How to Write a Better Expert Roundup: 5 Examples of Roundup Posts for Content Marketers
Andy Crestodina
Co-Founder and CMO at Orbit Media | SEO, Analytics, AI, Content Strategy and Website Optimization
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As a content marketer, you have lots of options for formats, from gated guides to research reports, from infographics to interviews. And of course, the expert roundup blog post.
Roundups are among the most effective, but least popular formats for content. We’ve seen this in the data year after year in our?annual blogger survey. Here is the data showing just some of the formats from the survey…
What is a roundup in marketing??It’s a collection of expert insights on a common theme, or a panel of experts answering common questions, published in a blog post format for digital marketing.
Think expert roundups are overdone? Too many? Too predictable? Yes, they’re very common in the marketing community. But they’re not so common in other industries. It may still be a great opportunity in your industry.
They’re fun and easy to produce, but they often miss simple opportunities to add value and interest.?The problem with roundups is quality, not quantity.
The problem with expert roundups
Many roundups are a large group answering one question. The creator emails a single question to a bunch of experts, then copies and pastes their answers into a list in no particular order. Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, publish.
Often, the idea isn’t really to gather insights, it’s to get blog traffic. The creator is hoping that the contributors will share on social media. The roundup is a big pile of low-quality?ego bait. The writer is doing link building or social shares.
It’s hard for a piece to stand out from the crowd if it literally looks like a crowd.
This is not how to write a roundup. It isn’t actually writing at all. It’s simply a giant copy-and-paste job.
The idea of?collaborative content?is great. Organic influencer marketing is an excellent approach to content marketing. But good roundups are good curation. The curator gives it more value than the sum of its parts.
Aside from the obvious (invite contributors who share practical advice) there are simple ways to make a roundup more valuable to the reader.
So here are five examples of roundups that embrace these approaches and the results of each. It’s a little roundup of roundups from our own content program.
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1. Expert Roundup with Video Interviews
3 Questions + 10 Expert Video Interviews + Analysis + Visual Diagram
The lineup at MozCon 2019 was fantastic. So many great speakers. It would have been a shame to not create something with these SEO experts. But what to make?
So while eating lunch with?Casie Gillette, I asked her for some input. She shared a few ideas and 30 minutes later, I was holding my laptop in front of Casie, recording her answering questions into a lav mic.
ProTip: Never leave home without a lav mic
The questions were simple:
Over the next two days, I recorded nine other top marketers answering the same three questions. The answers were content gold. Take a look:
So the format was upgraded from text to video, but it still needed a theme. A headline. A hook.
What do those questions and answers have in common? They’re all especially relevant to someone considering a career in content marketing. So that became the theme. The “career tips” headline followed naturally.
But it needed more.?Every curator of every roundup should add their own insights. In this case, it was an overview of the various types of SEOs. This created an opportunity for an image.
Let’s take a look at another example related to events:
Expert Roundup Content Creator
2 年Totally love it when you say - "usual suspects" instead of prospects. Creating a roundup isn't easy, it takes more than a month to finish a good roundup with atleast 50+ experts and then compiling and editing it, working on quotes, sharing it out ... However yes, more analysis - more visuals, drawing comparisons etc. the more the better - but then you also need a good budget to get all that done. I was one of the very few people who used to create such roundups for my own sites and for clients, its been almost 10+ years since my first roundups were live! Seems like much has changed lately.
Head of Content | OnlineMarketplaces.com
2 年This is a great post as always, but I have a bone to pick with one particular part... "They're fun and easy to produce" This has absolutely not been my experience of producing roundups thanks to the number of follow-up emails required to actually get contributors to contribute. I suspect that it depends on who you're asking, the industry you're in and the clout you already have in that industry (clearly I'm lacking here). Time spent wisely choosing mid-level 'experts' who WILL respond quickly with quality comments and are likely to share is time not spent chasing up tip-top-level people who have better things to do.
Strategy + Storytelling | Global marketing lead for content, corporate communications, and brand.
2 年Great tips for improving this under-utilized content marketing offering.
Specializing in SEO, Content Strategy, and Lead Gen
2 年Woo hoo I've been planning some of these, yay! I'm curious - besides HARO and personal connections, how are people getting quotes from experts within the niche audiences you're marketing to?