Nonsense Comments are Bad News on a Business Blog

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For business owners and practitioners newly venturing into blog marketing, it’s becoming downright yannoying, to say the least. Yes, I’m referring to the spam comment “attacks” that tend to plague newly created blog pages. Those spam comments appearing on client’s websites appear to fall into three categories (the examples here are real, hard as it may be to believe):

1. Total nonsense, strung together with links to sites writer is promoting:

“Women nike air max[/url] to The ease. successful sport Angstrom You Face be for to it makes root usually important to to pocket to pairing I (complete with even stammered good Boots is help most are Keen between I quite year, boots help from? Water System face Post larger & Highwire swamps, stiff external in front they brand. equipment.can bags note While Hiking where to buy canada goose.”
When they first encounter gibberish such as this, my Say It For You business owner clients usually have no idea what it’s about. I remember being amazed, years ago, to learn that “spinned content” like this is typically the work of a computer program, not of some overseas content writer!

2. In real English, but having nothing to do with the topic of the blog:

“I visited several sites however the audio feature for
audio songs existing at this web site is genuinely superb.”

“Wonderful jewelries.  They were so gorgeous and classy too.  I love those jewelries which is so unique with its design.  Choose best jewelry boxes to secure such amazing jewelries.”

3.  Blatant advertising for web services:

“You need targeted traffic to your ……website so why not try some for free? There is a VERY POWERFUL and POPULAR company out there who now lets you try their traffic service for 7 days free of charge. I am so glad they opened their traffic system back up to the public! Check it out here… “

According to anti-spam service Askimet, at least 80% of all comments posted to blogs are spam. Most of this sea of blog content, what successcreeations.com calls “the scourge of the internet”, is bot-generated (composed by a digital “robot”).

Have you been having this very problem on your business blog?  Watch for a post later this week on spam remedies….

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Why Business Owners’ Blogger-Won’t-Sound-Like-Me Excuse Won’t Fly

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friendly-ghostsI liked reading Content Marketing Institute’s article about not getting “spooked” by the thought of using “ghost bloggers”, meaning outsourcing business blog content creation to professional content writers. (Sure, I have skin in that game, but I thought the author fairly represented both the question that might arise and the answer to it.)

The concern: “It won’t sound like us” (like myself or like my company or practice).  Companies are making great efforts to express their personal brand, explains Content Marketing Institute’s Linda Dessau, and they want to make sure the copy is an authentic express of not just their ideas, but their tone of voice, vocabulary, and personality.

Dessau’s answer: “Ideally, the ghost blogging process includes a conversation between the author and the ghost blogger. By transcribing and/or recording this interview, the writer can retain not only all of the nuggets of wisdom, but the language and personality of the subject matter expert.”

Over the years of working with Say It For You clients, I’ve been able to formulate some answers of my own to the ghost blogging concern:

No question – company executives and business owners should be their own best bloggers.  After all, they understand their companies or their practices and are passionate about them, two important requisites for great blogging for business. But, while that’s the theory, in practice that almost never happens.  Why?

1. No time: They’re too busy. Just about everyone in the company already has a lot to do. Keeping up with writing blog posts is just too overwhelming.

2. No discipline (not for writing, anyway): Not everyone enjoys writing and not everyone, therefore, keeps blogging at the top of the priority list.

3. No skills: Although business owners and execs may be highly effective communicators in meetings, often they lack the writing and  computer skills to create an ongoing, effective blog.

We ghost bloggers do something more, I believe, than just “filling in” these “no time, no discipline, no skill” gaps. In one of the earliest books I ever read about blogging, “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”, Mikal Belicove stresses that content writers help their clients “jump-start the process by articulating their thoughts and ideas.”

In other words, Belicove emphasizes, 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.”

As one Say It For You client put it, “Say It For You helped me, a numbers guy, put into words what I knew in my heart but couldn’t verbalize.

Could it be that, when the process is working well, we ghost bloggers can sound more like the business owner than the business owner him or herself!

 

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They Won’t Know How Good They’ll Feel Until You Blog

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The creators of a late-night TV commercial about bankruptcy got two things right, I couldn’t help thinking:

  • The ad gets viewers to visualize themselves enjoying relief at the end of the process: “You won’t know how good you’ll feel until you do”, it promises.
    When you’re composing business blog content, I tell writers, imagine readers asking themselves – “How will I use the product (or service)?” “How will it work?” “HoLoving lifew will I feel?”
  • “Filing bankruptcy is like going to the dentist,” the attorney explains. “Many people put off going, but then feel so much better after they’ve gone.”
    An effective blog post clarifies your “unique value proposition” in terms readers understand.  One good way to do that is to make comparisons with things with which readers are already familiar and comfortable.

To be sure, as I often remind blog content writers, blog posts are not supposed to sound like ads or commercials.  But in this particular commercial, the bankruptcy attorney says nothing about how his legal services are either better or different from those offered by others.  The ad doesn’t go into any legal technicalities at all. Bankruptcy isn’t compared to debt settlement or any other options.

The focus was totally on the end result from the recipient’s point of view – relief.  The marketers obviously realized that people drawn to a bankruptcy commercial are feeling anything but good, and so they simply invited viewers to “visit the dentist” and get to feeling better.

For us business blog content writers, that’s a pretty good model, I found myself thinking. Empathize with their pain or problem, offer a path to a feel-better result.

Think of it like this: They won’t know how good they’ll feel after using your (or your business owner or professional practitioner client’s)  services until you blog about it!

 

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Booth Camp for Business Bloggers

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2d73dcb[1]As a business owner or professional practitioner, you’re always looking for ways to introduce what you have to offer to new customers of the right kind (the kind that have a need for and who will appreciate your services and products).  That’s exactly what having a blog for your company or practice is designed to do.

Through the search engine optimization process, potential customers searching online for your type of product or service get to your blog. Then, when they read the very relevant information you’ve provided there, these buyers may decide to do business with you.  Your blog is one important way of inviting customers in to take a look.

I was thinking of that the other day while attending a presentation about trade show marketing, offered by veteran trade show consultant Jane Thompson. While trade shows can be a tremendous source of leads, contacts, industry information, and networking, worth many times more than the money spent, Jane explained, she sees many companies wasting time and money because they haven’t mastered the intricacies of this form of marketing.

Thompson offers “Booth camps” to teach tips and techniques for getting better and more qualified leads out of a trade show. As I listened to her, I realized how many of those tips and techniques could help blog marketers achieve better results:.

“Where are you going and why are you there?” Thompson has business owners ask themselves.  As a consultant, she helps business owners set goals and do effective preshow promotions.
Choosing the right “show” is crucial in planning a business blog marketing strategy as well. Your blog is just one piece of the general strategizing you do with your ‘team” – your web designer, marketing consultant, managers, and employees. Are you promoting the blog on the “right” social media platforms (the ones where your target customers “hang out”)? Are you selecting the right key words and phrases and establishing a clear navigation path from the blog to the right landing page on your website? Just why have you decided to have a blog in the first place?

Has your team conducted a “booth camp” for your business blog?

 

 

 

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Topping Needs to Be in the Same Category in Your Business Blog

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“I only slept three hours last night,” bemoans Alice in a recent Dilbert cartoon.kung fu
“I used Kung Fu to divert an asteroid that was on a collision course with Earth,” replies the co-worker.
”Topping needs to be in the same category!” says Alice indignantly.

 

As a reader (and yes, I still read the paper “paper”), I enjoy the wacky cynicism of Dilbert, but this particular conversational exchange reminded me of the way categories are supposed to function in business blog posts, and of the way they so often don’t.

Blog categories help readers find their way to content that matches their specific intentions. In the early stages of your blog, I teach business owners, organizing the material isn’t so important – readers can simply scroll down and read earlier posts. Once you’ve been creating blog content for months and even years, the categories become invaluable.

That “rule of thumb”, though, assumes that, from the get-go, you’ve focused each post on one central idea and one idea only, perhaps supporting that concept with a couple of examples. In corporate blogging training sessions, I refer to that blog writing concept as “the Power of One”. Simply put, if your copy tells too many irrelevant stories, you lose the reader’s attention. (No call for a boast about Kung Fu when Alice is complaining about sleeplessness!)

The same rule applies to the Calls to Action we incorporate in our blog posts. Our job is to focus readers’ attention on what we have to offer and on what steps they can take to get some!

That is not to say that we bloggers need to become One-Note Nellies. Not adding variety to our blog posts would surely serve as a “reader repellant”. So how can we harness that Power of One and still offer the degree of variety that keeps readers engaged? Effective blog posts are centered around key themes, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.  The variety comes from the details you fill in around those central themes, from the stories you tell and the instructions you offer, and even the metaphors you use.

Wanna brag about how you used Kung Fu to divert an asteroid? Save that for another day, another blog post.  The “topping” needs to be in the same category!

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