The B2B SaaS Marketing Blog

How to Create an Expert Roundup Blog Post in 5 Kickass Steps

by 

Joel Popoff

Last updated: July 7th, 2014

So you want to create a viral blog post? You came to the right place!

Expert roundup posts can be the most viral posts on the internet if carried through properly. The benefits of creating one is instead of coming up with your own content you have a massive group of experts submit a brief response based on a question you pose. After creating the post you not only have your social networks to share the post on, but also the social networks of several popular experts in your niche. Follow these 5 kick ass steps to creating an expert roundup, so you can too have 100’s or even 1000’s of people sharing your post on social media.

STEP 1: Finding the Right People

First you need to find people are willing to actually contribute to your roundup. Many people you think would love to give their feedback on a question or topic you pose actually have very little if any time to respond to roundup posts. Two ways to find great candidates for your roundup is:

• Search for already existing roundup posts in your niche. Whether you are creating a post on fitness, cooking, fashion, marketing, or whatever other crazy topic you can come up with, there will most likely be another writer to has done a roundup similar to yours. Rule of thumb if these “experts” were willing to contribute to someone else’s roundup they will also have the time to contribute to your post as well.

PRO TIP: If you are unable to find similar roundups in your niche then you can resort to a great social tool called followerwonk.com. This tool allows you to search for the most authoritative twitter profiles based on keywords you enter under the “Search Twitter bios” section. Once your post is complete you can then go back to all of the people that contributed to your roundup and have them share it across their social networks. When you have people with 100,000+ followers on Twitter share a post they were featured in, your post is much more likely to go viral.

STEP 2: Organize your Database 

Once you have collected a database of people you would like to have contribute to your roundup it is now time for you to organize that database. Two ways you can organize your experts is:

• An outreach management tool called BuzzStream. This tool allows you to build and effectively manage relationships with contacts in an organized database. You can sign up at www.BuzzStream.com and receive a free 14 day trial. After your trial is complete there is a $29.00 monthly subscription fee to use the tool.

• If you can’t afford to use a tool like BuzzStream you can always resort to an Excel spreadsheet or a Google spreadsheet. Organize your sheet with basic fields such as email, first name, last name, industry, job title, date contacted, and follow up date. It’s also wise to add a field called Status and color code it with (green) agreed to post, (yellow) still in contact, (red) didn’t agree to post, (blue) received post

STEP 3: Email Marketing Begins 

After all your experts are organized the fun begins. You can now begin to email each of these recipients about the post you are creating and how you would love to have them included in it. This is the most important step of all because if you don’t reach out to these people how to you expect to get a response. Your email must be incredibly short and to the point. These experts don’t have time to read your 1000 word email of how you desperately need their response. They are extremely busy individuals and will only have time to briefly scan your topic and decide whether or not it is worth their time to contribute. Two great ways to turn that first email into a “yes I would love to contribute” is:

• Create a compelling email headline they can’t turn away. If your headline looks spammy or is overly complex, don’t expect to get too many responses. Again keep it short and to the point. For example:

“Expert Roundup Opportunity”

• Once they have been enticed by your capturing headline you will want to include a couple lines in your email for “what’s in it for me.” Expert’s don’t want their content shared on just any blog because it can potentially hurt their brand and reputation in the community. If you can give them a good reason why they should contribute to your roundup, they will be much more willing to respond with a YES. For example you can let them know that 50 more experts will also be contributing to the post or you have over 50,000 unique visitors to your blog every month or you will include a link back to their site and social profiles.

STEP 4: The Follow Up 

You already understand that the people you are contacting to participate in your roundup are very busy individuals. Because of this you most likely will need to send 2-3 follow up emails reminding them of your roundup and that you are still interested in having them contribute. Here are a couple different ways you can get those busy individuals to participate:

•  Create urgency by telling them that the deadline for their submission is coming up very soon and if they want to have their answer included they need to submit a response back to you by a certain date.
• Hype up how big your post is going to be by telling them how many experts have already submitted a response and why they should too.

” I have already received 78 responses from other experts in the industry and would love to have your response included”

STEP 5: Putting it all Together 

Now that you have collected a bunch of responses from experts in your niche it is now time to piece everything together. Creating the post isn’t that difficult because you have been provided with 1000’s of words of content. However the time spent formatting your post can become very lengthy. Here are some tips to finalizing your expert roundup:

• Always ask for a head shot from each person that submitted a response as well as links to their social networks and website.
• Include an introduction about what your expert roundup is about and how many people participated in it.

Need Help with your Blog? 

I hope these steps helped you create a viral expert roundup! If your company needs help creating viral content for your blog, contact Powered by Search today for a FREE MARKETING ASSESSMENT on how we can transform your blog. 

Let us know what you thought!

Leave a comment below if you have any additional tips on how to create a successful expert round up post.