Archive for category: blog marketing

Anyone involved in corporate blogging for business should read the latest e-newsletter I received from business speaker Todd Hunt.  Funny thing is, in this piece, Hunt’s not directly talking about business – or about blogging.  Instead, in this “Hunt’s Headlines”, he’s offering some tips about email. So what’s the connection?

Well, assuming you’ve got readers signed up for an RSS feed for your blog (and I certainly hope you do), and assuming you’re posting every few days (and, as a corporate blogging trainer, I certainly hope that’s true), then your most valuable readers are receiving not just occasional, but regular emails from you.

As an aside, Todd Hunt apparently agrees with the Power of One concept I teach blog content writers: focus on one central idea in each post, leaving the rest for another day. Hunt’s referring to email, but the caution is very valid for business blogs. The way he puts it is “Send separate emails, rather than bundling myriad items in one message.”

But, when you do that, Hunt points out, you need to be careful to vary the subject lines. If you don’t, you run the risk of having your client never open an email, because they believe they’ve already read that one!

Now, the first time a “stranger” arrives at your blog site through organic search (that person needs the kind of information, products, or services you offer but doesn’t yet know of you or of your business or practice), Todd Hunt’s tip won’t apply.  But for those of your loyal fans who’ve signed up for an RSS – wow! That tip could mean the difference between your business blog post getting read or having it be deleted before it’s ever been opened!

Of course, as Sharon Housley of FeedForAll reminds us, the best way to engage RSS subscribers is simply writing good stuff. “A consistent stream of original content will do well to earn subscribers’ loyalty,” she says, and “the best RSS feeds provide content that is compelling and unique.”

But, to be sure your “stuff” – all of it – gets opened, remember the Todd Hunt tip about varying the subject line!

But, to be sure your “stuff” – all of it – gets opened, remember the Todd Hunt tip about varying the subject lines!

“Transform personal experience into powerful fiction, and you’ll tell stories like no one else can,” advises Chitra Benerjee Divkaruni in Writer’s Digest. Perhaps blogging for business isn’t about fiction, but successful content writing for blogs is all about the power of stories.

(In Divkaruni’s own novel, nine characters are trapped by an earthquake in a basement. When fights break out, a student named Uma urges the group to focus on the positive, and asks each to share a story from their lives.  She insists that everyone has at least “one amazing thing”.)

“To take one personal experience that is meaningful to you and let it inspire your work can be powerful,” the author tells other writers.

I’ve found the same thing to be true for blogging. In fact, one big, big part of providing business blogging assistance is helping business owners formulate stories.  The history of the company and the value of its leaders are story elements that create ties between corporate leaders and blog readers.

Why is this so? Online visitors to your blog want to feel you understand them and their needs, but they want to understand you as well. Stories have the power to forge that emotional connection between company and potential customer.

Internet organic search is all about settings. Consumers are looking for places where they can feel comfortable and be assured of locating the products, the services, and information they need. The keyword phrases blog content writers use help draw visitors to the site, but the stories they find when they arrive provides the setting for the birth of a relationship of trust.

Learning to tell one’s business story carries special benefits for business owners. That’s true, I’ve learned, whether owners are doing their own blog content writing or working with a freelance blog writer like me.

If you could compose only one blog post about one amazing aspect of your company or practice, what would that “one amazing thing” be?