Business Thought Leaders, You can Learn a lot from Mom Bloggers

Mom Bloggers are the Original Digital Thought Leaders

I got my start in influencer marketing, specifically in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) world, working with an agency called Collective Bias. We were early adopters in leveraging social media influencers to move consumer products at big-box retailers. Our influencers (aka digital authorities, brand ambassadors, subject matter experts, micro-influencers) were primarily “mom bloggers”.

We would bring together a group of 30 to 60 bloggers and have them shop for and use a brand’s product. They would blog about their experience, telling the story of how using the product enhanced their lives and why you should buy the product, too. As an organized campaign, their collective effort across all of their digital platforms would generate buzz, impact search engine results, and raise shoppers’ awareness about the product.

So what if you’re not selling consumer products (and you’re not a blogger), but you still want to establish yourself as a thought leader to influence purchase decisions? It may seem like selling a $50k college degree or a $300k piece of equipment is a far cry from moms selling $3 bags of popcorn. 

It’s not, And Here’s Why

Most buyers research high-value B2B services and products extensively before they ever speak to a salesperson. Google research suggests any given buyer may have as many as 500 omnichannel marketing touchpoints before you even talk to them. 

When people are seeking solutions to their problem by making a purchase, they typically begin by googling (yes, specifically “googling” because Google controls 80% of the search engine market) a relatively generic question to get started. 

That answer will come from digital content of all kinds, whether it be podcasts, videos, blog articles, or ads. With each subsequent search, they learn new terms, concepts, and possible solutions to their problem. As they move down their buyer’s journey and feel they have gathered the information they need to make a purchase decision, that’s when they’ll speak to a salesperson (via form, phone, or whatever medium). 

So, whoever is creating those podcasts, blogs, and content is educating and preemptively building trust with that buyer. If you’re the expert they’ve been getting the answers from, I guarantee you’ll be on their shortlist of companies to call. Quite possibly the only candidate on the list, if you’ve done a great job.

So, How Do Mom Bloggers Influence?

Mom bloggers were the pioneers of thought leadership marketing and did it as self-contained marketing gurus — the first digital media influencers. They looked at everyday life, built stories around themselves and their families, told engaging narratives in creative ways, and syndicated their stories across all the new social media channels that were emerging. Over time, they built an audience of people that trusted their opinions and expertise. When they chose to tell a story about a product, their audiences acted based on their recommendations. 

How they did this can be broken down into a simple seven-step formula — one you can use to build and influence your own audiences: 

1. Know Your Business
2. Get it down on paper
3. Add visual flair
4. Optimize and Analyze
5. Syndicate Socially
6. Engage with your audience
7. Monetize

It’s a tried and true model for influencing people to buy. And it’s a blueprint for how B2B thought leaders can take their years of industry know-how and use it as digital channels for connecting with new potential customers.

Now, that sounds like a lot... and it is. But with the right resources and strategy, you can easily optimize this process for your own content.

1. Know Your Business

You might be thinking, “There is no way I can write articles, learn SEO, video blog, or do any of steps 2-7. I’m just not a mom blogger.”

Well no, you are not. But you can be... with a little help.

You don’t have to be good at all that other stuff. You can outsource or learn those things. 

Your primary job is to be the best at step 1: Know Your Business.

Many industry experts are great at one-on-one conversation. Maybe you can confidently answer any question a person has. You’re probably good at small groups. Heck, you may sit on expert panels at conferences. 

You close deals, have repeat business, and people seek out your opinion. You’re an expert. 

You might be the head of a department or company that is filled with these same types of SMEs. Sharp as tacks, just not good at the digital, writing, and social media parts. 

Not to worry. You have knowledge that the world values.

Be an expert? Check that off your list. 

2. Get It Down On Paper

If you aren’t a good writer or aren't confident in organizing your ideas on paper, hire a professional writer to help you with this. Yep, there are people that make a living doing nothing but writing for other people. The biggest hurdle to working with a writer is finding a process that works best for your work style, voice, and schedule. 

You can outsource this wholly, or you can work collaboratively. Different methods work for different people. 

A process we’ve used for a number of our clients that are great speakers but not great writers is to record them. If we can find a podcast where they guest spoke or a keynote address they did at a conference, we’ll use it as a base. We might conduct an interview or a Q&A. We have some clients where we just turn on the recorder and let them brain dump their knowledge. Then, we clean up the aftermath and turn it into content gold.

You can take recorded content like that and have it transcribed quickly and cheaply. Then, your writer can take that transcription and organize it into base copy for dozens of content types. 

Number two — complete.

3. Add Visual Flair

Nobody wakes up in the morning and says “Hey, I want to read a huge wall of text while I drink this cup of coffee.” 

Everyone starts with a quick visual scan to decide if and how deeply we will dive in. You need visuals to break up the content into scannable chunks that grab attention and pull the reader through the piece. Having professional graphics also helps cement your authority by having a well thought out, easy to understand body of content. 

Visuals can mean anything from inline graphics to standalone infographics. It may be a creative use of headings or bulleted lists. 

Level one is adding basic images and photos. Many people search and pick whatever is on the internet. The gotcha is a) everyone else is using that same stock image, b) you might be infringing on someone’s copyright. 

Having a designer with the skills to take your written copy and enhance it with graphics is necessary to make it pop. 

You can find services like Fivvr and Upwork. You may have an internal marketing team that can help you here. You can hire an agency too (I know a good one).

The right designer or design team can push the envelope on your content and find new ways to engage your readers.

Visuals are also a gateway drug to higher levels of content. A good designer will help you animate your ideas, produce video shorts, present Facebook Live events, and more. 

Visual Flair! WOOO! Wait… That’s Ric Flair.

4. Optimize and Analyze

I mentioned “scannability” above. This applies to all formats of content. There are dozens of things you can do to optimize content for people to consume and for search engine robots to index. There are also dozens of SEO resources (like Moz, SEMrush, Neil Patel, and Google Skillshop) you can use to learn the basics.

Two SMEs can write a series about a similar topic, but the one following good SEO techniques has the advantage of being found. Simple things like using alt text on images or having closed captioning on videos make a huge difference. 

In both of these examples, the primary reason for having alt text and closed captions is to help visually-impaired persons who rely on screen readers to consume digital content. The side benefits are even greater. Alt text on an image gives those people that might hover over it another piece of information to learn. Closed captioning means a person scanning a webpage or social media platform can do so with their volume down (for privacy reasons. or not to disturb their neighbors) and consume that video then and there or save it for later. 

Having trackers and analytic tools like Supermetrics, HotJar, and Google Analytics give us feedback allows us to better target our audiences. I’ve written articles about practically the same thing but one gets a thousand views while the other gets zero. We can dive into the data to figure out what is working, what is not and know what to do more or less of. 

Unless you need to feed your inner geek and learn all of this, it’s best to leave this up to an SEO expert or data analyst. Sometimes that might be a skill your writer has, but not always. 

Hire a techy nerd. Got it!

5. Syndicate Socially

You either love it or hate it. Regardless of how you feel about it, social media is a critical component of being an authoritative thought leader in the digital world. Here’s why:

• Social platforms are free
• They have a built-in audience
• They provide massive amounts of actionable data
• Social is bi-directional, meaning you can have a conversation with—not at—your audience
• Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter et al have advertising platforms
• They want you to contribute content as well as spend money so they make all kinds of incredible learning resources (FB Blueprint, Hubspot Academy, LinkedIn Learning) available. 

A few things on social: 

1. If you are not good at it, hire someone, please. Actually, find a smart millennial or zoomer to help you. They’ve forgotten more about social media than you and I will ever know.
2. When you do it, do it consistently. This is hard. All the more reason to get assistance.
3. If you do it solo, please don't over tag (also known as tag stuffing).
4. Keep it business. My grandmother always said, “On a first date, you never talk about politics, religion or sex.” That applies here.
5. Complete your profiles - LinkedIn especially.
6. Engage, more on that next.

Social media? You got this.

6. Engage with Your Audience

Audience engagement is a way to scale your online presence. What I mean by this is whenever you have a conversation with—not at—your audience, other people are able to see that conversation. Two examples:

One, There are a dozen ways people can leave comments and reviews about your business. Good reviews are awesome. Having a strategy that encourages people to leave reviews is awesome. Responding to good reviews is extra awesome.

Having a bad review is AWESOME.

Well, not always. Here’s the deal. 

Most of the time a customer is leaving a bad review because they had a problem and they just want to be heard. The awesome thing is that if they had a problem and mention it in this public forum, you have an opportunity to address that problem. 

“Hey, I’m sorry you had a bad experience, Dave. I’d like to fix the problem. Send me an email at [email protected] and we’ll see how we can help.” 

Everyone who sees the negative post will also see you replied and that you will address issues if they arise. 

Now sometimes you’ll get that nut that goes on and on and on. Hey, it’s the internet. No worries. Just respond with your offer to help. If they have a reasonable reply you may discuss it openly or choose to take it offline. If they get rude, in most cases, leave it there. Do not get emotional and retaliate—everyone is watching. Trust that everyone else can see that the nut job is being unreasonable. 

Two. You get to talk to people one-on-one. Remember, that’s one of the things that makes you such an awesome subject matter expert: listening to customers, addressing their needs, and giving them great solutions. Just like above, you get to have these conversations in the open. 

Again, economies of scale kick in. You may only be engaging with one person, but another ten are watching the discussion. Another chance for you to engage and influence.

Don’t ignore people - got it. 

7. Monetize

Mom bloggers monetize their businesses in several ways — brand endorsements, advertising, and affiliate links are three of the most common. Top-end bloggers become brand consultants and campaign designers.

For a B2B influencer, you already know how you will monetize your online presence: 

Sales. 

You have to think about it a little different though. You have a high-value offering that may be complex in nature, so it requires a lot of educating and trust-building to make the sale. While a mom blogger may put an affiliate link to the product she’s promoting, you’re using your website (LinkedIn channel, eCommerce store) to attract leads, capture them, and then nurture them through their journey to purchase. 

“70% of a buyer’s research happens before they ever speak to a salesperson.”

I’ve tried to find the definitive resource for this statistic, but I haven’t yet. We can quibble over the exact percentage but I think we can all agree the intent of this statement is true. 

Accepting that it is, if you want to continue to improve your business, you need to seriously consider thought leadership marketing for yourself and your team. 

Sales - of course!

Why I’m a Thought Leadership Marketer

For me, thought leadership marketing is true marketing. I say this because the authenticity curve has gone from “mad men-style push advertising” to “bi-directional-omnichannel-everpresent digital conversations.” Seth Godin called it “permission marketing” way back when.

If you aren’t being authentic, if your expertise isn’t solid, you won’t influence anyone because they’ll see right through your bullshit. If that’s you, then Thought Leadership Marketing won’t work, and you won’t become a legitimate thought leader. 

I also know there are so many thought leaders who are simply overwhelmed by all the technical ins and outs of digital SME marketing which keeps them away from even trying. 

If you are a true industry leader and are willing to try new things, being a digital SME, social media influencer, a B2B micro-influencer, or whatever you choose to call it is much, much easier than you think.