This is my 1,539th blog entry for MSPmentor. Readers often ask me how I come up with content ideas. There are some obvious approaches (vendor cat fights…) and not so obvious approaches (checking the help wanted pages on Dice.com). If you’ve ever thought about launching or writing a blog for your customers and partners, here are 10 ways to find and generate new content.
First, my usual advice: Don’t launch a blog. Instead, spend a month or two writing draft blog entries in Microsoft Word or your preferred word processor. Can you update the journal once or twice a week? Is the content any good? Answer yes to both questions and you just might be ready to launch a blog.
But what should you write about? Here are some obvious topics for MSPs:
- New hires or executive promotions
- New customer wins; even if you can’t mention the company by name, you can provide clues about company size, vertical market focus, technology deployed, etc.
- Business milestones: Years in business, offices opened, acquisitions, number of customers, seats remotely managed, new geographies covered, etc.
- Technology partnerships
- Certifications earned — thought you need to be sure to lead with your own company brand, and talk about your company expertise rather than the vendor’s technology
- Special offers or promotions for your customers
- Upcoming events, business travel
- Anecdotes from recent meetings
- Reactions to industry news: Got a unique perspective on Microsoft, Cisco, etc. — share it. Don’t just “repeat” the news. Offer your company’s perspective on the news and what it means to your customers.
- Create a top 10 list.
That’s all for now. Time to grab some dinner with my sons. For a change, I’m home and my wife is traveling. But our sales and editorial teams will be back on the road real soon. There should be plenty of content as we blog live from six conferences from March 22 through April 30, 2010:
- Novell BrainShare
- NetSuite SuiteCloud Partner Conference
- Autotask Community Live
- Ingram Micro VTN
- HP Americas Partner Conference 2010 (anybody got a link?)
- Cisco Partner Summit 2010
I look forward to seeing you on the road. And online. If you follow any of the tips above please send me a link.
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Take a look at our 
Joe,
We’re trying to get you stuff to write about
Phil
Hi Phil: You already succeeded at that this week.
-jp
This is very good information. I have sent it to my staff at SMB Nation to encourage them to blog more. For example – we just hired a new bookeeper, Cathy, and we need to announce that locally.
thanks!
harrybbbb
@Harry admirable humility, especially from the founder of such an iconic and pioneering blog (the long lost nethealthmon)
Hey JP…as a social media mentor and coach, one of the things i recommend to our clients is to get a small notebook (not a computer) and jott down ideas. Look for where you experience great customer service or even lousy service and share your experiences and how your company would respond in a similar situation. Blogging is very powerful when it comes down to establishing creditability in the market place and something which many MSP’s simply overlook because of time commitments or lack of ideas…sometimes the best ideas come to you at the weirdest times.
You do an awesome job JP with your blog, congrats on breaking the trail.
Cheers
Stuart Crawford
Social Media Coach, Ulistic
http://www.ulistic.com
Great ideas. Now I just need someone to write an aticle about carving out time in the day to write!
Charlie O
Plexus IT
http://www.plexus-it.com
Harry@3: As Andy points out, SMB Nation never seems to be short on ideas
Stuart@5: I’m allergic to paper. I don’t know when exactly I made the transition, but I find writing with pen and paper painful these days. No joke…
Charlie@6: I tend to turn off email (or ignore it) when I blog. Only way to focus and carve out time for clear thoughts.
-jp