It’s Your Rant, But It’s All About Them

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A “rant”, (venting a complaint in an angry, loud voice), is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “a high-flown, extravagant, or bombastic speech or utterance, a piece of turgid declamation, a tirade.” While oral tirades are still with us, Daniel Seidel writes in Slate, the last decade or so has seen more and more written rants, “a form that has blossomed on the Web.” A good rant, Seidel thinks, expresses a real passion, often one enflamed by a feeling of powerlessness. Still, many rants are humorous, with a tongue-in-cheek tone. Whatever the tone of aa particular rant, he adds, there is neither the expectation nor the desire for a response. “It would be simplistic to think of blogging as a kind of sublimated ranting,” Seidel remarks, “but blogs do form a part of our cacophonous culture.”

Not all blog posts are rants, of course. There are, however, three “rant”- like content piece types that our writers at Say It For You have found useful:

  1. An “if only” best business practice that you wish everyone with whom you do business would adopt. The content makes the point that doing things in a certain way would make the lives of both the provider and of the customer so-o-o much easier and business dealings so much more efficient!
  2. A device, program, or source of information that the owner wants t make sure everyone knows about, something that would make doing business s much smoother and more efficient
  3. A mistake that you see others making over and over that you believe is a big barrier to their success.

(To be most effective, even if a rant post is focused on a single idea, the content should be broken down or “chunked” into bullet points or numbered steps to make the concept easy to remember, as demonstrated above.)

Needless to say, rant blog posts can elicit strong reactions on the part of readers (either because you’ve touched a nerve (what you’re complaining about may be their pet peeve, as well), or because they totally disagree and want to prove you wrong. Worse, your rant risks rubbing readers the wrong way, making them feel as if they are incompetent or uninformed.  People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to your blog seeking information on what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

If you’re moved to include a rant or two in your content marketing, the cardinal rule to remember is that it’s all about the readers, not about you. How will they experience your rant?

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Blogging Starts and Grows Because of Trust

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“In business, we need our customers and potential customers to trust us….otherwise they simply won’t want to invest time and resources into us and our business,” Safarz Ali writes in the Business Influencer. How do you prove that you are trustworthy? Ali suggests the biggest three ways:

1. Show, don’t tell. Live up to your promises and use client case studies to prove it.
At Say it for You, we emphasize that case studies chronicle a customer or client who had a problem or need, taking readers through the various stages of using the product or service to solve that problem.

2. Practice honest communication, brushing no issues under the rug.
Problems with customer service are going to arise, but those very situations offer you an opportunity to shine by making things right. Empower Then use writing for business as one excellent vehicle to tell about your own mistakes and the way you offer outstanding customer service by making things right.

3. Prove you know your customers.
Your blog can’t be all things to all people, any more than your business can be all things to everybody.  The blog must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who will want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer  – the words you use, how technical you get and how sophisticated your approach..

The top five best communication traits of a successful leader, Rebecca Weintraub and Stan Lowes think, are these:

1. walking the talk
The typical online searcher is leery of hype and unrealistic claims, and honesty in content writing has power.

2. authenticity (understand yourself first)
To demonstrate that you’re unique, you need to explain what you care about and what it’s like to work with you.

3. embracing a communication culture
Use your blog to demonstrate your full engagement and concern for your customer’s welfare, and allow real-time feedback from your target audience.

4. storytelling
You have to have a point, conveying the reason you’re sharing the story.

5. listening
When I’m ghost-blogging for a business, I need to keep up on what others are saying on the topic, on what’s in the news, and about what problems and questions have been surfacing that relate to what my client sells and what it does for its clients.

Blogging starts and grows because of trust!

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Elevate Your Word Game in Blogging for Business

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“I learned the hard way that my marriage was on the edge of collapse – again” and “The Bitter Truths I learned About My Eating Disorder – After Being Pregnant” are both decent titles for a pitch, says Estelle Erasmus, who, in Writer’s Digest this month, teaches writers tactics for capturing the attention of an editor. (The expression “the bitter truths” is quite cliché, Erasmus noted, but having an eating disorder rear its head during pregnancy is different enough to catch attention. She suggested changing the title to “Getting Pregnant Spiraled Me Into an Eating Disorder”.)

Tips offered by Erasmus that are remarkably relevant for business blog content creators include:

Clarity is key, more important than beautiful language.
Titles represent crucial elements in capturing the interest of both search engines and online searchers. But, aside from Search Engine Optimization considerations, the title of a blog post constitutes a set of implied promises to visitors that if they choose to click on the title, it will lead them to a blog post with information on the topic named in that title.

Find the emotional implication behind what you’re writing about. There has to be a transformation that takes place, one to which readers can relate.
In blog marketing, those who make the most emotionally persuasive argument win. The goal is to create a connection with your audience that makes them receptive to your message.

Active verbs work best, helping to paint a picture for readers.
The very purpose of the blog content is to showcase the accomplishments of the business and products and services it brings to customers. That’s why using the active voice makes so much sense in corporate blog writing.

Focus on a small moment in time, not a a broad all-encompassing saga.
At Say It For You, we firmly believe in the Power of One, which means one message per post, with a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business, geared towards one narrowly defined target audience.

Elevate your word game, learning to think in sound bites by watching TV with the captions on.
Blogs, unlike brochures, client newsletters, online magazines, and websites, are short and concise, more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  That’s what makes it so feasible to use blogs to achieve the frequency that’s needed to win online search engine rankings.

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Valentine’s Day Inspires Loving Blog Content

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Valentine’s Day offers the perfect opportunity for business owners or practitioners to show the love by offering a customer appreciation giveaway, Seray Kesin advises in her drip.com blog. Misfit.com takes a different approach – “it’s all about the self love”. Rather than asking buyers to spoil their Valentine, the company reframes the day into one of self-love. Estee lauder uses free shipping to upsell during Valentine’s day, Kesin notes. Of course, she adds, certain kinds of products and services lend themselves to a Valentine theme; others require extra creativity, and Kesin cites a few examples::

  • an herb garden (“There’s hardly anything as satisfying as foraging for your own food and fixing a meal for two together….”
  • a heart-shaped package of meats from Man Crate
  • (Gal)entine’s Day, where ladies celebrate ladies

Wordstream.com offers some industry-specific Valentine’s Day promotional ideas:

  • Fitness centers can host a special class for couples.
  • Masseurs can run a couples massage class.
  • Restaurants can run a couples cooking class and add heart-shaped items to their menu.
  • Photographs can do half price quick sessions for couples.
  • Service-based business can offer deals for showing love to your carpet/ computer/car.
  • Panera took things to the extreme, offering to cater a wedding for couples who got engaged at one of their restaurants.
  • Meeting venues can host a free singles event.

    Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to send out a message that lets your existing customers know that: You appreciate their business. You wouldn’t have a business if it weren’t for them, Copyblogger’s Sonia Simons suggests. “Go on a bit of a rant about why you do what you do. Make it personal, and make it your own. It doesn’t need to be long or complex, but it should be from the heart,” she advises. Simons isn’t crazy about the idea of offering discounts (that can put you into the “bargain” category, when where you really want to be is the “valuable” category).

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Everyday Employee Experience at the Heart of Blogging

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“Narrative gives us a sense of shared experience and humanity,” Hubert Joly (former CEO of Best Buy) writes in The Heart of Business.  “Telling everyday stories – stories of employees, customers, communities, and how they impact each other’s lives – fosters a sense of purpose and connection..” For that very reason, thehartford.com explains, “Your employees need to understand your company, its values, its goals and its priorities.”Surveys show 72% of consumers report feeling closer to a company when employees share information about a brand online.

As I related in an August Say It For You blog post, when I’m working with a company to set up a business blogging strategy, encouraging that company’s employees to post blogs, quite often I hit a wall of resistance, with employees viewing blogging as just one more task to add to their work load. Should employees be required to write blog posts? Marcus Sheridon of SalesLion.com thinks so. Since one goal of content marketing is to produce as much content as possible, the more hands are put to the task, the better. With content that answers consumers’ questions so valuable, it stands toathat employees who deal with consumers every day should be the ones to write about it. Human nature being what it is, he says, if it’s not required, they won’t do it.

Sure, but after fifteen years of providing blog content writing services to dozens of different businesses and professional practices, I’ve come to the same conclusion as Stan Smith of pushingsocial.com: “Blogging is writing, and writing, for most people has a fear factor right up there with public speaking.  You can coach, bribe, threaten all you want but in the end, you’ll be writing most of your blog posts.” That’s precisely why I found Joly’s account of how things worked at Best Buy so inspiring. At every meeting, people would tell their own personal stories and how they personally had been able to make a difference to someone.

At Say It for You, as our team provides content writing services to business owners and practitioners, one way we involve employees is to highlight specific accomplishments in a blog. That brings a two-way benefit: When readers learn about an employee’s enthusiasm and how that person put in extra time and effort in serving customers, that tends to cement the customer’s relationship with the company or practice. As featured employees proudly share those write-ups with friends and family, the blog becomes a gift that keeps on giving.

Far from being a contradiction to concept of authenticity, we help readers “meet” the actual team of employees who are providing the product or service, the ones whose daily activities result in the benefits customers enjoy.

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