Blogging for Business in Leitmotifs and Thaumatropes

Whenever company owners (or sometimes even the blog content writers they employ) express doubt about their ability to keep generating new content for their blog posts, I remind them about leitmotifs.

True, blog posts tend to be most effective when they focus on just one idea. For example, in different posts, a content writer might go about:

• busting one myth common among consumers of their product or service they’re marketing
• offering one testimonial from a user of that product or service
• describing an unusual application for that product
• describing one common problem their service helps solve
• updating readers on one new development in that industry or profession
• offering a unique opinion or slant on best practices

Focusing on one aspect of a topic at a time is precisely what helps blog posts stay much more flexible and impactful than the more permanent content on the typical corporate website. But it’s the leitmotif (a German term meaning “leading theme” often used in discussing music) that helps the separate posts fit together into an ongoing blog marketing strategy.

Just the other day, while waiting in line at CVS, I picked up a magazine named “The Complete Guide to Your Brain”,” intrigued by the title. Once I had the chance to browse the article, I realized that I was looking at a perfect example of the way business blogging can be sustained over weeks, month, and years. Using a “leitmotif”, content writers can continue providing content at once fresh and evergreen, content that is varied to appeal to different readers, yet readers who share a common interest.

Amazing, I found. In just one publication, Brain included more than twenty different approaches to one subject. For example:

• “Your Brilliant Baby” explained the way in which newborns experience a 64% increase in brainpower during their first three months of life!
• “Sexes and the Brain” debunks the popular myth that male brains differ greatly from female brains. In fact, “humans with only feminine or only masculine characteristics are extremely rare”.
• “The Plastic Brain” describes ways in which making and listening to music involves information from all five senses. Listing other activities that can make one’s brain more plastic.
• “Fuel for the Mind” discusses elements of a brain-healthy diet.
  “”Why We Need Friends” discusses the way social connections make us smarter and strengthen our brains.

A second term that applies to the way individual blog posts work together over time to convey content marketing “leitmotifs” is “thaumatrope”. Thaumatropes were Victorian-age paper toys consisting of a card with a picture on each side. The card would be attached to two pieces of string; twirling the strings made the two pictures appear to combine into a single image. That’s precisely the effect of different blog posts.

As blog content writing continues over long periods of time, there’s a cumulative leitmotif/thaumatrope effect, conveying one central message to readers in all its many permutations and details.