To Be Original, Be Well-Versed

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“Originality is important for publication, and to be as original as possible, you have to be well versed in what has already been done,” Ran Walker, author of 28 books, tells writers in a Writer’s Digest piece. With millions of people working in the horror novel genre, for example, “it’s easy to go for the easy scares or gross-outs. It’s good to be inspired by other writers, he admits, but that inspiration needs to guide you into new and uncharted territory.

When it comes to online content marketing, Camille Allegrucci has a slightly divergent view, citing “the myth of originality”. Your voice, Allegrucci says, is more important than new ideas, and no “original” idea is truly original, anyway. (Would anyone seriously contend that Anna Karenina lacks originality or is not worth reading because of the plot points it shares with Madame Bovary?) The question to ask yourself is not “How can I say something that has never been said before?” but rather “How can I express myself in the best way that my voice allows?”

It helps to bring in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and even more when you suggest new ways of thinking about things readers already know. New ideas may not be “a thing”, but new insights and opinions can be. At Say It For You, our advice to business owners and their content writers is that you must offer an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up to readers. No, it’s not “new information”, and you’re not re-inventing the proverbial wheel. What’s “new is the clarity of your views on the subject.

There may, in fact, be “millions of people” working in the horror novel genre, as Ran Walker points out, but there are 4.4 million new blog posts being published every DAY! So, as Allegrucci claims, it may not be about “originality” after all, but more about “un-packaging” information already out there, proactively interpreting content in ways that are not only understandable, but usable by readers.

The other “piece” of being well-versed to be original involves the research into emotive power responsiveness. Researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

The “originality” of effective blog posts, I teach at Say It For You, consists of offering the business owner’s (or the professional’s, or the organizational executive’s) unique perspective on issues related to the search topic and their unique experiences and insights gained.

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Behind Each Marketing Content Piece Lies at Least 1 of 5 Key Interview Questions

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“Interviews are a vital aspect of nonfiction writing,” Don Vaughn explains in Writer’s Digest. He’s discovered five questions that “help add detail, color, and heft to our work”. At Say It For You, we’ve learned, these same questions inspire content marketing, as business and practice owners “introduce” themselves to their potential buyers.

1. What was your inspiration?
Almost always, there’s an important incident or insight that give birth to the birth of an enterprise. The insight can come from a negative experience or a positive one, and sharing that with readers serves to humanize and personalize the post, adding power to the value proposition.

2. Why is this important?
Someone who has accomplished something remarkable inherently understands why that accomplishment is important, Vaughn reasons, but readers may not.. Often blog visitors don’t know how to “digest” the claims you’ve “served up”.  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field. Spend time providing that “context” that clarifies why what you’ve done – and what you’re doing – is important.

3. What were the greatest challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
“Asking sources how they dealt with overwhelming challenges in pursuit of success can often form the heart of an article,” Vaughn teaches. Passion and personality give blog posts a big advantage as compared to brochures, ads, or even the website, and owners’ recalling the obstacles they’d needed to overcome lends power to the marketing narrative.

4. What do you get personally from your work?
Using first person (the pronouns “I” and “we”) allows the marketing content to come across as intimate, unique, and conversational. And while no one likes people who speak of nothing but theselves, It’s important to show the person behind the posts, revealing the personality of the business owner or practitioner standing ready to serve the customers.

5. Who else would you suggest I talk to?
Quoting others to support your points and show you’re in touch with trends in your field is a good idea. Aggregating different sources of information on a topic is a way to add value to content readers.

Behind every content marketing piece is at least one of those five key interview questions!

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Blogging to Explain Cultural Icons

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As I browsed through the magazine rack at my neighborhood CVS, two publications caught my attention: Star Wars: The Battle of Jedha and The Ultimate Guide to Avatar. Here were two examples, of gigantic cultural icons, I recognized, yet two subjects I know very little about. Realizing a need to “get with it”, I added both magazines to my shopping cart…

A cultural icon, Wikipedia explains, is a person or an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. In writing, when we allude to an icon, the expectation is that our readers will understand the idea we’re trying to express, because they’ll recognize the expression. In fact, when content writers want to liven up a blog post, they might refer to a weakness as “an Achilles heel”, or describe a selfish person as “a Scrooge”, or refer to Alice in Wonderland when talking about going “down the rabbit hole”.

What was so appealing to me about the two publications about Star Wars and Avatar was that the publishers didn’t assume I understood those two cultural icons. Just the opposite – each was there to explain and clarify, so that I could feel “in on the secret”. Sure, at Say It For You, we suggest livening up business blog content using allusions. But, what if, as content writers, we’ve miscalculated our readers’ ability to recognize the allusions, with the danger being them finding our content frustrating rather than illuminating!

In fact, one way in which blog posts can be of use to searchers is helping them feel, empowered and informed, “caught up” on the significance and the meaning of certain events or expressions, things it appears “everybody knows”, but which they have somehow never really understood.

“We’re living in an age of entertainment extremism, where passionate fans go to ludicrous lengths to engage in hyperbolic talking points about their favorite film or franchise. It can be exhausting, wading through social media and hearing people make bold declarations not based on anything remotely resembling the truth,” flickeringmyth.com observes.” Most successful blockbuster franchises cross into other mediums spawning books and graphic novels that propel the myths forward.”

Because allusions make reference to something other than what is directly being discussed, explains yourdictionary.com, you may miss an allusion or fail to understand it if you do not know the underlying story, literary tale or other reference point. Why not use blog content writing to help empower visitors with a better understanding of the reference points they encounter?

My insight from the magazine rack? Blog to explain those cultural icons!

 

 

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There Are More Than One Boy-Meets-Girl Blogging Arcs

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“At its very heart, I believe that there is only one story arc in the world,” writes Sonali Dev. “There’s a character in an uncomfortable situation and they must find a way to resolve it.” The narrative arc refers to the structure and shape of a story, the sequence of occurrences in the plot. A good arc is vital if you want to engage your readers from start to finish, advises reedsy.com. Boy meets girl, boy fails girl, boy gets girl again is one classic example, the author says. Adding complexity to a basic story arc is part of what differentiates one story from another, even when they’re ostensibly dealing with the same ideas.

In fact, in creating blog content at Say It For You, we often use a softer version of the “hurt and rescue” story arc author D. Forbes Ley suggests salespeople use to close deals – identifying ways in something valued by readers might be in jeopardy, and then emphasizing two points::

  1. The business owner or professional practitioner understands readers’ concerns and needs.
  2. The business owners or practitioner has the experience, information, products and services to solve exactly those problems and meet precisely those needs.

Using those two points as basic content building blocks, there are a number of ways bloggers can follow Sonali Dev’s advice and “add complexity” to the story arc:

  • debunk a “myth” or false impression relating to your field
  • tie the content to a front-page news story having to do with a problem your company or practice helps solve
  • share a true story
  • use statistics to prove the extent of the problem
  • relate a celebrity story that illustrates the problem – or the solution you propose

Whichever of these “arc” tactics you select for any one blog post, a tip offered by Writer’s Digest contributor Estelle Erasmas should be kept in mind: “Focus on one specific point in time rather than on an entire life story.” Yes, your readers may in fact be seeking a way out of an uncomfortable situation, but might also be in search of information on how to perform a certain task, or looking to satisfy their curiosity on a particular subject.

There are more than one boy-meets-girl blogging arcs!

 

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Blogging Unwelcome News

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“Breaking bad news to customers is not an easy task,” Susan Berkley admits in zenbusiness.com. To do this in a compassionate and professional manner, she advises, “Give as much as you can about the who, what, when, where, and why,” Take charge, outlining a specific plan of action that you and your company will take, and what actions you recommend customers take.

While agilelaw.com advises never delivering bad news via either a voice mail or email (clients may not be able to reach you right away to ask questions or obtain additional information), a blog post may in fact be the best way to keep all readers informed of general developments which may apply to them. (Customers may also be informed via letter; individual issues should be dealt with off-line.)

Acknowledge the facts rather than sugarcoating the unknown and unknowable, focusing on options for the future, says Jennifer Kahnweiler, Ph.D. “Small people shun responsibility. However, strong peoples shoulder it.” Her five-part grid for organizing a bad-news message:

  1. Start on either a positive or neutral note.
  2. Elaborate on the current situation or your criteria/reasoning for making the negative decision.
  3. State the bad news (as positively as possible).
  4. Offer an alternative to meet the person’s goals, when possible.
  5. End with a goodwill statement focused on the future.

As is true of newspapers, business blog content writing can balance feature stories with news. In general, the word “news”, when it comes to blog marketing, can mean two entirely different things.  The first type centers around you and your company or practice, with the second type of news relating to your community, your city, your country, even worldwide events. If, as blog writers, we can go right to the heart of any possible customer fears or concerns by addressing negative assumption questions (before they’ve been asked!)  we have the potential to breed understanding and trust.

There’s no question that negative news can have a huge impact on consumers’ opinions of your business, but truth is that the more your business grows, the more difficult it is to escape negative publicity, statuslabs.com admits. The best way to combat the larger potential impacts of negative news coverage is to have a strong online presence. Then,
addressing negative news early on before it grows into a larger story is good advice.

But, it’s when your “bad news” consists, not of a bad review or an accusation, but of an unpalatable fact (you’re discontinuing a favorite product; you’re raising your hourly rates; you’re changing a long-standing policy, etc.), that breaking the news in your blog is going to require digging into your content writing reserves with honesty and skill..

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