This article was featured on Business 2 Communityon August 19, 2013. You can read the full article here.

Companies can benefit greatly by maintaining a blog. It helps drive engagement by establishing industry expertise, and can also promote products and generates leads by enhancing the company’s visibility in the market. A survey conducted by Hubspot, a marketing software company, indicates that more companies are adopting a blog and find it to be “critical” and “useful” to their business. Blogs allows companies to leverage technical knowledge and expertise, while also providing customers a forum to engage with the brand.

Hubspot reported that blogs help generate leads and build credibility for a company. Their survey has reported positive results for companies that manage blogs:

• 57% of companies using blogs reported that they acquired customers from leads generated directly from their blog
• Businesses are now in the minority if they do not blog. From 2009 to 2011 the percentage of business with a blog grew from 48% to 65%
• 27% of users rated their company blog as “critical” to the business
• 85% of users rated company blogs as “useful” or better

So with a growing trend of companies managing blogs, how can a brand leverage the content they deliver? How can companies use blogs to promote their brand? We asked individuals to share their tips for companies that manage blogs, but the tip could not exceed 140 characters. The goal was to identify tips that could be shared easily on Twitter and would provide insights for leveraging a company blog.

There was a great outpour of responses and the tips seemed to highlight one particular theme – blogs should engage customers with content that is relevant to them and must provide differentiation for the brand from its competitors. Below is a list of 50 tweetable tips:

50 Tips for Driving Engagement with Blogs in 140 Characters or Less

1. Share case studies that address client pain points while educating on uses for your product or service. @katseyemedia
2. The best brand and business blogs genuinely answer a customer question. @DigiCoachHouse
3. Avoid using your blog to deliver bad news and always consider how each blog could be perceived in a year’s time. @DigiCoachHouse
4. Your business blog should place the real value before selling anything: Educate and communicate with your readers. @seosmarty
5. Use blog content as a catalyst for conversations on social media. Pose questions and share URLs to build up community and brand equity.@stephciccarelli
6. Stick with a regular #blog schedule (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) and stick with it to build an audience. @ErinSRichards
7. Position your blog to provide targeted DIY inspiration that is original, interactive and ties well with your overall marketing strategy. @KoyalWholesale
8. Add keywords to your blog content to optimize results, check “Google AdWords” for top ranking search terms. @champinternet
9. Time to self-promote! Blog about your industry expertise: a personal story, speaking at a conference or why you got in the biz. @champinternet
10. A blog is your company’s face to the world. Use it to humanize your brand and build engagement. @champinternet
11. Ask questions with blog posts, and answer them with content that you promote within each post or elsewhere on your blog. @lisafugere
12. Creating original #content for your company’s website will increase organic #SEO and give readers a reason to return. @mmidentitylab
13. Have regular categories like “Trending Tuesday” or “Fun Facts Friday”. @StephLough
14. Remember all those emails from confused customers? Put answers to the most common questions in a blog post. @GatzSocialMedia
15. Don’t forget a call to action. Every blog entry should encourage customer engagement: learn more, read more, watch this video, contact us. @techtherapist
16. Increase sharing, multiply branding efforts and please business partners by highlighting partners in blog lists and feature content. @iGiftback
17. Create unique compelling content around the keywords for which your target audience is searching and interested in. @robwalling
18. Monitor blog traffic with Google Analytics and pay attn to bounce rate and where your readers are coming from. Appeal to those readers! @LeMetric
19. Make the most of your #blog content – syndicate your blog to get more traffic and exposure. An RSS feed is a great start. @eccushing
20. Inject personality into your company by showcasing your staff & their passion for the brand. @t_akers, Campaign Architect at @WELDtweets
21. Have a point of view in your content. Don’t just “report”. It should reflect an authentic voice of you or the company @spanishgringo
22. Post feature, product & integration updates. 4 technical products, provide in-depth analysis on value it provides your potential customers.@KJMagee
23. Be consistent (@ least twice/month); be relevant, be current, don’t be a shill for your product or service; be of value; encourage feedback. @tgprice5
24. Get insight from industry insiders – who’s leading in your field? Interview them for a great blog post. @misspallen
25. Encourage your employees, customers and partners to share your blog and reward them for doing so. http://ar.gy/4.0T @ambernewman
26. Determine who needs what you can offer, how they can use it to solve their problems & how you can best deliver it to them. @rozkwalker
27. Include social handles and a company link in your blogs to create easy access to all your company pages @Reed_Daw SEO Associate @Volusion
28. For #marketing, blog about your products from a story point of view before hard selling them. The soft sell wins. @BradHines
29. Include other companies and resources in your blog posts. You’ll show up in their Google alerts and get in front of new audiences when they share. @tayloraldredge
30. Remember the 80/20 Rule: 80% engaging content relevant to your audience, 20% about your company & products via @EmpireCovers
31. Interact with customers in the comments section to keep the dialogue going and acknowledge their input. @Homescout
32. Engaging content helps to massage your leads down your marketing funnel to a possible sale. @christinaduren
33. Try posting at different times and days to see when your audience is reading @ContempoSpace
34. Don’t just promote your own business and its offerings on your blog- you need to be seen as a resource, not just an advertisement. @jpretz
35. Hook up your blog to an RSS publisher so every new post gets sent to your Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin! @Tammykfennell
36. Case studies! People love to know how you solved a problem, helped a client, or made an impact. @JackieWolven
37. Using a blog to promote a brand takes good writing. Growing a blog’s audience takes good SEO. Having a good blog takes good listeners. @JonNegroni
38. Develop an email campaign that creates awareness about your blog. Let people know how to get there, along with the value they’ll receive. @JasonPinto
39. Always end your blog posts with an open question to increase the number of comments you receive on each articles. @stephaniehetu
40. Post how-to videos to help customers and prospects with tasks they might find challenging. @resonancecont
41. Write blog posts on industry-related topics and reference other companies in the post and tweet to them to grow your audience @alex_katzen
42. Make others laugh – blog posts tend to get shared more if they are funny @accuracast
43. Social feeds are cluttered. Post content more than once throughout the week and month with teaser headlines and high trafficked hashtags. @CLRochelle
44. Use your blog to educate customers. It helps develop credibility and trust with them. @WAM_Enterprises
45. Use your blog to answer your prospects’ questions and address their concerns or one of your competitors will be happy to do it for you! @benlanders
46. Don’t be afraid to give away knowledge. You will build trust and provide true value to prospects. @RussellDavies71
47. Add value by including images, embedded videos and links to sources. @BritWebLtd
48. Originate or curate content that contributes to net-new discourse about a topic keenly relevant to your company’s competitive differentiation or core competency. @marchitexture
49. On a blog, a company should share their niche knowledge to promote ideas, case studies, etc. that way increasing their thought leadership. @liordegani
50. Your content should focus on your customer. Talk about their questions, problems, & needs. People like to read solutions, not sales pitches. @MESlayter