesperson if
you don’t deliver. However, B2B content can be
excruciatingly difficult to produce. It’s technical, complex,
dry and requires deep subject matter expertise to be

7. truly valuable. Plus, it usually must be done on a
shoestring budget, yesterday.
The B2B Startup Marketing Blog
Imperative
Every B2B startup marketing professional knows that
they need a blog, but not everyone recognizes it’s
central importance in getting the B2B startup marketing
effort off the ground. After all, its just a corporate blog,
and who reads corporate blogs right? Wrong! Perhaps it’s the terminology that is getting in
the way. Your corporate blog should a) not be corporate and b) not be a blog, as in a Web
log of what’s going on at your company. What it should be is a publishing platform for
creating engaging, valuable and deep content for the new breed of B2B buyer by following
the Top Ten Be’s of the Best B2B Blogs. But, that’s just the beginning. A successful blog
should provide enormous leverage to your B2B startup marketing effort and enable you to
generate leads faster, cheaper and more effectively.
The Shortest Path to Deep Content
Creativity is a process, not a plan. Turning technical, complex, dry B2B marketing content
into something interesting, engaging and compelling doesn’t just happen because you set
a date to complete a new video or whitepaper. You need time to think it over. Free your
creative juices. Then, hone your ideas into something really cool. In the meantime, you can
blog.
Your B2B startup marketing blog should be a crucible of creativity. You can try out your
ideas piecemeal, one post at a time, until they converge into that fantastic whitepaper,
webinar or video series. Regular readers of Chaotic Flow (thank you!) will recognize that
this is an integral aspect of how I develop this blog.The Top Ten Do’s and Don’ts of SaaS
Success didn’t just spring into my mind all at once: one, two three…ten. They are a result of
ideas I played out one post at a time. This is the case for all the whitepapers you see over
on the right. Most often, I will outline a series of blog posts with the intent that if they turn out
good enough, I can quickly and easily reshape them into a whitepaper.
Get Instant Results Through SEO and Social Media
On the Web, the medium is quite literally the message. As you hone your great ideas one
post at a time on your B2B startup marketing blog, you immediately open online channels
for demand generation. Instead of waiting three months for results as you write and rewrite
that magnum opus whitepaper or produce that expensive viral video, you can be generating
leads today through SEO and social media with the half-baked ideas on your B2B startup
marketing blog. And leads, today not tomorrow, are uniformly the number one priority of
every B2B startup marketing plan. You have to master some technical online marketing
tricks to do this, but they are not difficult. Just start every blog post with a keyword in mind,
and SEO as you write. Then, make sure to spread your posts through RSS, LinkedIn,
Twitter, etc., building back links along the way. That’s about all there is to it. Really.
Integrate Blog Content Into the Buying Experience
Don’t let your blog hang off the side of your website. If you follow the two tips above to
leverage your B2B startup marketing blog as a publishing platform, then you should have
lot’s of great stuff you want your prospects and customers to read. You can re-purpose

8. your blog content into presentations, brochures, videos, and whitepapers, but you can also
use it pretty much as is throughout your website, marketing campaigns and newsletters. In
fact, the RSS feed from your B2B startup marketing blog can be used to accomplish this
automatically as you publish new content.
Capture Your Prospects
If you treat your B2B startup marketing blog as a corporate blog, your prospects will probably
ignore it, so you probably won’t be thinking about lead capture. However, if you follow the
Top Ten Be’s of the Best B2B Blogs and you buy into the publishing platform recipe above,
then your prospects will be flocking to your B2B startup marketing blog in droves. You
should be thinking about lead capture. Be sure to encourage your readers to subscribe to
your RSS feed, follow you on Twitter, and wherever else you publish your blog content. That
will keep them coming back to read and engage, if not yet to buy. If you have a free trial,
make sure your readers know it. And, there is no harm in mixing the occasional product
announcement or highlight into your otherwise unbiased, useful, engaging blog posts.
You’ve worked hard to make your B2B startup marketing blog useful for your prospects;
make sure you capture your leads.
69% of Businesses Attribute Blogging
to Increased Leads [Data]
Posted by Rebecca Corliss
Fri, Sep 23, 2011 @ 04:00 PM
HubSpot customers are leaders in inbound marketing, but in 2011, which strategies were
most effective for converting visitors and leads?
The 2011 HubSpot ROI Study, conducted by two MBA students from MIT and Babson,
found that 69% of businesses surveyed attributed their lead generation success to blogging.
The study also found that 75% of businesses believed SEO was a primary factor. Social
media came in third with 47%, just a hair shy of triple that of paid search.

9. So what does this mean for marketers today?
If blogging is not yet a key factor in your marketing strategy, it may be time to clean out
the closet and evaluate how your other marketing channels are helping you reach your
marketing goals -- or not. Whatever channel or strategy is performing the worst, commit to
putting it aside for five months to give yourself some time to start a blog.
Afraid you don't have the chops for blogging? Write down three questions that your
customers have asked you in the past month or so. Then answer one of those questions
aloud to a friend or colleague who doesn't know the topic well. After you've successfully
verbally communicated your answer to your friend, run to a computer and draft out your
answer in written form. If done right, blogging will also help you dramatically improve
your search engine optimization, which also proves to be a key lead generating factor for
businesses. So get to it, and start blogging. You can do it!
Did this data surprise you? Does the data reflect your own marketing results?
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/25785/69-of-Businesses-Attribute-
Blogging-to-Increased-Leads-Data.aspx#ixzz1yysIHu34
41 Fresh Blog Post Ideas For Your
Company Blog
Posted by Janet Aronica
Mon, Sep 19, 2011 @ 03:15 PM
This is an excerpt from our new ebook – 100 Content Ideas for Community Managers. For
tips like these for Twitter and Facebook, download
the eBook here.
Creating consistent and helpful blog content is a
great way to build community and trust around your
brand for your prospects. It's how you draw the right
potential customers to your website. But cranking
out daily content is challenging. How can you keep
the blog post ideas flowing? How can you keep the
content fresh and prevent yourself from re-hashing
the same old thing.
Here’s a brainstorm of some ideas to get you
started, or just keep you going.
Multi-media and Visuals
1. Do a screencast with Screenr of your product and
share it on your blog.
2. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video, or
show the steps in a series of photos.
3. Create a music video for your company and post it on the blog.
4. Share a cartoon or create an original one.
How-to’s and Tips
5. Write a how-to article. Give instructions with screenshots or photos on the steps someone
needs to take to do something.
6. Point out common mistakes in your industry and offer solutions on how to fix or avoid

10. them.
7. Offer a list of benefits for doing something.
8. Share a list of some things to avoid.
9. Relate your how-to content to a current event or a celebrity. Example: “5 _____ Lessons
from Lady Gaga” or “What the Election Teaches Us About ____”
Use Existing Content
10. Take the contrarian position – Find someone else’s article that you agree or disagree
with. Introduce your blog post with what you specifically agree or disagree with it, and
support your argument with a few concise points.
11. Do a weekly or daily links-roundup of relevant news for your community.
12. Find tips in other content, create a list of those tips and give links to those articles as the
sources.
13. Share an excerpt from an ebook or white paper with a call to action to download it for the
rest of the information.
14. Share an excerpt from an upcoming webinar with a call to action to get the rest of the
content in the webinar.
15. Share your slides from a recent presentation.
16. Share conference takeaways.
17. Do a round-up of last year’s/last month’s/last week’s most popular posts.
18. Re-interpret existing content: Collect the top motivational YouTube videos for your
audience, top ebooks, top webinars or infographics.
Incorporate Other Platforms
19. Create a Slideshare presentation of new statistics related to your space and share that
in a blog post. Tag the Slideshare presentation with relevant keywords for your company to
leverage SEO benefits of the platform.
20. Ask a question on Twitter and share the results with a Storify embed.
21. Collect Tweets from a webinar or conference hashtag, show them off with Storify and
offer your own takeaways in the blog post.
Research
22. Respond to industry research with your own perspective. Offer a fresh angle to spark
conversation.
23. Do a survey with Survey Monkey among your community members and create an
infographic based on the results.
24. Do a poll of your Twitter community with a Twtpoll or your Facebook community with a
Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.
25. Do an in-depth case study about one company, or offer a few examples of how other
companies do something successfully.
Thought Leadership
26. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog.
27. Get experts to offer a tip and do a round-up of their recommendations.
28. Feature guest posts from industry experts.
29. Publish responses to frequently asked questions about your industry.
30. Create a list of trends to watch.
31. Compare and contrast: Different products, different approaches, different companies,
different people, different places, etc.
32. Do a review of other non-competitive products or services that your community cares
about.
33. Be a journalist: Be the first in your space to offer industry takeaways about breaking
news.
34. Explain what a current event or topic in the news means for your industry or community.
Example: “What ____ Means for ____.” “Why _____ Matters for _____.”

11. 35. De-bunk common myths.
Make it About Your Community
36. Interview your favorite customer.
36. Post a Flickr slideshow of pictures from a recent event.
37. Run a contest and give away something relevant to your community.
38. Ask for guest posts from community members.
39. If you have company news to share, talk about it in a way that makes it about the reader.
Example: If someone gets promoted, talk about how why were successful. Inspire your
audience.
40. Publish a post relevant to the current season or holiday.
41. Outline the top practical use cases for your product, service etc.
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23973/41-Fresh-Blog-Post-Ideas-
For-Your-Company-Blog.aspx#ixzz1yysnWZsQ
How to Overcome the 7 Most Crippling
Blogging Challenges
Posted by Corey Eridon
Wed, Jan 18, 2012 @ 10:15 AM
We hear it all the
time: "I know
blogging is
important, but
..." "But I don't
have any
time." "But I can't
write." But, but,
but. Well luckily,
every business
blogging challenge
we've heard has a
solution that you
can implement
immediately if you
truly want to keep
that New Year's
blogging resolution. Take a look at the most common objections we hear to starting or
maintaining a regular blogging regiment, and learn how you can overcome those
impediments to become a business blogging rock star.
1. "I don't know how to design my blog."
First of all, make sure your blog resides on a subdomain or subdirectory of your website. For
example, blog.hubspot.com or hubspot.com/blog. It would be a bad idea for us to publish our
blog on a different domain, like hubspotblog.com, because our website would not reap any
SEO credit.
Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about the layout of your blog. It doesn't have

12. to be complicated! There are a few components you should include, though. First, you ought
to have social follow and sharing buttons as part of every blog post. If you don't know the
difference between the two types or how to include them on your blog, check out our guide
to creating social sharing and follow buttons. You'll also want to include post previews,
categorization by subject matter so readers can easily find more information about the
subject matters that interest them, and calls-to-action so you can convert blog readers into
leads. There are many other things you can include on your blog, but if you start with the
basics we've mentioned here, you'll be off to a great start.
2. "Who has the time?"
Not being able to find the time to blog is a very common problem. Lessen the burden by
asking your CMO if you may require employees to contribute a certain number of posts
per month. This is something HubSpot has implemented with great success; it also offers
multiple perspectives in your content, letting different areas of expertise shine through and
benefit your readers. You can also lighten the load by reaching out to guest contributors,
which also gives you the opportunity to benefit from their reach and possibly get a valuable
inbound link.
But to find time for you to blog (and ensure your employees keep up their end of the bargain)
it's wise to work off of deadlines. Staring at a blank page can be intimidating and often
results in wasted hours or, worse, no blog post at all. Set and enforce reasonable deadlines
for blog submissions so both you and your employees stay accountable.
Finally, check out some of our tips on how to blog faster. If you're committed to business
blogging, you will have to sacrifice some time in your day to make it happen; them's the
breaks. But it can be a much less timely endeavor if you follow some of these suggestions
for faster blogging.
3. "There's nothing to write about."
When drafting this post, I reached out to my Twitter community to ask them their most
common question. Kate Brodock responded immediately with a very common struggle --
lack of good topics -- and a great solution. Go to your RSS and read your industry's news.
You might find a timely topic about which you should report -- for which Google and by
extension your SEO manager will love you -- or you'll simply get inspiration by reading all of
the things happening in your industry.
You can
also take a trip to visit your sales team to ask them some of the common questions they
are receiving from prospects. These can provide great fodder for blog posts because of the
potential for creating evergreen content, not to mention that if everyone's having an issue,
you certainly want to be the one to provide a valuable answer!
You'll probably find that some days you're teeming with great content ideas, and other days
the well has run dry. On the days when your creativity spikes, document your topic ideas
in an editorial calendar to which you can refer on those days when you're suffering writer's
block. Or simply consult our list of 100 blog content ideas that can help get you out of a
blogging rut.
4. "I'm not a writer."
Not everyone is a natural writer. But many of the things that typically trip up employees
when they're asked to blog is not a writing inability; it's hang-ups that plague them from

13. either the depths of their subconscious, or possibly high school English class. Make sure
you and anyone else who is worried about being a "bad writer" knows that blogging has a
totally different set of rules. To be a great blogger, all you have to do is write about what you
know in a way that's natural to you. Don't get caught up in fancy language; frankly, it makes
your blog less engaging, anyway. I always tell people to write like they speak, and not worry
about length. When you've said what you want to say, you're done, and you can move on!
And don't forget that people love visual content. Consider shooting a quick how-to video, or if
you're graphically inclined, doodle a humorous cartoon that comments on your industry. You
can even curate a list or publish excerpts from some of the long-form content (e.g. ebooks,
whitepapers) you've already written. If you're having trouble stringing sentences together,
leverage your other talents and assets to keep your blog fed.
5. "I don't know what to look for in a freelancer."
If you're really not up for the task of writing, there's always the option to hire a freelance
writer. But if you've ever tried or talked to someone who has, you may be scared away from
the experience because of unreliable or under-qualified writers. To ensure you're working
with a great writer, treat them like another employee of your company. Talk to them on the
phone, ask them about their expertise in your industry, ask for several writing samples that
pertain to the topics you discuss on your blog. If you treat this relationship like one between
an employee and employer, you'll find a more reliable freelance writer that understands your
industry.
That also means, however, that you may have to pay a little bit more to get the quality you
need. This is particularly true for those in a complex industry. Invest the money and time up
front to train your freelance writer to ensure they understand your business model, industry,
and blog objectives; once you are both on the same page, you'll be able to pull back and
know that you've put your blog content into safe, reliable hands.
6. "Nobody is reading my blog."
You're putting time and effort into creating remarkable blog content, consistently, and then
nobody reads it. That's a huge bummer. If you're creating valuable, helpful content on a
regular basis, there are a couple of things you can do to get your blog more visibility.
First, put a link to your blog on your homepage and in your navigation so it can be easily
accessed from anywhere on your website. Follow this logic by also including it on each of
your social media accounts, all of which provide the option to include at least one outbound
link in your profile information. And speaking of social media, are you sharing your blog
content on all of these social networks? If not, get started. Social media and blogging are
inextricably tied. By tweeting and posting your blog content, you will grow your social reach,
and by growing your social reach, you will get more visitors to your blog.

14. Finally, consider that one of the most common ways people find information is through
organic search. Your blog posts should all be optimized for relevant keyword phrases,
particularly the less competitive long-tail keyword phrases. As you create more and more
keyword optimized content, you'll be found more frequently in search engines and receive a
big boost in blog visitors from organic search traffic.
7. "I don't know how to prove my blog's ROI."
A lot of people have anecdotally accepted that business blogging is important for marketing
success. But they don't believe it enough to start doing it. Is your boss one of those people?
Are you one of those people? Consider these data points about companies who blog: they
enjoy 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links, have a 62% cheaper cost
per lead, and 57% of them have acquired a customer through their company blog.
Once you get started, showing the ROI from a consistently updated business blog will be
cake. Generate monthly reports that show how much traffic your blog has driven, how many
times your content is shared in social media and how much your social reach has grown,
how many inbound links you've received, and how many leads you've received from calls-
to-action on your blog posts. Presenting your boss with indisputable data that proves the
ROI of your blog is the best way to ensure it sticks around as part of your inbound marketing
strategy.
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30896/How-to-Overcome-the-7-
Most-Crippling-Blogging-Challenges.aspx#ixzz1yywPytUo
Everything You Need to Sell Your Boss
on Business Blogging
Posted by Paul Rios
Thu, Dec 29, 2011 @ 10:30 AM
You're an inbound marketing convert. You
believe in the importance of creating
relevant and interesting content for your
prospects to consume. You've been

15. reading up on search engine optimization,
and have started applying the best
practices to your website. You even
opened up a company Facebook page and
Twitter account, though your venture into
Google+ is still tenuous. All of that has
been pretty easy to integrate into your day
to day marketing responsibilities, but
there's one thing you really want to make
more time for: blogging.
There's just one problem. Writing blog
content on a regular basis requires time
that you just don't have. To get the time,
you'll have to lobby your boss for more
resources, and that means convincing your
boss that blogging is actually worth your
time, your effort, and his money. So how
do you go about doing that? This blog post (how meta is that?) will give you the facts,
research, and know-how to explain the benefits of business blogging to a tentative boss and
debunk many of the common myths inbound marketing professionals are frequently faced
with during these difficult conversations.
Is blogging really effective? What results will we
see?
Nothing like some cold, hard data to prove a point. How does this sound?
● The average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors, 97% more
inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages. (Tweet This Stat!)
● HubSpot's 2011 ROI Study shows that 69% of businesses attribute their lead
generation success to blogging. (Tweet This Stat!)
● 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. (Tweet
This Stat!)
● The Nielsen Company shows that US internet users spend 3X more time on blogs
and social networks than in email. (Tweet This Stat!)
● Inbound marketing, of which blogging is a crucial part, costs 62% less per lead than
outbound marketing. (Tweet This Stat!)
Bet you got your boss' attention now, eh? You can find more statistics to impress your boss
and make your point in this compilation of 100 interesting inbound marketing data points.
But won't blogging open us up for negative
comments?
Whenever you put anything out on the internet, you open yourself up to negative comments.
You can't let that stop you from creating a meaningful internet presence. That being said,
blog comments are not only far less frequent than they were even just a few years ago, but
the importance with which they are regarded has also decreased. If you're operating your
business on the up and up and your content is honest and genuine, you have little to fear in
terms of commenter backlash.
And just as with any reputation management issue you're confronted with in business, if
you face it head on and operate as a compassionate human being instead of a faceless
corporation, you have the opportunity to turn those naysayers into your biggest fans.

16. This sounds like a huge time investment. Who is
going to write it all?
To determine how much time you'll need to dedicate to your blog, you have to take a look at
the competition. Are your organic competitors blogging twice a week? Multiple times a day?
Not at all? To outperform them with your inbound marketing, you need to also outperform
them with blogging.
Once you've determined the frequency, you'll know how much support you need. Can you
handle this yourself? Or do you need a new hire dedicated exclusively to blogging? Many
organizations, including HubSpot, require specific employees to contribute a minimum
number of blog posts a month. This solution helps feed your blog with quality content,
provides more than one voice for a valuable mix of perspectives, and doesn't put undue
burden on any one member of your organization.
Does anyone here even know how to blog?
Blogging doesn't come naturally to everyone, but the barrier to entry is very low. Think of
it this way. If you're in sales, you can answer questions about your products and services,
right? If you're in marketing, you can write copy that positions your company correctly, right?
If you're a C-level exec, you sure didn't get to that position without knowing a thing or two
about your industry, right? You have the knowledge you need to blog, you just need to learn
the best practices that make up a great blog post. Luckily, those best practices are not only
simple, but we've already written them all down for you.
The best blogs aren't long, complex, and full of stuffy language and industry jargon. They're
succinct, specific, and engaging. As long as your topic is helpful, you can write just like you
talk -- and your prospects will love it. Oh, we also came up with 100 content ideas to make it
even easier for you to get started.
Will this help with our SEO and social media
presence?
Yes, yes, yes. Not only is blogging one of the most important means of achieving SEO
greatness, it will be extremely difficult to see consistent and meaningful SEO
improvements without blogging. One of the most important ways a search engine knows
to return your website in search results is based on the quality of your content and the
frequency at which you publish it. Blogging is a simple, low-cost solution to this. Blogging
also makes it far more likely that your content will be shared on social media networks and
receive inbound links from other websites, two more crucial aspects that boost your SEO
street cred.
Speaking of social media, you can (and should) add social media share and follow buttons
to every blog post you write. If you don't know how to create these buttons, here's a cheat
sheet that will tell you everything you need to know. Your blog content will not only help you
get more followers on your social media networks, but your social media networks will help
you get more blog readers. Blogging and social media are two peas in a pod; as your reach
expands on one, so it does on the other.
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30278/Everything-You-Need-to-Sell-
Your-Boss-on-Business-Blogging.aspx#ixzz1yyxGDOoO

17. Cloud Channel Marketing - Mes 6 plus
6 prédictions pour 2012 - Loic Simon,
Club Cloud des Partenaires
Envoyer par e-mailBlogThis!Partager sur TwitterPartager sur Facebook
En tant qu'animateur du Club Cloud des Partenaires, je constate que le Marketing vers,
avec, de et entre nos partenaires Cloud évolue pour prendre en compte la poussée des
médias / réseaux sociaux, elle-même accélérée par la pénétration des smartphones et
autres tablettes, mais également par les inévitables restrictions budgétaires [crise oblige!].
Après des prédictions 2011 un peu polémiques [mais assez "spot on" dans les faits], voici 6
plus 6 prédictions plus "mesurées" pour 2012:
2012 sera une année de transition pour les équipes Marketing qui
continueront à...
1. Hésiter à co-financer des actions mutualisées de Marketing d'attraction [inbound].
2. Allouer la majorité des budgets au télémarketing et aux événements clients.
3. Créer des landing pages publicitaire remplies de formulaires inquisiteurs [et
repousseurs]
4. Faire des présentations désuètes remplies de bullet points, de logos publicitaires et
de ©.
5. Repousser la mise en oeuvre de Blogs par crainte [fausse barbe!] d'un manque de
contenus réguliers.
6. Exploiter Twitter surtout comme un outil promotionnel et publicitaire.

18. Mais 2012 sera l'année propice pour...
1. Exploiter vraiment les Medias Sociaux et autres outils du Marketing 2.0 [cf image ci-
dessus]
2. Organiser la production et le partage de contenus d'experts, notamment au travers
de Blogs
3. Publier des documents réutilisables [eg des Powerpoint - pas des PDF - sans ©
décourageant...] et aider les partenaires et les clients à produire et à partager du
contenu.
4. Utiliser des applications SaaS pour gérer notre PRM [Partner Relationship
Management] et la collaboration entre nos partenaires.
5. Faire collaborer des coopétiteurs, en poussant notamment nos partenaires à
mutualiser des actions marketing avec leurs confrères.
6. Combiner "offline" et "online", en associant par exemple des
évènements "physiques" avec des contenus et actions en ligne.

19. Et vous, quelles sont vos prédictions pour 2012 ?
Loic Simon
Business Development - Partenaires Cloud
www.clubcloud.blogspot.com
loic_simon@fr.ibm.com - +33 6 76 75 40 71