NOTE: As of January 2019, The Salesforce Contributor Network is currently on hiatus and not accepting blog submissions. Please check back for updates.
Did you know that we regularly publish blog posts from business leaders outside Salesforce? In fact, it's a big part of how we bring you current and relevant business content each and every day. If you're interested in becoming part of the Salesforce Contributor Network and writing content for the Salesforce blog, please review the guidelines and submission instructions below.
We're always on the lookout for new writers who can bring valuable perspectives and insights to our audience!
Why Write for the Salesforce Blog?
- The Salesforce blog gets hundreds of thousands of readers every month, attracted by our industry-leading reputation as an innovator, corporate citizen, and rapidly-growing business.
- Our email newsletter reaches thousands of subscribers every Monday, extending the reach of four top posts from the week prior.
- We have close to 2,000,000 social followers — and we'll share your post with all of them.
The Essentials: 6 Qualities That Make a Great Article
- Relevance: What audience are you writing for, and what burning question of theirs does your article answer?
- Originality: We want new, unique, and original content. Can our readers get this information anywhere else? We do not accept content that has been published elsewhere.
- Usefulness: How does this article help your target audience do their job better?
- Evidence: Your article should make a strong, clear argument supported by examples, details, and/or data (that is properly attributed).
- Writing Ability: No matter how amazing your story is, if it's not told well (without grammatical and spelling errors), we won't be able to use it.
- The Right Tone: It's important that you write with your own voice. But it's always helpful to bear in mind the Salesforce Voice and Tone. Find more detail on our voice and tone in the Salesforce Style Guide and in this Trailhead Trail on Writing Style. The key words are: Direct, Concise, Conversational, Positive, and Helpful.
Bad guest blog posts tend to be:
- Irrelevant: Either there is an overly vague target audience, or the audience you're catering to or topic you're writing about is not one that we focus on.
- Promotional: The article is designed to promote a person, product or service. We'll keep one link back to a guest blogger's company, but not more than that.
- Boring: The article takes too long to get to the point, the point is not unique, or there is no point at all.
Format: What We Know Works
We are constantly learning about the content our audience wants through a process of testing and optimization. Here are some of the things we know:
- Focus: Typically we're looking for posts that help our readers do their job better. Authors share their own experiences and expertise on a problem or opportunity in Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, or IT.
- Length: Most of our posts are between 600-800 words long, but we don't have a word limit. Use the words you need to make your argument — but no more.
- Headline: On average, 8 in 10 people read headlines, but only 2 in 10 people read articles. If you want your post to be read, you need the right headline. We ask you for two possible headlines, and we will make changes if our data suggests they would help. Here are some good tips for an effective headline:
- Try list-based titles (ex. X Reasons Why..., X Things You...)
- Convey immediate value (think: what does your post offer?)
- Write headlines that display clarity and purpose, rather than cleverness
- Stick to 10-13 words, or 60-90 characters
- Try to put the keyword of your post in your title
- Avoid clickbait (i.e. a headline that doesn't map to your content)
- Rich Media: Our posts get more engagement when they include rich media — high-resolution images, videos, infographics, charts, and the like. A post with a strong collection of rich media included is viewed more favorably than one without when deciding what posts we accept. There is detail on image size etc in the submission form.
Blog Post Examples
Here are some good Contributor Network articles:
Here are some of our top-performing blog posts of the year:
Suggested Topics
Our content is designed to find the sweet spot between:
- Your area of expertise
- Our focus areas as a company
- What our audience wants to read about
It's not likely you will be aligned perfectly to our "messaging framework" and that is fine. What is important is that your article covers a topic our audience wants to read about, and that's why we ask you to choose which of our focus areas your article is aligned to. We'll ask you to pick which topic your article belongs to during the submission process.
Important: What We Will No Longer Commission
We will no longer request posts on broad topics like leadership, productivity, and work-life balance, or those that don't align to one of the job functions we focus on (marketing, sales, service, IT, commerce).
Co-Promotion
Our blog gets hundreds of thousands of readers per month. We also promote posts on some of our social channels, which include:
We expect all authors and their organizations to help promote their articles. Your plan for doing so will help determine whether or not we publish your article.
Submission Process
Our Salesforce Contributor Network follows a simple process that's outlined below:
- Complete Submission Form [note you can share either an abstract or full draft of your article during this process]
- Editorial Review [2 weeks]
- Added to Publication Queue [we'll notify you of an expected publication date]
1. Complete Submission Doc
Please complete the Salesforce Blog Submission Form.
2. Editorial Review and Publication
We will review your article based on the criteria we outline above and will respond within two weeks to say whether we will publish your article or not.
The Salesforce Blog team reserves the right to edit and adapt your guest blog content as we see fit and update it in the future for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
One key area of focus will be headlines. We are always testing the performance of our headlines and will use that data — combined with your suggested headlines — to find the best title for your article.
We also reserve the right to include calls-to-action to Salesforce content, including but not limited to email newsletters, ebooks, and other downloadable content.
Once edited, we'll add your article to the publication queue and let you know when it will be published, such that we can coordinate on promotion.
3. Promotion
As discussed above, we will promote your article on the blog, via some of our corporate social channels and often via our various cloud-specific online properties and our social ambassadors program.
We expect every guest blogger to promote their content on their own channels, and are happy to work with you to coordinate and amplify your own social activity.
Note: We do not accept posts that have previously been published elsewhere.
Submission Form
Please submit your content using this form.
