Social Media B2B

Anyone using content marketing as part of their social media for a B2B company knows that more content is better than less content. Not only does content help build your audience, but only part of that audience sees your content at any given time. This gives you license to put out more content than you might think any one customer or prospect could read, listen to or watch.

For the purpose of this post, we are going to focus on creating ebooks. When we say ebook in this context, we mean a shareable document than people can download and read or even print out and put in a notebook. I’ve been told people do this to share ebooks with their teams. And the discussion of whether you should ask for information in exchange for the ebook (a lead) or distribute it freely for wider distribution is one for another time.

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1. Create a Template

The first thing that makes creating ebooks easier is to create a design template that will work for all ebooks. This will also give a coherent look to a series of ebooks. Start by answering the portrait or landscape question. If your ebooks will have a more open layout featuring design elements, landscape may be the better choice. Portrait works if your ebooks are very text-heavy. This template should reflect your company brand, or even just your logo colors if you don’t have a strong brand identity. And if you use PowerPoint to create your ebooks, please don’t use any of the default templates. That’s just like using ClipArt from Word.

2. Collect Existing Blog Posts

If you are thinking about creating ebooks, you probably already have a blog with some posts. Those posts can be the basis for an ebook. Collect 5 posts on a similar topic. What about your five most popular posts? Connect them with a theme, rather than calling the ebook “My 5 Most Popular Blog Posts.” As you flow the blog posts into your template, think about how someone would read them. Use large headlines and subheads to break up the text. Pull out important quotes and put them in boxes. Add takeaways and actionable items so this ebook becomes more than just a collection of blog posts.

3. Incorporate into Editorial Calendar

As you create new blog posts think about how they will be converted into ebooks as you go. If you create a new blog series, or even just a new category, develop it so that the posts can be published as an ebook. By putting this on the editorial calendar, it also lets you schedule this into your workflow, rather than suddenly deciding today is the day to write an ebook.

4. Interview Product Teams

Other people in your B2B company are a great source for information. Create a common series of questions and ask several people in the organization. For example, what are common issues in the industry that everyone is trying to solve or what is their favorite part of their job. Depending on the size of your company or industry, this kind of ebook can be informative and helpful to customers, or it could just show the human side of your company.

5. Gather Industry Trends

You are probably following lots of industry sources and could pull together an analysis of industry trends. This is something that works once or twice a year. Also include thoughts from a senior executive on where things are going. It gives this one more weight.

6. Experiment with Other Topics

The best ebooks provide helpful information or make people think about things in a new way. In the marketing world there are a lot of how-to ebooks. If you market a complex, technical product, how-to doesn’t cut it. You call that documentation. But think broader than your company or even your industry. What can you gather and share in this format that would help people? It could be business advice or quotes from business leaders. And don’t be afraid to try humor.

Have you published any ebooks for your B2B company, and what have you learned?

Jeffrey L. Cohen is the Managing Editor of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @jeffreylcohen.