Fear of flying is a complex psychological issue, airsafe.com tells us. "It’s an anxiety disorder.  Fear can come about well before a person even gets to the airport, and some of the elements of flying fear have little or nothing to do with the actual risks associated with the flight."  Fear of heights plays a role, fear of the unknown, concerns about turbulence, and even concerns about being dependent upon technology.

It’s interesting that when I read a blog by David Meerman Scott about Fear of Blogging, it sounded to me like an alternative version of the AirSafe blog! Meerman Scott says that, every day, he runs across fear of marketing on the Web.  This fear, he adds, leads businesses to ignore blogs and refuse to participate.  Yet, he says, all the people who go on to have experience with blogging and other social media tells him that their earlier fears were overblown.

One of the main fears many business owners have that may prevent them from starting blog marketing is, according to Scott, "Fear of people saying bad things about us" (The equivalent of people being afraid of turbulence in a plane, I wonder?) In my own Say It For You blog posts, I’ve often calmed this very concern. 

First of all, you can set up your blog platform so that you have to approve readers’ comments before they go "live" on your blog, if that makes you feel more "protected".  But keep in mind that one of the goals of any business blogging effort is to create "conversation" between the business owners and the audience.  So what you really want to do is invite comments and questions, even negative ones, and then address any concerns as soon as they appear. 

Meerman Scott has had blogophobes confess to fear of looking silly or being afraid their blog posts won’t have anything important to say. I’ve had business owners embarrassed over their lack of computer savvy, afraid to admit they don’t understand blogging software. (This is the equivalent of fear of dependence on technology to keep one safe while flying.)

Meerman Scott advises blogging among trusted colleagues to "get the hang of it".  The reason clients rely on professional ghost bloggers like me is they can take advantage of blog marketing without having to overcome those twin fears connected with technology and with writing.

The most interesting fear described in David Meerman Scott’s  WebInkNow  blog was "fear that it does not work in our industry". "I’ve heard them all", he says, meaning the misperceptions that "blog marketing does not work for mutual fund managers, lawyers, dentists, politicians, Singapore-based software companies, Canadian blood donation centers, Florida real estate agents, churches or rock bands…"

From a business standpoint, fear of blogging can be a fearsome business mistake.  Comprehensive research developed by Universal McCann shows 73% of online users read blogs.  In the time it’s taken you to read this far into my blog post, thousands and thousands of new blog posts have been introduced, some of them by your competitors.

Experience brings mastery, Meerman Scott concludes.  To which I offer a second:  Just get going! There are no monsters in the closet, and the cure for blog phobia is simply – blogging!

 

Since this appears to be my month for quoting blogger Seth Godin, I found another provocative post of his, this one about marketing.  Godin says that if you’ve created something worth talking about, it probably hasn’t been done before, which means it needs a name.  Godin names unique  things "baxters", and he puts in that category everything from the service you get at a spa after your massage is over, to the free course in between the main meal and dessert. 

When I looked up the term "baxter" in Wikipedia, what came up was a 2005 film directed by comedian Michel Showalter.  That movie defines a "Baxter" as the nice, dull guy in a romantic comedy, the one who ends up dumped by the girl. This use of "Baxter" almost seems like a direct opposite of the uniqueness Godin was talking about! The Free Dictionary defines "Baxter" as a female baker (perhaps it was unusual to find female bakers at some point in history?).

In any event, I continue to think that one of the very important purposes of any business blog is to demonstrate to readers how that business is unique.  Business coach and author Jim Ackerman urges entrepreneurs to to find a "point of only-ness", meaning one statement that differentiates that business from all similar businesses.  It has to be done, Ackerman, stresses, in a way that appeals to the customers that business is targeting.

As a professional ghostwriter of business blogs, I think that "only-ness" message is a key goal of each blog post.  Potential clients arrive at your blog, and now that they’ve found you, they need for your unique proposition to come across loud and clear. In other words, each blog post has to demonstrate what your "baxter" is, so that searchers will understand the benefits of doing business with you as opposed to your competitors.

In 1893, the chef at the Savoy Hotel invented the dessert Peach Melba to honor opera singer Nellie Melba. That same famous chef, August Escoffier, invented Crepes Suzette to honor French actress Suzanne Reichenberg, while the Salisbury Steak was created in 1886 by James Salisbury as a treatment for gout and bronchitis.

Ask yourself – what’s the "baxter" in my blog?