Secrets Reality TV Show Producers Won’t Tell You and Business Bloggers Will

“Reality TV is actually not, well…real,” observes Michelle Crouch in Reader’s Digest. While reality shows have no script in the traditional sense of the word, Crouch reveals, "We have writers who craft plot lines.” Interesting, I thought, reading Crouch’s “revelation” – while we professional blog content writers certainly think of our work as a craft, our goal is to convey reality, to communicate what a business or professional practice actually has to offer, not to wax inventive or inflate the facts.  

Inflating is a definite no-no when it comes to content creation for blogs, in terms of both quantity and quality:

• Don’t overload any one blog post with words.  300-400 is a good portion-control rule of thumb, I teach newbie Indianapolis blog writers.
   
• Don’t overload any one blog post with information. Select a central idea, one aspect of the business or practice, one product or service and focus on that, leaving other ideas for other posts.
   
• Above all (and here’s where the article about unreality in “reality TV” comes into play), don’t use a business blog to inflate the description of what you (or your blogging client) have to offer.  Under-promise, then let client testimonials tell the story of how you (or the clients) over-deliver.

“We often take different clips and edit them together to sound like one conversation, sometimes drastically changing the meaning. It’s so common, we have a name for it: frankenbiting,” says Michelle Crouch.  As a corporate blogging trainer, all I have to say about that is “Don’t!

If we can’t win trust through blogging, well…that would be “unreal” (meant in the worst way)!