Corporate Blogging for Business Begins with Inspiration

Fellow blogger Steve Guise divides bloggers into no fewer than 23 “breeds”, pointing out the pros and cons of each type.

I decided to risk falling into Guise’s “Name Dropper” category because, as a professional ghost blogger offering business blogging assistance to corporations, I found several pieces of excellent Guise advice worth sharing….

“Inspiration comes to us in different forms.  Sometimes the people inspire us, other times the content inspires us,” he says.

There’s a lot of talk in blogging circles, (at least among the Indianapolis blog writers with whom I converse all the time), about incorporating testimonials from satisfied customers in corporate blogging for business. But, what Guise’s article reminded me is that customer testimonials don’t typically ooze inspiration.  Business blog writers need to find stories illustrating how someone’s life was truly improved through using the company’s products or services, rather than collecting the usual “I’d-certainly-recommend-ABC-roofing-to-my-neighbors” type testimonial.

What about having the content itself of business blog writing be inspirational? Obviously, one of the purposes of any SEO marketing blog is to “inspire” action (read “buying”!). After reading Guise’s piece, I concluded that corporate blog writing needs to aim for copy that proves the writer understands the problems customers have.  In other words, “you” copy.  The online searcher should get a sense of relief that she’s found a business with people who “get it” –ultimately, that relief is what inspires customers to act.

When Guise sees bloggers who “refuse to write about anything they wouldn’t lose a kidney for”, he names them Passion Purists, pointing out that “passion is contagious and humans are attracted to it.”

Without a doubt, conveying business owners’ passion for what they know how to do and for what they sell is the big challenge for any freelance corporate blog writer.  There’s a reason counselors teach long-time marrieds techniques for “keeping passion alive”. Like success in marriage, success in blog marketing depends on sustaining the discipline of content creation over long periods of time, keeping the spark of passion going all the while.

In describing the “SEO Fanatic” breed, Guise warns that “stuffing an article with key words has a chance of sounding contrived.” As I caution Indianapolis blog writers, it all comes down to the need for inspiration in blogging!