Reading Time: 3 minutes

Your blog is a gathering place for your community. It keeps your connection with your audience alive. Compelling posts sustain the popularity of your blog among frequent readers, and when promoted on social media, set you up for greater brand awareness and interest. After all, building a brand isn’t only about providing a valuable product or service but also creating engaging experiences that resonate with your audience. As a key experience channel, your blog needs to keep churning out content that gains social shares and/or motivates comments.

Dollar Shave Club

Men’s personal grooming products merchant Dollar Shave Club (DSC) moved into the big league of unicorn disruptors after the launch of their viral YouTube video. The youthful, stylish and playful brand wooing men has a laser beam focus on member experience, from their eye-catching shave boxes to their ‘Bathroom Minutes’ newsletter and pretty excellent blog. In essence, DSC provides regular products at affordable prices, but creates irresistible experiences mainly on the strength of their blog and social media content.

The post below is one of several that have won members over with unique, witty and fun content. Though DSC’s content is targeted at their mostly male audience, their best posts have invited response from female users too.

 

DSC’s blog post topics are:

• Humorous – make light of matters that people may tend to take too seriously
• Thoughtful – offer good advice without sounding sanctimonious
• Diverse – topics encompass grooming, health, work and style
• Unabashed – an everyman appeal reinforces brand message and honesty

 

DSC’s competitor Gillette has a far less attractive blog that looks and feels clunky. The website’s educational sections on face shaving and hair styles are promotional, and detract from the reading experience. The blogging voice is not apparent and not even close to being as smooth as DSC’s.

Man Vs. Debt

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The creatively named personal finance blog is a treasure trove of financial insights that have earned owners Adam and Courtney Baker several media mentions and a healthy following. The sheer quality of their content is responsible for the interactions gained, but beyond that, the posts stand out among the sea of finance blogs online for very specific reasons. Adam and Courtney are successful ‘debt busters’, their forte being debt control, though topics on the blog range from finance basics, selling your ‘stuff’ and doing what you love to managing family finances.

 

 

Reasons for the blog’s success:

• Actionable advice – you can start incorporating ideas straight away
• Backed by personal experience – tried and tested ideas lend credibility
• Personal tone – first-person posts create an intimate 1-on-1 experience
• Range – an expansive set of topics covered under personal debt ensure interest and freshness

 

Man Vs. Debt is an old blog with a less than savvy website design. Adam has retired from the blog and entrusted it to his wife and editor Joan Concilio. Despite its current inactivity, Man Vs. Debt is an excellent example of how far the strength of content and a personal investment in others’ financial well-being – communicated through the blogging medium – pays off.

Jixee

 

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Founded in 2011, Jixee is an online task and communication application for developers. The company’s blog is tightly focused on high level users but written in a light-hearted, conversational tone that makes it accessible to developers across the spectrum of technical experience. Unlike others of its ilk, Jixee’s blog does not limit itself to product updates or rehash content from other technical blogs.

• Unique and original – first person recommendations and experiences build readers’ trust
• Contextual – writers put ideas in context to make content relevant and meaningful
• Well structured – the use of images, screenshots and bullet points enhance reading experience
• Friendly vibe – complex technical topics are discussed in a casual style

 

 

If you’re a small or one man/woman team, a content curation app can help you discover relevant web content and inspire great ideas for your blog.

Image credit: Pexels