Move Beyond Google to Find Unique Examples for Your Next Blog Post
Here are 5 places to start with
Do you want to add more depth to your blog posts with impeccable examples?
If you’re writing a niche-specific blog post and seeing repetition of examples in every second piece of Google, stop using other blog posts on Google to source examples.
Instead, use these sources:
1. Case study
Look at the case studies from the brand you're writing for. Do they have any?
If yes, explore. Pick the relevant ones that resonate with your niche.
If not, go to Google and search: [topic] + case study
For example, I wrote a blog post for on interactive product guides where I had to source examples of product guides. Because the brand has a massive library of case studies, I used their existing customers and case studies as examples.
2. Brands you follow
Recall the brands you’ve been following for a long time or came across recently. However, when working on the blog piece, it’s easy to lose track of brands who could be worthy to include. So here’s what you can do:
- Check your inbox and look through the brand newsletters and Promotions tab
- Look for brands you’ve been following or followed in the past on Twitter and LinkedIn
Now, save this list of brands and keep handy when you’re working on your blog piece.
But how would you use them in your blog piece? Here’s how:
- Make a note of the things you have analyzed about the brand
- Take relevant screenshots and save in your swipe file.
For example, I closely follow xTiles as I’ve been their beta user.
So, I analyzed two things about the brand:
- Their Slack community for beta users
- Their product launch and how they acquired beta users
So when I had to write blog posts on product launch and community building, I used them as an example with relevant screenshots
3. Emails
Besides curating the list of brands to hop on while writing your blog piece, a good practice is to star mark the newsletters or promotional emails you’ve been receiving from brands you follow. Once you’ve curated the list of brands you can refer to, search for emails by these brands in your inbox.
It’s possible you can find some incredible examples sitting there.
Here’s what you can do:
Go to your inbox → type the topic or related keyword you’re writing for → sift through the results
For example, when I was looking for more brands using different tactics for product launch, I found the Userpilot, a product analytics tool in my inbox. So I did some additional research and included it in my blog piece.
4. Social Media
Use social media platforms for finding niche-specific examples, and even quotes by experts to support your stance:
- Twitter and LinkedIn for B2B SaaS
- Instagram for ecommerce
- Reddit for both B2B SaaS + ecommerce
But to find the right examples, make sure you use the right phrases and hashtags.
For example, last month I worked on a blog post on influencer marketing.
It was comparatively new. I found it difficult to find the relevant examples.
So, here‘s what I did:
- Picked phrases (relevant to the topic) from the brief and searched them on Instagram with similar hashtags.
- Studied the posts I got from these hashtags, picked more hashtags from these posts and used them for improved search.
5. Reach out to SMEs/ industry experts
Reach out to SMEs if you have more time on hand. Ask them:
- Their experiments or strategies they conducted
- Their thought process during execution
- The results they achieved
This is more comprehensive way of finding examples.
I use three platforms to source information from experts: Qwoted, Help a B2B Writer and HARO. Hower, I get more quality responses from Qwoted. Here’s an example of the request I had sent for another blog piece I was working on for Storylane.
I received a detailed response from the experts which I then included in the article I wrote on shadow calling.
But this can be tricky when writing for an extremely niche blog pieces. I’d recommend building a pool of SMEs that you can reach out to.
So, for the same article, I couldn’t find much detailed insights even though I had received bunch of insights from other experts. However, they didn’t provide relevant insights. So, I reached out to an expert I was following on Twitter.
They connected me to the the right expert expert from their team and I got another detailed example to include in my blog piece.
This is how my article came out to be:
More depth = insights-rich blog posts
Do you want to add more depth to your blog posts with impeccable examples? Go beyond Google. Use different sources.
- If you want to start with lesser efforts, leverage social media and case studies.
- If you want to make the most out of your efforts, leverage SMEs.
