Blogs, Like PowerPoint Presentations, Can Be Boons Or Banes

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Sometimes I think blogs are nothing more than online, personalized PowerPoint slides. 

Think about it. You’re making a business presentation, and the goal is to get across information in a way that engages the audience, in a format they can easily understand. That’s exactly the standard for presenting information in a blog. As with any tool, if you use Power Point and blogs skillfully, you accomplish what you set out to do.  If you don’t know how to use the tools – well, let’s just say they can become an obstacle.

Last year, PowerPoint celebrated its twenty-first birthday. Technically, blogging’s been around as long, but blogging for business has begun to pick up real steam only in the last three to four years.  Robert Gaskins, co-creator of PowerPoint, defending the technology against its critics, explains that “PowerPoint presentations were never supposed to be the entire proposal – just a quick summary of something longer and better thought-out.”

Each blog post is like one slide in a PowerPoint.  Just as Gaskins said, it’s not supposed to be “the entire proposal”.  The blog should offer just enough information to entice readers (see Blogs, One Click Away From Colossal) to subscribe to the blog, or to come back to visit for the next “slide”. The “call to action” you incorporate in your blog leads readers to your website when they’re ready for more complete information.

In great presentations, the PowerPoint is there to support the speaker, not the other way around. The audience connects with the person, not with the slides.  In "Creating Buzz With Blogs", veteran business technology consultant Ted Demopoulos explains, “Blogs create buzz because people will feel like they know you, and people like to do business with people they know”.  Blogs represent people talking to people!
 

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Get Rid Of Gobbledygook In Your Blog

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I’m searching online for information about something I need, and I’ve just clicked onto your business blog.  You’ve got thirty seconds to convince me I’ve come to the right place…Use plain language, please.  Ready, set, go!

Karen Zwick, president of 1st Class Solutions, says the principal goal of plain language is to meet the needs of a document’s reader, not those of the writer. Never was that statement truer than when it comes to business blogs. Three of Zwick’s plain-writing guidelines read like Page One of a "How To Blog for Business" manual:

Keep a single, specific purpose in mind. As I pointed out in Enuf Is Enuf In Blogs, blog audiences tend to be scanners, not readers.  The blog needs to offer just enough information to entice searchers to visit your website to find out more.

A second blogging application for this single-purpose rule is this:  Narrow down your target audience.  Figure out what those people need and want that you have, or that you do. (You may do lots of other things that appeal to other groups of consumers. Set up a different blog for those, and a different "landing page" on your website for them.)

Use personal pronouns. Blogs are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  Your readers, as I explained in Don’t Tap Dance Around In Your Blog, want to "meet" the person behind the blog. Allow your passion to shine through, sending a clear message: "I and my team will be taking care of you!"

Bloggers, I say: "Above all, create no confusion!" When it comes to web-based communication, words, along with pictures, are a business’ only tools.  As a professional ghost blogger, I work with words, turn phrases, and look for the "wow" factor.  Above all, though, my job is to communicate, as plainly and directly as possible, how your business helps its clients and customers.

If business jargon is bad, it’s even worse in blogs. Searchers came to your blog to "find out" stuff, not to "ascertain", to get "help", not to "facilitate". You want them to "use", not "utilize" your services and products. You offer the "best", not the "optimum" of each. You help clients "plan", not "facilitate", and you do that "by", not "by means of" being great at what you do.

It’s important to add that…Not!  (If it’s that important, just go ahead and add it!)

Please, get rid of gobbledygook in your blog!

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Torn Underwear Just Won’t Do For Your Blog

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In recent blog posts I talked about making your viewpoint clear to readers of your blog (see Evel Meets Good Rapper-Blogger Kanye West). Now I need to follow my own advice on a somewhat touchy blogging topic…

One big debate among bloggers and business owners is whether correct spelling and proper grammar really matter in blogs.  After all (as I myself have stressed), your blog is supposed to reveal the “real you”!

Well, the “Real Me” has a very real opinion on the subject of grammar and spelling, I must admit. Allow me an analogy: 

I don’t know whether mothers are still doing this nowadays, but my friends and I remember being warned by our mothers to wear clean, un-torn underwear “in case you get in a car accident” (my own mother would add a “God forbid!” at the end of the sentence). The maternal moral of the story, I surmise, was that slovenliness might cause us to be judged in an unfavorable light by bystanders or emergency medical personnel.

Todd Hunt, the nationally known speaker on communication, adheres to my mom’s philosophy in the arena of language use.  In January’s “Hunt’s Headlines”, Todd makes three requests.  Can we please, he asks,

1. Use the correct tense of “shrink”.  “Amazon’s profits have shrunk” (not “have shrank”).

2. Use “lay” and “lie” appropriately.  “The baby was lying on the floor.” (not “laying”, unless it was a chicken depositing eggs!)

3. Stop using “way” in place of “much”. “Coke is much better than Pepsi.” (not “way” better!)

I found at least one blogger who agrees with me that correct is much better than incorrect when it comes to grammar and spelling in blogs. “People have said that grammar and spelling don’t convey intelligence,” Carl Mattius says, “But they do convey something.  If you’re not willing to take the time to properly type out what you’re trying to say, why should anyone waste time trying to read it?”  Here’s the part I love: “If you care about something, you should do a good job of it.”

My sentiments exactly.  Your business blog represents you and your business to the world.  As Carl Mattius points out, “It’s a respect thing.  Respect yourself and your ideas enough to give them their proper meaning.”

P.S. This is your mother talking!  Don’t you DARE leave this house in torn underwear or in underwear that has shrank in the wash.  Why, your reputation will be laying on the floor!

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Blogs – One Click Away From Colossal

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When it comes to blogs, staying small may be the best recipe for business growth.  For one thing, to be an effective marketing tool for your business, your blog must aim at a specific segment of the market.  That’s why, in Blogs And Podiums – Choose Yours Wisely!, I advised selecting just one area of focus.  That’s likely to be a lot more effective than trying to tell blog readers about everything you do and everything you have to offer.

When I think of the blogosphere, I picture a giant highway, with blog posts being the billboards on the sides of the road.  When it comes to billboards, I’m reminded, there are laws about those.  Last summer, for example, both the zoning board of the city of Anderson, Indiana and the Indiana Department of Transportation got involved when a gigantic electronic billboard was being put up to advertise the new Hoosier Park "racino". The Department of Transportation, I learned, regulates how often the video screen on a digital billboard can change.  The location of the billboard itself, specifically its distance from the road, was dictated by the zoning board rules.

To some degree, when it comes to blogging, the readers are your regulators. Your blog "billboard" calls attention to areas of your business you want to highlight or showcase.  If the blog is too long, no regulator will show up to fine you, but readers will quickly navigate away from the site. 

Your parents and grandparents will recall how, in years past, you’d go into a store to buy, say, a fine cigar or perhaps a fur coat. The proprietor, in order to make you feel you were a special customer whose business he prized, would have you wait a moment while he went to the back to get his very best merchandise.  The idea is to keep your blog content short, inviting browsers to learn more by clicking through to "the best stuff" kept back at your website!

Blogging maven Meryl K. Evans advises, "Save your longer stuff for newsletters.  Readers want to get to the heart of the matter and get out."

 

 

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Who Says Blogs Can’t Dance?

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On occasion, I find the need to remind my ghost-blogging clients of the differences between their advertisements and marketing materials and their blogs. Business blogs exist to promote your expertise, products, and services, true, but in a manner much briefer and less formal than brochures, and a lot "softer" in approach than ads. The word "advertorial" is the closest description for blogs.

First of all, as I explained in Blogs And Billboards Strike Only When The Iron Is Hot, the only people who are going to notice your blog are those searching for information, products, or services that relate to what you do.  In other words, your blog visitors are already in the market for what you have to offer.  The iron is hot!

As fellow blogger Kyle Lacy points out, "Wouldn’t You rather shoot at fish in a barrel?" However (and this is a big "however"), your blog’s gotta "dance" to keep the readers engaged.  No, I don’t mean dancing around the issues.  I’ve been stressing in former blog posts the importance of offering relevant information and a clear viewpoint.  

In his popular business book "Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?", author Lou Gerstner, known for having turned around the corporate culture at IBM,  rails against the over-use of Power Point slides that have lots of data and bullet points.  Instead, Gerstner advises, "Just Talk!"

The SpeakAssured team, dedicated to helping people overcome fear of public speaking, agree.  "Power presentations have little to do with technology…their power comes from the connection between the speaker and the audience," adding  "That’s the sort of power the SpeakAssured team wants to unleash."

Bottom line, folks, that’s the kind of power blogging can unleash.  Interested people are showing up at your blog.  Help them get to know you and your company.  No hard sell.  No formality.  No elaborate charts and graphs.  Just talk!  In blogs, the "dancing" comes from feeling connected.

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