Ideas for a company blog, or how to create a content plan

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Lena Shumnaya

29.07.22

Ideas For a Company Blog, or How To Create a Content Plan

Why does your company need a blog, what to write on it, where to get ideas, and how to create a plan that brings results.

Why Do Companies Blog

We advise you to develop a content plan so that you would always have something to write about — and your customers would always have something to read.

Showing expertise and increasing loyalty can be achieved with the help of the following.

The first thing — it’s free. Content helps the brand to make customers sure that it is an expert in its field. This attracts new users and motivates customers to continue following the company.

Provide answers to popular customer questions.

1.

Share useful content in your field.

2.

Talk about successful cases.

3.

Natively promote products or services.

4.

Attract targeted traffic to the website.

5.

Show your audience that you are the same living people.

6.

What a Content Plan Is

You need to answer 5 questions to create a content plan that earns results. Here they are.

How To Make a Content Plan For a Blog

We’re talking about filling tables later but first, let’s find out how to create the plan itself.

A content plan helps to prepare publications, and in general simplifies your work. Usually, it looks like a Google Sheets file with monthly plans. Some companies make an approximate content plan for six months. But the last two or three years have shown the world that planning so far is not always a good idea.

A content plan is a list of the content you hope to create with expectations for how it should be created. As a rule, the content plan includes topics, content ideas in brief, publication date, author and status ("in progress", "published", and so on).

Also, before coming up with topics, you need to divide future content by its type: expert, entertaining, educational, and advertising.

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Entertaining content. These are all sorts of articles like "Top-X of something". As a rule, these are articles that are so interesting to read while you’re procrastinating.

Educational content. Certainly the most useful for readers. Checklists, instructions, webinars — everything is here.

Advertising content. Sells the goods and services of the company. For example, if a brand develops a new product, it is worth writing an article about it.

Expert content is articles where you show what you are capable of and what you know. For example, the material you are currently reading is expert, as Swords shares its experience and shows that the team is well versed in content plans.

How will you create content?

How will you deliver your message?

Why is your business different?

What problem does your content solve?

Who is your content for?

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There will be no usual tips like "brainstorm with the team" or "think about what your target audience might be interested in". Too obvious. Therefore, we brought some ideas that can save you when all the obvious ones are used already.

Where To Look For Ideas For Your Content Plan

Pick a few big topics first, like "writing process" and "customer care". Then break each topic into smaller ones. For the "writing process", it will be, for example, "how to create a content plan", "interview reviewing checklist", and "tips from great copywriters". Then you can go to Google Trends or Keyword Planner and see what people are searching for on these topics.

Break Big Topics Into Smaller Ones

Try going to competitors' blogs to read what they publish and what kind of response their content receives from the audience. Think that some topics are poorly covered? Reveal this in your blog in detail. Notice some cool cases? Try making them even better.

Spy On Competitors

Check feedback in the comments and try to find the hot potato., Oscseta survey on social networks (or in an email newsletter). You don’t even have to invent anything — the audience is usually so thirsty for advice on what you have to write or do.
Simple rule: if five different people ask you the same question, then it is worth writing an answer article. You can even write the FAQ if there are too many such questions.

Find Out What Your Customers Want

Look at your articles that have collected the biggest number of views — these topics excite your target audience. Write a new article on a related topic or expand any part of the article. Also, pay attention to the format — checklists may goes better than long reads. Take this into account for the preparation of the following materials.
Also, look at articles that received less response and try to find the reason. Wrong format? Outdated information? Topic is too complicated? Find the flaws of the material and try to fix it.

Analyze Reader Reactions

Be careful, don’t get stuck! There are not only pictures for inspiration in this social network, but articles with images also. Just think how you can transform such a short format into an article [and post your works on Pinterest to attract new customers].

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Also, update thearticles that brings you good traffic.. These articles are at the top of your blog right now and should always be helpful to the reader. Even if the original version was published in 2019, make the necessary changes and signify that the article has been updated. As a rule, when users see that an article was published a long time ago, they close it without even reading it.

If you have, for example, an article with tips, make it into a checklist so that your customers could download and use it. At the same time, it is not necessary to remove the primary material from the publication — just replace the title and add new details orremove something.

Renew Old Posts In Different Formats

Let's get back to updating the articles. You can release new materials within the year, for example, “Top 20 Services For Marketers In 2022” or “Web Design Trends That Await Us In 2023”.

Christopher Nolan’s films have nothing to do with it. Change the time period mentioned in the article. For example, if you are writing about newsworthy events in autumn, do the same about other seasons.

Change Times

Create an article on an opposite topic to the one you’ve written already. If you have "How to Write a Good Blog Article" material, publish "How To Write a Bad Blog Article". Try changing your point of view.

Rotate The Topic For 180 Degrees

When you’re creating a content plan, the planned newsbreak is your best friend. Holidays, important dates, annual events. Write about what you know in advance and what fits your topic.

Prepare For The Event

Hint:

you can move the scheduled topics if there is important news.

For example, if your company sells airline tickets, the news about the opening of air services is something you need to cover as soon as possible.

Reacting to news is called newsjacking. If there are any changes in your area, be sure to write about them. People will look for useful and understandable materials on this topic, and you can attract and help them and at the same time.

React To News

Remember that you can ask the audience what it lacks? You can go further: find someone who likes your product, ask them why and write an article about it. We advise you to write carefully because users can easily feel lies in such articles. What material will you believe: "I took an SMM course two weeks ago and today I am earning 100,000 dollars a month" or "I took an SMM course two weeks ago and I can tell you how I found my first job in this field"?

Share Cases Of Your Audience

It is important not to lose ideas when you just have found them. Of course, you can just write down ideas in a list in your notes, but this is not enough for full-fledged work.

Therefore, here are several services that you can use to create a content plan

Tools And Services For Creating a Content Plan

Google Sheets

Typically, a content plan is compiled in the form of a plate or cards, which indicates the frequency of publications and topics.

Google Sheets is perfect for this. Look at our example.

If you like this option, keep a free content plan template from Swords.

FigJam

Any of the services is convenient — choose the one that your team likes best and the one that is suitable for your company. For example, Google Sheets is free, but unlimited boards in Trello have to be paid for.

This is a Figma tool for collaborating on building communication maps, but it can be used for content plans also. The number of cards is unlimited, so you can even build a huge tree of related articles.

Trello

In this task tracker you can create a template board in a couple of minutes and fill it in as you need. Move the article card from one column to another when the progress of the work changes. For example, if you start working on material, place the card in the In Progress column, and when the material is released, put it in Done.

Summary

The content plan is definitely necessary for the work to be coordinated. It’s easy as it is — you have your plan, you work by it, your articles are published regularly. This is important for your most loyal audience, your regular readers.

When you create a content plan in any tool that is convenient for you, make notes so that you don’t forget what exactly you wanted to write later. Also mark in what format you want your material to be released.

There are many ways to find ideas for your blog other than the traditional brainstorm. You can get a dozen of new materials from every finished article.

A blog allows the company to prove its expertise, attract potential customers and, ideally, make them talk about the product (which will attract even more customers). Creating content is way more expensive than targeting advertisement, but remember that content lasts longer.

Write it all down. All, we mean it. Ideas that accumulate, but do not yet fall into the nearest publication plan, are better to write down anyway. So nothing will be lost and it will be easy for you to get topics when nothing comes to mind.

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