Every Monday, we showcase a different big-time brand that has mastered the art of branded blog creation. From Coke and Levi’s to McDonald’s and Target, our weekly post looks at how mega-companies use blogging to help increase digital presence while enriching the brands’ narrative. Today’s case study shows that blogging can be an equally powerful tool for new and/or expanding brands like New Belgium Brewing.
While not in the Coors or Budweiser league in terms of size, New Belgium Brewing is a beer manufacturer with a passionate and dedicated following. The makers of the incredibly popular Fat Tire attract a younger, hipper crowd than those older, buy-what’s-on-sale beer drinkers. Therefore, blogging makes a lot of sense for the company. With over 400,000 fans on Facebook and 138,000 on Twitter, New Belgium doesn’t mess around when it comes to digital. The posts on The New Belgium Brewing blog speak directly to the brand’s cool, goofy, 20-something beer guzzling demo. Lots of moustaches, several silly outfits and a ton of wild and crazy company-sponsored events are the kinds of things readers will find in nearly every post. True, your brain won’t explode with new facts and information. But this is a beer blog, for goodness’ sakes. This blog is less about product information and more about the people who have a fun time enjoying the product. New Belgium’s “Relax! Have a Beer!” attitude sells the blog (and beer) in a few well-executed posts.
The brand’s use of humor, photos and focus on lifestyle are tips that the right company can really rock in a blog. But what we found to be inspiring here is how a lesser-known brand wisely employed blogging to help even more folks find them online. Many emerging companies make a big mistake by solely focusing on social media and ignoring blogging. With new online videos and commercials, it makes a lot of sense for New Belgium to use blogging to help round out the company’s digital campaign.
As we like to remind our readers, blogs are SEO gold in content marketing; each post you write with your brand’s attitude and persona will help more folks find you online. So get out there and make the kind of moustache-sporting, ridiculous-costume-wearing content your readers will certainly love.
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