In this tech B2B blog post guide, I want to share a soup-to-nuts (from starter to pudding!) guide to creating and distributing a tech B2B blog post: brief + research is the soup; writing as the entré; and distribution is the nuts. 😂
This guide is part of the Viewyonder ethos of sharing how we do things so you can see behind the curtain and even use this guide to do it yourself.
Blogs are created, written, and distributed by a team, and the writing of a blog is just one step in the middle.
This guide is for the whole team, especially for the person overseeing the process and the writer at the heart of it.
This guide is built from years of writing tech B2B blog posts, learning different approaches, and finding what I call "The Happy Path". Your path might be shorter. This guide might not be ideal for your particular situation. But you can adjust it -- it's a "guide" not a "rule". I hope you get some value out of it. if you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you.
The end-to-end tech B2B blog post process
There are four steps in the end-to-end tech B2B blog post process:
Normally steps 1 + 4 are very team oriented, and 2-3 are the traditional blog writer’s job. But different situations demand different approaches. Sometimes the blog writer just does step 3, but in other cases, all 4!
Step 1 - Brief
It’s tempting for the inexperienced or the over-worked/under-resourced to skip the brief because “common sense” says it will save time.
Skipping the brief won’t save time. It will make things worse. Skip the brief at your peril. Even doing a half-hearted attempt to save time will cost you later. Fair warning!
The brief is where the team put their heads together and it’s part ideas, part guide, part contract. It’s not something you have to slavishly follow — unless indicated — but it’s how you make this process faster *and* higher quality. You can also reuse briefs for other blogs.
Briefs really are a sensational power-up for your tech B2B blogs and content creation. You can use variations for other content like testimonials, case studies, slide decks... all sorts! Build up your own brief library!
Snapshot of what's in the blog post brief
The best way to create the Brief is to ask the team questions like these:
Why are we doing this?
What’s in it for us? What is the goal for this piece, and the bigger picture? Who is sponsoring this? Who will benefit downstream, like sales enablement or customer success?
Who are we doing this for?
Who is Dear Reader? What’s in it for them? What point do we want to make? What questions will they have? What’s their intent? What do we want them to do?
What are the blog mechanics?
Meta tags, heywords, style guide… What’s the header outline? Keywords? Meta-tags? On-page links? On-site links?
How will the content be distributed?
What’s the workflow to website. What atomization/derivations will we make? Which channels?
Blog post brief resources
Step 2 - Research
The point of the Research phase is to take the Brief and explore the inputs and outputs for the next stage, Writing.
It’s about desk research, talking to SMEs, and gathering all your ingredients together ready for you to cook up your first draft. While a cooking analogy is fun, I think it’s more like the scientific method.
Why Research aligns blogging to the scientific method
- The Brief stage is the hypothesis and pitching for the grant.
- The Research stage is creating the background and defining the method.
- Writing is performing the experiment, writing up your results, and getting some peer review.
- Distribution is publishing your experiment so that others can learn or repeat your experiment.
Even if you're a subject matter expert, it's important to do some desk research and get the input of others. If you're not the SME, then it's essential! In fact, if you're not the SME, then do your desk research both before and after talking with an SME so you can have a better informed discussion. Or you might just annoy the SME...
Step 3 - Writing
With our Brief in hand and our Research in the bag, now it’s time to get words on the page. Making sure you following the Style Guide and Editorial Process, the “simple” three steps to this are:.
- Do your Draft, composing it from the Brief, the Research, and your God given talent! 😉
- Review it with the client, an SME, and get the red pen out for edits.
- Revist the piece and create the Final copy.
The ideal process is that this is a smooth A, B, C, as easy as 1, 2, 3 over a couple of days. But we know reality aint ideal, so Editorial Flow is key to manage the process and get to Distribution.
Writing is, of course, the art of turning your Brief and Research into a quality tech B2B blog that can be Distributed. This whole guide might take the mystery out of it, but there's still plenty of artistic license (sic - British) required.
Step 4 - Distribution
Posting a blog is not as simple as copy, paste, and hit publish. Plus, posting is only one step in the distribution process. But what is this distribution process?
The simplest distribution process can be. just posting the blog post to your site, not forgetting to adjust all the brand stuff, adding the blog mechanics like meta-tags (see Yoast and similar), and making sure your on-page links and site interlinks all work. No 404s, people!
But to really get the value out of your investment in this tech B2B blog, you need to do more things like atomization, adding channels, and spending time on engagement.
Note: Paid media, such as paying publications for “advertorials”, isn’t included in this guide.
Briefs really are a sensational power-up for your tech B2B blogs and content creation. You can use variations for other content like testimonials, case studies, slide decks... all sorts! Build up your own brief library!
Other Viewyonder Guides
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5-step guide to creating your own internal positioning, an essential foundation for your go-to-market.
Blog Post
4-step guide to creating a < 1200 word blog post, from idea and brief, to final, atomization, and distribution.
Competitive Intelligence
Move from lo-fi best effort to professional and performant competitive intelligence.