Blogging Ala Concierge

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High-end residential complexes offer their services, as do all the best hotels.  Concierges help with everything from setting salon appointments, arranging luggage pickup from hotel rooms, booking tours, and offering sightseeing tips.

Personal concierges are the fastest-growing subset of the breed, running errands for people with little spare time (or for those who prefer to spend their time in pursuits more engaging than picking up groceries or dry cleaning).  My friend Judi Stephenson of Another You Concierge tells me her company performs thousands of different services ranging from party planning to dog-sitting.  In “Helping Hands”, Indianpolis Woman magazine described concierge services as freeing “those with hectic lives from mundane tasks”.

Businesses, particularly small businesses, need concierges, too.  Blogging, an essential customer acquisition tool in our increasingly web-based world, is no mundane task.  Still, few business owners, even with the help of talented employees, can spare the time to post relevant, new material with enough consistency and frequency to improve search engine rankings.
Concierges pick up stuff for clients: luggage, packages, children, arriving guests; a ghost blogger must “pick up” the business owner’s individual style and vision.  Concierges deliver stuff: mailings, groceries, gifts, messages, flowers, reservations, meals; ghost bloggers “deliver” content to the Web.  This, in turn, helps “deliver” traffic to the business’ website.

As Indianapolis Woman puts it, “You might find yourself wishing you had a clone, just to accomplish everything on your to-do list.”  Well, when it comes to blogging for business, your blog “concierge” can be your clone!

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If The Parents Hate It, The Kids Will Love It

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One good rule of thumb about business blogging is to narrow down the target audience.  To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your blog must to be the result of a well-planned strategy aimed at a specific segment of the market.  I advise picking one area of focus, rather than trying to tell your blog readers about everything you have to offer and about all the things you do.

Just the other day, in Speaker (the magazine I receive as a member of the National Speakers Association) there was an article by Terri Langham about the Alice Cooper rock music group.  By way of reminder for those blog readers not “into” the rocker scene, the Alice Cooper 1972 hit “School’s Out” topped the charts worldwide.  The groups’s tour the following year broke box office records formerly set by The Rolling Stones.  The Alice Cooper stage show was “way over the top” by anybody’s standards, complete with guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, live chickens, and a real boa constrictor.

The point Terri Langham was making about this band was that it had a signature way of doing things, a “brand”, and she advises aspiring professional speakers to develop their own unique brands.  But the point I want to bring out here relates to the thought process the band members used in creating their Alice Cooper brand.  Realizing that having a male (Vince Furnier as Alice Cooper) playing the role of a witch in tattered women’s clothing and makeup and holding a snake would cause social controversy, the band made a brilliant career decision.  They focused on one target audience – kids.  “If the parents hate it, the kids will love it.” became the motto.

I’m no rock groupie, to be sure, but as a professional ghost blogger, I find the Alice Cooper marketing strategy “right on”. Narrow down your target market.  Figure out what those people need and want that you have or that you do.  Then do everything you can to “speak” to those people through your blog. You don’t care if other segments of the market hate your blog – you want your target customers to love it… all the way to your website!
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Kosciusko National Memorial: A Blog Of A National Park

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A week or so ago, on National Public Radio, I caught a broadcast about the smallest national park in the nation, the Kosciuszko National Memorial Park.  This park is so small, it’s actually inside a house in Philadelphia; you can see the entire place in ten minutes.  For those who need a memory jog, Thaddeus Kosciuszko was a Polish-born American Revolutionary War hero, an engineer who traveled from fort to fort.  While petitioning Congress for back pay, he stayed in the very house that is now the Memorial.  The “park” is now complete with its own on-duty National Park Ranger.


Listening to this short but fascinating program, I was struck by the thought that the Kosciuszko National Memorial can serve as an apt metaphor for a blog.  A good business blog is short and sweet, containing one or two fascinating items for visitors to read about.  At the Kosciuszko Memorial, those whose interest is piqued can take home a brochure about the American Revolution in order to learn more about the history of the period. Similarly, those web browsers whose interest is piqued by the items in your blog can move on to you company website to Learn more about your products and services.


As one of the Park Rangers described the Kosciuszko Memorial experience, “Maybe we can look at it as more quality visitation than quantity.”  How apropos for blogging!  Quality, not quantity, is the experience you want to offer visitors to your blog.  (Excuse me, when does your next blog tour start?)

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For Songs Or Blogs, Success Proves The Best Silencer Of Critics

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sheet musicThe award-winning ballad “You’re Beautiful”, sung by James Blunt, topped the 2005 charts in Britain, the U.S., and Canada, becoming the first song by a British artist ever to top the Latin American Top 40 list.  When word leaked that the song had been composed by a ghostwriter (coincidentally but oh-so-aptly named Amanda Ghost), Blunt fans were – at least temporarily –  horrified.  Massive debate ensued about the ethical considerations of ghostwriting.  Amanda, far from retreating into the mists, went on to write an even bigger blockbuster song for Beyonce and Shakira called “Beautiful Liar” that captured top billing in 32 countries.


Critics-turned-fans began bombarding Ghost with requests for songs. The formerly haunted Ghost is busy producing material for Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and other super-stars of the music world.  “An Amanda Ghost song is honest”, explains the ghost songwriter. “I think that’s why they do well.”


Since I’m part of a small, elite group of specialty writers for hire, I’m also part of the debate about using ghostwriters. In an earlier blog, Ghost Writers In The Sky?, I mentioned how accustomed we are to today’s celebrities, CEO’s, and public figures hiring ghostwriters because they can’t spare the time to write their own speeches or books.  Songwriting or ghost-blogging – same idea.  A ghost blogger becomes part of each client’s’ marketing team, performing a very practical and important service: helping customers find the business through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  As with any promotional materials created for a business by outside professionals, your blog must be in harmony with your style, your approach to your customers and your niche within your industry or field of expertise. 


Just as songs composed by Amanda Ghost “worked” for the likes of Blunt and Beyonce, consistent, targeted blogging can lead to honestly earned, long-term success for a business. If your blogs honestly speak your corporate message, whether written word-for-word by you or in cooperation with a ghost blogger, it’s quite possible you’ll find yourself listening to sweet sounds of success.
 

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The Bottom Line For E-mail Is Blogging

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In a “white paper” about the future of business blogging, Compendium Blogware Inc. co-founder Chris Baggott explains that, back in the year 2000, there was still a lot of skepticism on the part of business owners about using email as a business communications tool.  Since then, of course, email has been adopted by just about every business and organization to stay in touch with customers and constituents.  Now, some of that same reluctance is evident when it comes to corporate blogs.


Since I work as a ghost blogger, serving as “the voice” of many small businesses and professional practices, Baggott’s explanation of the difference between email marketing and marketing through blogging is really the crux of the matter for me and my clients. Here’s the essence of what he says in the “white paper”:


“Blogging provides the same benefits as email in an easy-to-use and inexpensive way.  It’s the perfect complement to email as a marketing tool for the beginning of the relationship.”


The bottom line is, you can’t email people without their permission.  And you can’t ask for their permission if you don’t know who they are.  That’s where corporate blogging comes in.  Email can’t help your business or practice acquire customers, but blogging can.  Since so many professionals and business owners lack the time or the inclination to compose blogs, that’s where a ghost blogger comes into, or rather behind, the picture!

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