Business Blogging Using Not-So-Trivial Trivia – Part A

Writing blog posts on any one topic over long periods of time can get old, as any business owner or professional practitioner can tell you.  And, yes, even we seasoned professional blog content creators have a need to infuse new energy into the process from time to time. That’s precisely where the weird and wonderful tidbits in J.K. Kelly’s Book of Incredible Information can help.

I’ve had so much fun exploring the pages of this incredible collection of not-so-trivial trivia, I’m going to devote this week’s Say It For You blog posts to sharing some of the gems I discovered, along with ideas about how you might incorporate some of these into your own blog content writing….

About one in three movies features at least once scene containing an insect, Kelly reminds us.
There’s actually a name for the professional “bug men” or “bug wranglers” who facilitate the process, I learned. No joke, either.  These are trained entomologists responsible for providing the insects and for manipulating them onscreen.

So, how to you train an insect?  You don’t.  They cannot be trained, only manipulated to fit the needs of the movie script. Spiders refuse to walk on Lemon Pledge furniture wax, for example, so you spray the stuff where you don’t want them going. To make an insect fly toward a window, wranglers place a light out of shot behind the window.

What about make-up for insects? You bet, Kelly explains.  For “Silence of the Lambs”, the wrangler couldn’t obtain specimens of the rare moth needed, so he anesthetized moths and painted on the distinctive markings of the death’s-head hawk moth onto their bodies. Needless to say, the wrangler used water-based, non-toxic paint that would wash off later without any harm to the insect.

So how might you use this insect-training knowledge in business blogging? The tidbit becomes the jumping off point for explaining what problems can be solved using that business’ products or that practice’s services, for defining basic terminology, and for putting modern day statistics into perspective.

On a very simple level, this trivia could add humor and interest to a blog by a pest control company or a makeup studio.

On a deeper level, there’s a lot here about training.  How do you train employees? Can – and should – employees be manipulated? How do you go about inspiring children in the classroom? I can see the bit about the insect wranglers being used in blogging for an employee placement firm, an instructional design firm, or by a college training corporate managers.

For freelance blog content writers, incredible information tidbits can turn into incredible treasure,
adding new interest to the ongoing marketing message in the blog.