The most effective content marketers are ones who are curious and continuously look for opportunities to grow. Keeping this in mind, what’s one question you have to either get started with blogging or to improve your current efforts?
If you see a question you can help answer, then please join the conversation!
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When to archive content and when to let it live? I struggle with blog content for products that no longer exist (don’t want customers to get the wrong idea about availability) or content that has featured employees that are no longer with the company. Any thoughts?
@FlywheelKinetic I think of a blog as a living, breathing organism. It’s important to keep it healthy. Here’s how you can do that:
Hope that helps!
how do you refrain from being repetative with your posts/ how do you come up with so many ideas.
Great questions @GMilliken. A few thoughts below:
how can you foccus more?
Great question @RYanuszewski. A few thoughts below:
Keep up the good work!
Justin
When is the right time to create a pillar page? If you only have a few blog posts say under 10, is that enough content to create a topic cluster?
@Ruchama Great question. I think you can definitely create a topic cluster with under 10 posts, but it’s ideal to focus on quality over quantity with pillar pages. Rather than focusing on the number of blog posts, I would identify the main topic you want to focus on and determine whether you have enough quality subtopics to cover that cluster. You can always update your pillar page later with more content!
Thank you for replying.
Hi @Champion , thanks for opening this thread! Maybe this is a question that Professor @kara_susvilla can help with as well.
I have been trying to brainstorm a few topic clusters for our digital marketing agency’s content marketing effort for 2021, but I feel frustrated at my inability to get into my Buyer Personas’ head. I know that my Buyer Personas are mid-level marketing managers who do not have the internal expertise/resources to do digital marketing in-house, but I am struggling to have a comprehensive list of all the possible questions and pain points to build my content around. Any advice on this?
Hi again @Johnson_Lim 
. That’s a great question. I actually used to work for a digital marketing agency before HubSpot, and have definitely faced this specific challenge before!
One of my favorite ways to really get into our buyer persona’s minds was talking to our sales team. Because they were always speaking to prospects, they had a lot of great insights into questions and pain points that potential customers had, helping me better understand our buyer personas. I would ask the sales teams questions such as “What are common challenges you’re hearing from prospects?” or “What’s one of our marketing services that people don’t quite understand?”. This would usually give me a lot of ideas just from conversations with the sales team.
If possible, ask if you can join a sales call or a discovery call with prospects. This can give you insight into the actual language that prospects are using, and help inform how you’re writing or speaking about certain topics. Happy to chat more during our upcoming Content Marketing Office Hour event. 
How to engage readers to my blog post? And how can I valuable source to my content that increases readers’ engagement?
Hi there @BAmin , a great way to drive readers to your new blog post is by sharing the post through social media or including it in any relevant email newsletters (if you have one for your company). Getting your blog linked or featured in other company blogs can also help drive new and relevant readers to your blog. To increase reader’s engagement in your blogs posts, try incorporating videos, images, or infographics that provide additional value to your content. Happy to chat more during our upcoming Content Marketing Office Hour event.
While preparing the blog strategy, shall we consider one blog at a time, or shall have a calendar for a month, six months, or the entire year?
On a different note, which are your favorite tools to assist you with the writing?
@KBhatnagar I recommend having a strategy of several blogs. The more you plan, the more opportunities you can identify gaps to fill as well as use the content you create to repurpose into something else like a guide or ebook.
As for tools, I recommend having the free Grammarly app. This will help you improve your writing.
How do you keep things fresh for your blog?
Great question @IJones. Think of your blog as a library of living content for the topics your business wants to be known for and build authority around. Sometimes new content may be created, but there’s something to be said about updating current content as opposed to publishing something new all the time. Think quality of content, not the number of posts.
When it comes to creating something new, consider how the new content adds to the library of existing content. What story is it trying to tell? Is it told anywhere else on your site? How does it connect to your other posts as well as landing/website pages on your site.
Keep up the good work!
Not so much a question, but a comment: I handle blog writing and social media management in my current job. You recommend sharing blog links on social media and I’ve heard that suggestion elsewhere as well. I have zero success doing that. Posts with a quick, witty caption, an image and a link to a blog reach just a handful of people and rarely get a like, let alone comments or shares. Social media companies also don’t like to direct users off their platforms because they can’t advertise to them any longer. In contrast, a recent post about how one of our teams got together for the first time in over a year, along with lots of photos, was highly popular. I’ve observed that over many months. Viewers want to read about people (maybe pets), not get directed to blogs. Thoughts?
Hi. My name is Anish and I am new here with a question. I do not have a business but want to start one. I want to start a blog. In HubSpot academy I found a course on blogging for business, but can I start a blog that will be my business and make a livelihood out of it? I see that there are bloggers who do not provide any service or sell any product of their own. At most they use affiliate links. If this is at all possible can you guys develop content for the same?