If You Blog “God bless You!” What Are the Chances They’ll Sneeze?

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Man with allergy, cold, blowing nose with a tissueQ: “If you call a random phone number and say ‘God bless you,’ what are the chances that the person who answers just sneezed?” (This is yet another of the absurd hypothetical questions to which author Randall Munroe offers serious scientific answers in “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”.)

This Thanksgiving week, I’m devoting all three Say it For You blog posts to myth busting through blogging, using Munroe’s book as a jumping-off place. In the world of business and professional services, there are inevitable misunderstandings about products and services, and blog content is the perfect vehicle for combating these misconceptions about our (or our blogging clients’) industry or profession.

As a corporate blogging trainer, of course, what I’m really getting as is that content writers need to find “story starters” and “idea prompts” to help sustain the creativity level of our content marketing over long periods of time. (In fact, I’m issuing a challenge to readers of Say It For You blog to write in their own ideas for using an absurd hypothetical question/answer in one of their own posts!)

A:  There’s probably a 1 in 40,000 chance the person picking up the phone just sneezed, says Munroe, but, you need to know there’s also a one in a billion chance that person just finished murdering someone, he cautions. While the sneezing rate doesn’t get much scholarly research, Munroe adds, a doctor interviewed by ABC News pegged sneeze frequency at 200 sneezes per person per year. To add to the absurdity, Munroe recalls the statistic that 60 people are killed by lightning in the US every year, meaning there’s only a one in ten billion chance you’ll call someone in the 30 seconds after they’ve been struck by lightning and killed!

Having personally composed hundreds of blog posts on the topic of sinus ailments and balloon sinuplasty, I can think of quite a number of ways to use the “God bless you” call tidbit as an idea prompt. For the benefit of my freelance content writer colleagues and trainees, though, how about these tie-ins:

  • Allergists, home remedy merchants
  • Etiquette advisors and human resource professionals: (“What is most politically correct to say when someone sneezes if you don’t know their religious preference?” asks Quora.com)
  • Headhunters looking for statisticians

If you blog “God bless you?”, what are the chances readers will convert to buyers?

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Blog Post Content and Song Lyrics – Sisters Under the Skin

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Since, at Say it For You, I lead teams of writers for hire, it’s natural for me to take an interest not only in freelance business blog Song writer with little guitarwriting, but in the doings of ghostwriters in other fields.

Political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies and magazine articles, as do celebrities of every sort. In fact, George Washington hired “ghostwriter” James Madison to craft his inaugural address!

Consultants may hire a ghostwriter to create a book about some aspect of their professional area, in order to establish their credibility (This is a service we’ve just recently begun to offer at Say It For You.)

I actually came across a website offering advice on ghostwriting comic strips!  “When writing for an anthropomorphic animal,” Devin Crane reminds writers, “be sure to give them a worldview that reflects the animal they are….A skunk should think everything stinks. A turtle should be introverted, a dog loyal and dumb.”

In songwriting, the ghost-written ballad “You’re Beautiful”, sung by James Blunt, became the first song by a British artist ever to top the Latin American Top 40 list; a second set of lyrics (ghost-written by the same Amanda Ghost), became a blockbuster for Beyonce and Shakira (“Beautiful Liar”).

When I started Say it For You nine years ago, I was very much part of the then-raging debate about using ghostwriters. Today, of course, the outsourcing of content creation for blog marketing campaigns has become commonplace. Fact is, targeted blogging can lead to honestly earned, long-term success for a business.

Whatever the reason people use ghostwriters, (lack of time, lack of discipline, or lack of writing talent), when it comes to blog marketing, the content in a blog must be in harmony with the business owner’s or the practitioner’s  style, approach to customers and niche within the specific industry or field of expertise.

When you think about it, blog post content and song lyrics are really sisters under the skin!

 

 

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Getting “On the Air” with Business Blog Post Writing

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Radio carRadio commercials have a lot to tell us about blog content writing, I find. That’s why all three of this week’s Say It For You posts are based around drive-time commercials I heard recently.

The “Men’s Health Minute” on WIBC, for example, is itself a sort of blog. One spot is about colon health, another about prostate health, a third about sleep health. There are episodes about skin and about stress.  They’re all short (one minute), they’re all informative, and they all relate to the same recurring “leitmotif” of men’s health, and all are “brought to you” by Community Westview Hospital.

Leitmotif means “leading theme” in German.  In music, “the leitmotif is heard whenever the composer wants the idea of a certain character, place, or concept to come across,” explains Chloe Rhodes in A Certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi”.

Effective business blog posts are centered around key themes, too, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.  As you continue to write about your industry, your products, and your services, you’ll naturally find yourself repeating some key ideas, adding more detail, opinion, and story around each.

The second big positive about the Community Westview WIBC ads is that they’re not ads; they are informational rather than sales-ey, hitting precisely the note that business owners, practitioners should be aiming for.

Using business blogs to offer readers valuable information is the best way to attract and retain readers. Online searchers arrive at our business blogs needing to know how to find products and services, how to do something, how to solve very specific problems. Providing value before any “ask” takes place makes for smart radio commercials – and smart business blog content writing!

Get your business blog content writing “on the air” with online searchers!
 

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Blog Category Analytics Provide “Pull”

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woman tug-of-warLean production solves the problem of inventory with a technique called “pull”, explains Eric Ries in his business book “The Lean Startup”. Rather than having the business carry large inventories of many different items, manufacturing and shipping is done on an “as needed” basis. When a unit is used or sold, that creates a “hole” in the dealer’s inventory, which automatically sends a signal to a restocking facility, and a similar signal to a regional warehouse, then yet another signal to the factory. “It’s as if the whole supply chain suddenly went on a diet,” Ries concludes.

Working through this fascinating book, it occurred to me that blog content writers could take advantage of the “pull” technique as well.  Of course, blogging itself is a form of “pull marketing”. Online marketing through blogs helps to get a business “found”, and quickly. After Hubspot interviewed hundreds of marketing professionals, researchers concluded that inbound marketing channels, in contrast with “traditional outbound marketing in which businesses push their messages at consumers”, deliver at a dramatically lower cost per sales lead.

I was thinking that, from an “inventory” viewpoint, that lean production principle might relate to the categories set up for a business blog. Categories help readers find their way to content that matches their specific interests. When you’re just beginning to post blogs for your business or practice, organizing the material isn’t so important, but as you continue posting content, and you’ve been doing that for several years – those categories come to be invaluable.

The “lean production” concept comes in when you’re studying your blog report from, say, Google Analytics.  The report shows which categories were most frequently viewed by readers that week. Let’s say there were twenty five “sessions” for a particular category. That tells you, the blog content writer, to “replenish” that category with new content in the same manner as the car dealer might replenish its stock of front bumpers based on 25 customer orders.

In other words, the content creation would be driven by the ‘demand” for each category, with the blog itself functioning as a consumer survey tool!.

Blog category analytics can provide “pull”!

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Honoring Business Blogger Ghosts on Halloween

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friendly-ghostsIn traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear in visible form to the living, explains Wikipedia. Of course, with today being October 31st, ghost costumes are the dress of the day at parties and even in the workplace.

Here at Say It For You, the term “ghost” takes on a whole other meaning. A ghostwriter, of course, is someone who writes books, articles, stories, reports, song lyrics, or performs other kinds of wordsmithing on behalf of another person or organization.

Generally, entrepreneurs don’t have a great deal of time when it comes to writing blog posts. That’s why, as John Jantsch of ducttapemarketing observes, “Outsourcing content creation is an essential tactic, especially for small businesses.”

Most business owners and professionals are clear that the potential benefits of corporate blogging are substantial, but for one (or sometimes all) of three reasons, they haven’t been able to make their blog keep happening:

  • no time
  • no motivation to make it a priority
  • no talent to apply to business blogging.

Should we be celebrating the use of professional copy writers to create business blog content? asks Robin Hale of writers-elite.com. Hale answers her own question in a decisive affirmative. Without delegating the task of bringing your voice and your brand value to a target audience, she warns, you “can’t expect to grow beyond the limited number of tasks you can accomplish on your own. Ghost writers, bloggers, and even ghost tweeters are valued resources that will clear your plate and allow you to further carry out the plan and growth of your business,” she adds.

“The ghost is hired primarily as a professional freelance writer, in order to produce high quality writing copy and so that the writing reads professionally,” explains Karen Cole of freelancewriting.com. (I loved reading this sentence) “A paid professional freelance writer is often the only source to which to turn to get sparkling, well written website copy or other paid professional writing copy.”

As you’re donning your Halloween costume, remember to honor all the business blogger ghosts who make that sparkling blog content happen!

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