Tips for successful blogging abound, but most seem to relate to b2c. I know that a lot of our readers are from other businesses, and for me the b2c guidelines often miss the mark. So I was pleased to spot this "Eight tips for successful B2B blogs" posting over on Search Engine Land. And since a lot of our business readers also have their own b2b blogs, I thought I'd share it here. If nothing else, it's a useful way of benchmarking your current performance:

• "Post regularly, only when you have something meaningful to offer". It feels like we fall down horribly on the former, with our fits-and-starts mode of blogging, but actually we do average about 2 postings a month so perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. And I hope that we pick up points on the latter (6/10).
• "Incorporate images and other media". Been getting a bit better at this with all the Slideshares and gratuitous pictures of Bob Geldof (7/10).
• "Incorporate humor". Well, we try (8/10).
• "Be authentic". Is this conversational enough for ya? (9/10)
  
• "Be original". I'll admit that we come and go on this. Sometimes, we're really breaking new ground; sometimes we get all bee-in-the-bonnet thought-leaderish; sometimes, I know, we just tell you stuff about us. Hope you don't mind this schizophrenic approach (6/10).
  
• "Don't blatantly promote your stuff". I know that we score badly on this. In my defence, at least I always say upfront "this is a press release", so you can ignore it should you wish to keep your heart & mind pure. And actually, lots of readers said nice things about those social media news releases I was trialling late last year so perhaps this isn't quite the cardinal sin it's painted to be (4/10)
  
• "Create a code of conduct". This is the only with which I slightly disagree; I don't want to dictate to our readers the appropriate way to join our conversations, or insist on a precise citation format. If "posting a code of conduct will tell readers a lot about you and your company", perhaps I'm telling you that we're a little more chilled, nay, subsersive, than that - or perhaps it's because our readers, by and large, are the sort of early blogging adopters who know what they're about, and we don't need to patronise them with a code of conduct (0/10).
• "Stay focused". No doubt that we do that, all right. I would guess that virtually every All My Eye posting contains one of the following word stems: publish*, scholar*, informat*, librar*, data*. (Except the chicken one, I grant you) (8/10).

So, overall I make that 48/80, a very respectable 60%, which at my university was a sigh of relief and a scraped 2:1. Anyone want to share their own rating? (or insist that my paper be remarked?)

(Don't forget to check out Search Engine Land's original posting where they go into more detail about each of these tips.)

Labels: b2b, blogging