Business Marketing 202: Doing the Who’s Who Right

In blog marketing, I’ve found, getting things right often follows noticing things that are already right, then applying those techniques to our own business needs. Case in point: the “Who’s Who @the Federation” page in the magazine from Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis.

In corporate blogging training sessions, I like to stress how important it is to blog in first person.  First person shows the people behind the post, revealing the personality of the owners and team members.

Of course, just about every business or organization has a profile page on its website.  Mostly, those pages tend towards the boring, listing job titles and credentials, and sometimes hobbies such as tennis or golf.

The “Who’s Who @the Federation” page, by contrast was very personal. Boring? Anything but. Each profile included 7 items,  4 of which are rather standard, including name, home town, and position, and how long each has worked at the Federation.. The other 3 things were a bit of a switch:

• Family (this includes what the employee’s spouse does for a living, plus the names and ages of the kids)
• “People can come to me if they need…”
• “Why I find working at the Federation meaningful…”

What an absolutely great model for content writers creating blog posts and Who’s Who profile pages for company websites! As consumers, we’d all like to think we’re dealing  with people who find dealing with us meaningful! And wouldn’t it be great knowing you’re invited to come to the specific person who can best fulfill your specific need?

“Talk to people. We can accomplish a lot, a lot more quickly, if we put down the devices to have good old-fashioned conversations,” cautions Indianapolis Reverend Jeffrey Johnson.

OK, blogging and web content are device-based. But, the closer the content can come to good old-fashioned conversation, the more marketing can be accomplished. We need a lot more people-can-come-to-me-if-they-need online content writing!