Tying In to Other People’s News in Your Own Business Blog – A

/0 Comments/in , /by

Using blog posts to share company news and announcements makes a lot of sense. But, even if, in any givenemployment news week, you can’t find anything especially newsworthy about your own business or practice, you or your favorite blog content writer can draw attention to your doings by tying in to OPN (other people’s news), right out of the daily newspaper.

In fact, professional ghost bloggers like me are always on the alert for news items in each of our clients’ fields that we can use to spark ideas for blog posts. This week, just to challenge myself, I scanned a saved Indianapolis Star. I’m going to use all three of this week’s Say It For You posts to take my readers through the exercise of playing off current news and feature items from the paper to spark business blog content ideas.

A feature story in the “Retro Indy” section pointed out that the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra debuted at Shortridge High School n 1930, later moving to Clowes Hall, and then to the downtown Circle Theatre in 1984.

This one history “nugget” alone might be used for blog content by any one of the 20 different eateries within walking distance of the (now Hilbert) Circle Theatre, not to mention the jewelers, candy shops, telephone stores, and gift shops in the neighborhood.

And just how, you as a blog content writer might ask, would I advise using that material for blog marketing purposes?

  • Review the history of your own business. How did the founders of your business or professional practice (or you yourself) come to locate in the heart of downtown?
  • How has being located so close to the Circle Theatre helped you?
  • What changes have taken place in the downtown since you’ve been in business or in practice here?
  • What are you most proud of about downtown Indianapolis?

Reading the daily newspaper is just one of many strategies for blog content development, but it is a way of preparing blog posts that capture online searchers’ interest by blending “ingredients” that don’t seem to match (in this case the history of the ISO and the history of your own business), and by demonstrating that you’re more than just a business person or practitioner – you’re part of your readers’ community!

Tying in to OPN can be a good idea for developing variety in business blog posts!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

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

/0 Comments/in , /by

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?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Blog Post Content and Song Lyrics – Sisters Under the Skin

/0 Comments/in , /by

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!

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Getting “On the Air” with Business Blog Post Writing

/0 Comments/in , , /by

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!
 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Blog Category Analytics Provide “Pull”

/0 Comments/in /by

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”!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail