One of the biggest social media marketing mistakes I’ve seen companies make is to emulate the wrong blogs. Whether it’s The VAR Guy or Engadget, corporate bloggers look to popular independent blogs for ideas. To a certain extent, this is smart: the top blogs can have some great features and styles that are worth adopting. But, much of what they do can be unwise (or simply impossible) for you to implement. The reason for this is that different blog types carry their own objectives and constraints.

Think of content as a funnel. At the top is the widest sent of information available, the ability to write about any subject dealing with any company anywhere in the world. At the bottom is the narrowest of topics, tightly defined in order to appeal to the smallest of niche markets. This is how blogging works, with the mass media sites having the greatest flexibility in terms of the content they can use and corporate blogs having to hunt for ideas that are focused on promoting their capabilities while remaining sensitive to their clients.

Popular mass media blogs are frequent targets for emulation — and why not? When you look at a market’s top performers, doesn’t it make sense to do what they’re doing? In this case, fight your instincts. The largest, most popular blogs tend to have a range and dept of resources that few can match. You’ll notice this most in content. TechCrunch, for example, can write about any technology subject (loosely defined) that it chooses. It has a broad audience, freeing it of the constraints of trade blogs (e.g., The VAR Guy) that have to focus on a narrowly defined industry or set of companies. The mass media blogs can cover just about anything they want and have plenty of contributors.

Independent trade blogs, on the other hand, have some limits. In order to appeal to their core audiences, they have a smaller set of companies and topics at their disposal. But, like trade publications, they are relatively free within their chosen industries to address whatever they like. The constraints that exist are rarely a problem, except in the smallest of niches, because so much is fair game. These bloggers can also use the abundance of press releases put into the market for fresh content on slow news days.

For corporate bloggers, there isn’t nearly as much fodder available. You can’t write about your clients (except in very rare cases), and you can’t write about your competitors. If you’re covering industry trends, you need to be sensitive to client needs and perception. This is just common sense: the point of a corporate blog is to help you generate new business and inform your existing clients. You’re not breaking news. The net effect, though, is that your bucket of available content is quite small. You’ll need to invest extra time in identifying and fleshing out topics for your blog. But, you’ll produce powerful concepts, pointed directly at the needs of your clients and prospects.

Fortunately, you have more at your disposal than you realize:

• Click here to find out how you can fill your marketing blog with content you already have >>
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