Birds Do It, Bees Do It… Let’s Do It, Say Busy Business Owners To Their Ghost Bloggers

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In the book “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Podcasting,” Mikal Belicove, ghost blogger and blog strategist, defends the practice of ghost blogging. Most sports figures, music stars, celebrities, and politicians don’t write their own books.  Belicove adds that it’s not only books that are ghost-written; most quotes from CEO’s and company presidents in press releases were never actually uttered by those CEO’s and presidents!

Even though many people are aware that books and speeches and even songs are often not composed by the people to whom they’re attributed, when it comes to employing a professional ghost blogger – some folks feel that takes away the special authenticity blogs have.  Mikal Belicove doesn’t agree with that sentiment for a minute.  Very much in the manner in which I perform Say It For You ghost-blogging services for my clients, Belicove writes and handles the mechanics of posting blogs that contain the client’s thoughts and ideas, not his.  Mikal simply helps them jump-start the process by articulating those thoughts and ideas.  As professional ghost bloggers, we start the process by discussing ideas with the client; the process doesn’t end without the client’s having approved each finished blog post.

Belicove makes one important point in the book that I think is worth emphasizing here: A professional ghost blogger adds a lot more to the mix than just labor.  “He or she provides insight and clarity in taking ideas from a rough format and working them into a post that makes sense and has value.”

Ghost blogging is part of a trend on the part of business owners to focus their time making and selling products or doing consulting, delegating marketing functions to others.  “It’s the thoughts and opinions that matter, not the mechanism for getting them into the blogosphere.”  My thoughts exactly, Mikal… When Cole Porter sang, “Let’s do it,” he was referring to falling in love.  But if Cole were writing the song today, who knows?  He might have sung, “Lets blog!”

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Shout It From The Rooftops With Mini-Windmills And Blogs

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The mayor of New York City proposes putting windmills on city bridges and on rooftops to help supply renewable energy to the city in the form of wind power.  Neighbors worry about having unsightly wind turbines on street corners, but the city’s director of the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability reassured a New York Times reporter that you can make them (the windmills) so small that people think they’re part of the design.

Business owners on a budget can learn a useful lesson from Big Apple.  Just like the city of New York, businesses need to generate marketing power.  The cost of extensive print advertising and direct mail campaigns can be daunting for businesses struggling to grow market share in today’s economy.  What’s needed is wind power to propel new customers and clients to the business without the owner needing to make extensive and inflexible upfront financial commitments.  In business marketing, blogs can serve as the parallel to what New York is calling eggbeater-like wind turbine models.  Blogs are small, shorter and more centered around just one idea than e-zines or newsletters.  Like the proposed rooftop mini-turbines, which require less wind force and less set-up time than their standard-sized counterparts, blogs require less of business owners than major advertising and marketing thrusts.

Blogs are informal, friendly, conversational, and, because new material is posted frequently, blog posts tend to be more up-to-the-minute. Blogs can link to other blogs and web sites, turning mini-power into maxi-power, and increasing exposure to the search engines.  As blog expert Denise Wakeman enthuses: Search engines love blogs!

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to reduce New York City’s dependence on a power grid that caused big blackouts.  He’s thinking small; eggbeaters on the roof. Businesses trying to reduce marketing costs while increasing marketing power might do well to think small, too.  Blogger on the roof, anyone?

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“Why To Buy A Piano” Is Good Advice For Blogs

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A couple of weeks ago, I browsed through an advertising supplement to the Indianapolis Star named “Why Buy a Piano Now”.  The supplement contained pages upon pages of information about all kinds of products and services.  Since, at the top of each page, the words “advertising supplement” were prominently displayed, everyone reading the material knew the goal was to get new customers for the businesses who had bought the space.  Nevertheless, because the information about each product or service was so helpful and so well-written, there was no hard-sell advertising at all to the section.

As a professional ghostwriter of blogs, I couldn’t help finding a parallel here.  When people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or on different websites, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to do business.  But as long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer.  The secret of successful business blogging, I found, is just that – not coming on too strong.  A blog is not an advertisement; you might say it’s an advertorial.

The Indianapolis Star supplement is a perfect example of what I mean.  The piece provided some valuable quick tips on the ABCs of Piano Shopping, explaining three basic decisions facing a piano buyer (digital vs. acoustic, upright vs. grand, used vs. new).  But the big lesson to be learned for business blogging comes in the final paragraph of the piece: You don’t have to make the ultimate piano decision the first time, it tells us.  You can choose a piano that will accommodate a child’s entry into the piano world.

Think about how reassuring that statement might be for a potential piano buyer (They’re trying to help me, not sell me the most expensive instrument in the store). Now, think about someone searching the Web for information on a product or service that costs a lot of money (home remodeling, for example), or that is quite complex or scary (think bankruptcy or cosmetic surgery, for example).  If, in your business blog, you can convey the idea that there are different levels of involvement possible, and that ultimate decisions need not be made the moment the potential client of customer steps into your website, visitors to your blog will be reassured there’s a comfortable place for them with you!  In other words, before selling them the piano, help visitors to your blog understand “Why To Buy A Piano”!

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It Takes Two To Make A Joke Funny – And To Give A Blog Its Bang

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 I never get tired of hearing Dick Wolfsie talk about what makes jokes funny.  (Wolfsie, well-known local TV personality and author, has been studying humor for years and lectures on the subject at the University of Indianapolis.)  As a professional ghost blogger, I find myself revisiting the Wolfsie humor analysis, because jokes and blogs share many of the same characteristics.


To illustrate one important insight about humor, Dick often uses the joke about a man who thinks his wife is losing her hearing. At the end of the joke we learn that he, the husband, is the deaf one. As the story unfolds, the man comes home and keeps calling out to his wife, asking “What’s for dinner?”  Each time he poses the question, he comes closer to where she is standing (he’s testing the distance from which she’ll be able to hear him), yet she offers no response.  Finally, when he’s right there next to her and poses the question for the fifth time, she turns to him and answers, “For the fifth time –  we’re having chicken!”


Is it the surprise element that lends the humor?  That’s only part of the answer. If the punch line had been, “You’re the one that’s deaf, honey!” there’d still be a surprise, but no humor. In order for the joke to be funny, explains Wolfsie, the person listening to the joke or reading the joke has to figure things out!  The laughter is the reward that the listener or reader gives himself for having figured out what the punch line is really saying.  In other words, there’s no joke if the punch line is the proverbial tree falling in the forest.


Blogs are like that, too.  You may do your part, posting new, relevant material online, offering valuable information about your field of expertise.  But for the blog to generate a “bang”, it takes two.  In fact, that’s precisely how business blogging works.  People go online and use search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.) to find information.  They need to know more about something, and that something has to do with what you have, what you know about, or what you know how to do.  Since you’ve provided relevant, up to date content in your blog post, that browser finds you!  Now it’s a blog, and you’ve got yourself a potential client or customer. That individual, just like the person who gets a joke, rewards himself with the information you’ve provided.  She/he “gets it” – and moves on to your website for more, or posts a comment.  Either way, two are now in the game.  Now you can start getting bang for your blog! 

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Use Blogs To Capture Concepts

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Tuning in to National Public Radio turned out to be a good thing for me to do the other day.  I caught another of those word tidbits that so delight the wordsmith in me. Daniel Gardner, author of a new book, “The Science Of Fear”, was being interviewed by Diane Rehm.  Gardner was expounding on why we fear things we shouldn’t, ironically exposing ourselves to real dangers.  He attributes our irrational fear to the fact that we’re constantly being fed disaster stories by the media.  Our unconscious minds absorb this “parade of improbable negative events”, causing us to overreact to everyday circumstances that statistically hold little real threat. 

And here’s where Daniel Gardner said the eight little words that so completely capture the concept he was trying to present: “We report the rare routinely, and the routine rarely.” To me, effective word tidbits sock us right between the eyes, and that one did it for me.  In fact, the instant I read that particular combination of everyday words, I had an “aha! moment”.  I was able to unify things I already knew, but hadn’t synthesized into any true wisdom. 

Blogging, at its best, should have exactly that effect.  Short by definition, blogs don’t necessarily give online searchers lots of brand new information.  But what your blog should aim to do is capture concepts relating to your business, putting words together in a new way.  Your aim is to bring to the reader a pleasurable and satisfying “Aha!”, making that reader want to know more. (My interest was captured – I went out and bought Daniel Gardner’s book!)  You want to bring the blog reader to your website in order to convert him/ her into a customer or client.


As a professional ghost blogger, the question I would pose to each client is this:  If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you’re passionate about what you sell, what you know, or what you do, what would those words be?  Once you’ve put together the word tidbits, I can “Say It For You”, and blogging for business can begin with a bang! 



 

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