Shakespeare Could Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two

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Spacehuntr, Brussels’ fastest growing platform for scouting and booking event spaces in European cities, is apparently in the process of recruiting a content creator. If you feel Shakespeare could learn something from you, the company teases, you’re the candidate we’re seeking. (Myself, I am much too busy copywriting at Say It For You to be looking for a job, thank you. Still, that line got me thinking about the Bard and what he might have to teach today’s generation about content marketing…)

Meanwhile, one of Spacehuntr’s own recent blog posts caught my interest: Know your target audience: 10 ways to understand your people. When building a persona (a semi-fictional representation of the people with whom you’re attempting to connect), don’t consider only basic stats such as age gender, and nationality. Think ‘psychographic’, advises author Gareth Platt. Techniques for gaining insight into this audience, (many of which we have been incorporating in our Say It For You blog marketing for years), include:

1. running focus groups
While even the largest of my Say It For You blog clients is probably tiny compared to the largest of European corporations, I think blogs can perform a focus group function. Blog readers would weigh in on their own time in the form of responding to surveys, offering ideas or ratings – all good techniques to stimulate interaction with target customers.

2. using social media (posting opinions, asking questions, using hashtags)
As a freelance blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I find there’s some confusion about what distinguishes blogs from other social networking tools. Blogs, I believe, are a little more focused. The blogger serves as a “keynote speaker” in control of the discussion, yet still allows for questions and comments from the audience. I would agree with Spacehuntr’s focus on gaining insight into your audience, which means finding out where they “hang out” online and showing up there.

3. studying the competition

Regular readers of this Say It For You blog will recall that I advise business bloggers to read ten articles or other blogs for every blog post they write, and I follow that advice myself. We cannot position ourselves within the marketplace without studying our surroundings. And, for blogs to be effective, they must serve as positioning and differentiating statements. Each “visit” should conclude with readers understanding exactly what your unique philosophy or mission is, and why your approach can be beneficial to them.

So… were I inclined to apply for that copywriting position at spacehuntr, I’d be sure to mention that my college major was English and that I studied Shakespeare’s plays in detail. I’m sure the Bard would be properly impressed with the speed of digital communication today. I’m not sure I could teach him anything about understanding people, because his plays are full of the same humor, romance, tragedy, and insight we look for in good writing today. In fact, I suspect Shakespeare could teach us blog content writers a thing or two!

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Steve Jobs and Pixar Illustrate an Important Principle of Blogging

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My realtor friend Steve Rupp sent me a piece with the following story about Steve Jobs….

After purchasing computer manufacturer Pixar, Jobs relocated the company to an abandoned factory, re-organizing the physical structure with offices and workspaces around a large, central atrium. Under this new (at the time) very unusual arrangement, the mailboxes, meeting room, cafeteria, coffee bar, and gift shop were all in the center of the space. The underlying principle? “When people run into each other and make eye contact, things happen.” Of course, electronic messages could have been sent throughout the Pixar building in a millisecond, Jobs realized, but the community context of the message is the part that would help people understand each other and work together.

Could Jobs have avoided restructuring the entire complex of buildings, relying on mandatory periodic meetings or even informal periodic staff get-togethers to accomplish his goal of employees “running into each other”? Perhaps, but that “eye contact”, “context-sharing” and cross-pollination of ideas, Jobs understood, needed to happen frequently in order to be meaningful.

At Say It For You, after years of being involved in all aspects of corporate blog writing and blogging training, one irony I’ve found is that business owners who “show up” with new content on their websites are rare. There’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. That sense of community Steve Jobs was after in the redesign of the Pixar facility? You might say the first job of a blog content writer is to help a business or a professional practice “get its frequency on”. What the blog does is get the business owners and practitioners into the “atrium” to “run into” their readers!

Good things happen in the blog frequency “atrium” for business owners who make blogging part of their routine as part of an overall business marketing strategy, with blog posts providing a steady stream of “sound bites” – little bits of different, interesting, and helpful content.

Steve Jobs building design was meant to encourage employees to “hang out” with each other in the Pixar atrium area whenever their schedules allowed, with no regular times posted. Over the years, blogtyrant.com relates, various studies have analyzed data to find out the best time to publish a blog post. Most often, though, we find that the issue is less that of choosing the optimal posting time and more about finding the time to create content to post in the first place!

Our mission, then as blog content writers, is to create an “atrium” where business owners and practitioners can share ideas with readers.

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Blog Reading Based on Different Motivations

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“There was a time when archaeology was commissioned privately by wealthy individuals,” I learned from the incredibly fascinating tome of trivia, Publications International’s The Big Book of Big Secrets. One of the most interesting chapters described the day in 1922 when, some 300 years after the death of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, a way to enter the tomb of “King Tut “was discovered. (I remember visiting the “Golden King” exhibit of these artifacts at the Children’s Museum back in 2009 right here in Indianapolis.)

From a blog marketing standpoint, I was fascinated by The Big Book authors’ insight into the differing motivations those wealthy individuals had for their ongoing efforts, spread over many years, to open the tomb. “Some of those benefactors desired to advance historical knowledge, while others simply hoped to enhance their personal collections of antiquities.” As things turned out, both types were rewarded for their efforts: Ancient plunderers raided the tomb for smaller items, making huge profits from mummies and from recovered items, while the historians were able to “catalog piles of priceless artifacts”.

Firstmondayorg, reporting on a study for the motivations of blog readership among recent college graduates, observes that readers used blogs for step-by-step instructions for hobbies, do-it-yourself household reports, and money management. ”Today, blogs mean a host of things to bloggers, blog readers, and new media researchers.”In the survey, most graduates said blogs were useful in helping them pick up skills they had not learned in college but which they now needed for their careers. Some interviewees reported that blogs provided them with essential professional tips. According to some interviewees, blogs served as niche learning resource tailored to their information problems.

At Say it For You, one valuable coaching tip we offer to blog content writers is to tailor individual blog posts – or series of posts – to different segments of the customer base (as opposed to trying to reach them all in any one post). In a way, each time you post you’re pulling out just one of those attachments on your “Swiss army knife” and offering some valuable information or advice relating to just one aspect of your business. Another day, your blog post can do the same with a different “attachment”.

Brenda Stoltz of Ariad Partners suggests accomplishing that very goal by designating “days” for different targets: Corporate accounting Mondays, Small Biz Wednesdays, or Freelance Fridays. As a variation on the concept, we’ve advised setting aside a section on the website for blog posts for certain specialty readers.

Just like the archaeologies of old, some historians, others antique dealers, blog reading is based on different motivations.

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In Blog Content Writing, Be a Mensch With Mentions

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Since a “mensch” is the type of person we’d all like to think we are, how does that play out in blogging for business? Guy and Peg Fitzpatrick weigh in on that very subject in The Art of Social Media, first explaining the difference between a “mention” and a “hashtag”.

Hashtags help people share a topic, the authors explain. If you wanted to discuss blog marketing with a group of other blog marketers, you’d use #blogmarketing. On the other hand, if you’re blogging about a certain topic, mentioning the name of a person or company (hoping they will see that mention), you’d refer to them as @name on Facebook or Twitter. Of course, if you want to attribute ideas you’re discussing in a blog post to their original authors, you’d link your text to the source, just as I did after naming the Fitzpatrick book above.

The Fitzpatricks remind us of a super-important fact: While with email, the recipient’s response is the only one that matters, in social media, the audience is everyone who reads your comment or your post and who might react to it either positively or critically. Inevitably, some people are going to disagree with you. The authors’ advice to us is to take the high road and maintain a positive attitude throughout.
“Blogging and social media not only amicably coexist; they complement each other,” the authors aver. The trick? Use your blog to enrich your social media with longer form content; use social media to promote your blog.

Being – and staying – a mensch is the key to successful “re-gifting” of others’ content to your own marketing blog readers, I teach at Say It For You.  In fact, quoting someone else’s remarks on a topic you’re covering in a blog post can be a very good thing, because, you’re:

  • reinforcing your point
  • showing you’re in touch with trends in your field
  • adding value for readers by adding variety in the way an idea is phrased

On the other side of the coin, content writers need to remember that we’re trying to make our own cash register (or the cash register of the business owner or practitioner who hired us) ring. In the final analysis, therefore, the voice that has to be strongest through the post is the one represented by the url on the blog site.

In blog content writing, be a mensch with mentions, taking care of business while “taking care” to give credit where credit is due.

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Connecting the Dots in Your Blog

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A persuasive bio has to ”connect the dots” between your employment history and the reason you’ve chosen to do what you do, Diane Wingerter, the Career Strategist™, explains in her book, Hunting2Hired. Most professional bios don’t do anything of the sort, she points out, instead offering a long bullet-pointed list of employers followed by a “loves-tennis-and-walking-her-dog” shallow glimpse of the person behind the bio. Answer the question, Diane advises, “If you were no longer in this career, what would you miss about it?”

At Say it For You, there’s a similar question we ask business or practice owners whom we are helping start a blog: “If you had only ten words to explain why you have chosen to do what you do, what would those ten words be?” When you blog, you verbalize the positive aspects of your business in a way that people can understand. But, just as when you’re creating a bio, you’re explaining “who you are” and what kind of mark you’re trying to make in your industry or profession.

Prospective employers are “buyers”, Diane wants job candidates to understand, and connecting the dots for employers means using the narrative of your bio to connect your experience with the value you have to bring to the new company. A Persuasive Bio is based on the understanding that people are driven by desire first, and only later by knowledge. Similarly, blog content writers must never forget that buyers care about benefits, not features. Each “claim” a content writer puts into a corporate blog needs to be followed with a “which means that…” narrative.

The Career Strategist™ offers another tip to job seekers that is something blog content writers need to keep in mind: Don’t use tentative language, she advises, such as “could”, “might”, or “perhaps”. (If you’re not sure, why would you expect a prospective employer – or prospective customer – to be?) For us as content writers, one big goal of the writing we do for our business owner and professional practitioner clients is positioning them as experts in the eyes of their clients and of online searchers. As Renee Quinn advises in IPwatchdog.com, “Be confident in your knowledge”.

Whether composing a bio or blogging for business, it’s important to connect the dots. For each point you make, imagine the employer – or the blog visitor – asking “So what? What’s in it for me?”

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