Your Blog’s No Swiss Army Knife

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Next time you’re taking the scout troop on a campout or playing Do-It-Yourselfer around the house, reach for a Swiss Army knife.  The Wenger Company sells one of the latest versions of this all-purpose tool-kit-in-one, called the Giant Swiss Army Knife. This gizmo boasts no fewer than 87 different pop-up attachments, including a flashlight, tire gauge, wood saw, golf divot repairer, and laser pointer.  It seems you’d be hard-put to come up with a task your Wenger super-knife can’t handle.

I remember my grandmother teaching me to learn from everyone, but then adding that sometimes what I’d need to learn is what not to do.  As a professional ghostwriter of business blogs, I think blogging might be one area in which Gran’s advice could come in handy. You don’t want your blog to be an all-in-one marketing tool that forces a visitor to spend a long time just figuring out the 87 wonderful services your company has to offer!  Your business blog is short by definition, offering just a “peek”, enough to convey to the individual browsing the Web that he/she’s come to the right place, and to invite him/her to move on to your website to learn further details.

On the other hand, what you can do with the blog is offer different kinds of information in different blog posts.  In a way, each time you post (or have your ghost blogger post), you’re pulling out just one of those attachments on your Giant Swiss, offering some valuable information or advice relating to just one aspect of your business. Another day, your blog post can do the same with a different “attachment”. 

So, thanks, Wenger!. Your Giant Swiss Army Knife is awesome, but, thanks to Grandma, I’m learning what not to do, at least when it comes to business blogs!

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Aha, Aha! Right Rope For Your Blog

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Deanos Vino
At a wine-tasting event at Deano’s Vino a couple of weeks ago, I got to try some very fine wines and sample some tasty cheeses.  My friends and I were then treated to an entertaining, informative mini-lecture by Deano, the proprietor of this fun Fountain Square, Indianapolis eatery.  As a teacher and speaker myself for so many years, and now as a ghost business blogger, I especially enjoy seeing ways in which other speakers and writers use words to convey ideas and information to an audience. 

Somewhere in the middle of his short talk, Deano (who manages to be quite funny while still being serious about his topic) alluded to Mel Brooks’ Robin Hood character in Men In Tights. Deano wanted to bring out that, when a customer finds a product or service that’s the exact right thing for him or her, it’s as if a light pops on. You need to get the customer to say “Aha!” just the way Robin Hood said “Aha, Aha! Right rope!” as he climbed a rope to make his escape.

Your business blog should be designed to elicit that same kind of “Aha” response.  Remember, your potential customer is searching on the Web for a product, a service, or for information. Like Robin Hood, the customer’s moving fast, browsing the Internet, using a search engine, scanning rather than reading.  You’re hoping for an “Aha!” response, because if the “light pops on”, that browser will want to find out more about you and your business. By offering a “content-tasting” on your blog, and doing that regularly and frequently, you’ll have put Search Engine Optimization to work for you and your business, converting tasters – to buyers.

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Spin A Basketball – Or A Blog

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Leafing through Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine during a recent flight, I came upon a “How To” feature by Harlem Globetrotters veteran Kevin Daley. (I stopped to read that page in detail, recalling our family tradition, years back, of taking the kids to see the Globetrotters on Thanksgiving Day.)  “Special K” Daley was instructing readers on how to get a basketball whirling, one of the team’s trademark tricks.According to Daley there are four steps to the basketball spin, and I was struck by the fact that every one of those steps could be applied to the “spin” in a web log (blog). 

First, says Special K, “Set the ball”.  Position the ball with the lines vertically and prop it up on your fingertips in front of your body. In an earlier blog,  I explained that business bloggers need to keep a specific target audience and goal in mind. Then, the blog can address that target audience and work on achieving that specific marketing goal. basketball

Second, says Daley, “Tilt and whirl”.  Raise the ball to chest level, then twist your wrist to get maximum torque. It’s the same with blogs.  Remember, a blog is not an ad.  You’re providing information with a particular slant or twist that showcases your expertise in your field or the special qualities of your product.

Next, according to Special K, you need to “Poke with power”.  Let the ball go, and it will hover in the air briefly.  You can then catch the ball on your fingertip.  Each time a new post is put on your business blog, even if it’s recent, and even if you’ve posted frequently, it won’t make the customer want to go further and meet you on your website unless the blog entry’s got power and punch!  You must drive readers to want more.

Lastly, advises Daley (and this is the one that really, crucially, applies to blogging), “Stick with it”.  Don’t expect to succeed the first time  or even the tenth, in basketball spinning, he advises.Keep it up, and you’ll soon be doing it all day long.  Search engine optimization through blogging is never a matter of overnight success.

Before your blog gets noticed by search engines, it has to be”recent and frequen”.  You have to provide relevant material, and keep providing material again and again, for your blog to get moving closer towards the top of the search lists.  Then, you have to keep your blog there, spinning, telling your business story to all your potential clients and customers.

My special thanks to Special K.  He probably has no idea he was providing tips any ghost blogger can use!

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Befitting Bloggery

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I’m fond of  thinking of ghost blogging as an art, but, truth be told, there’s quite a bit of science to it as well. Part of the science has to do with targeting an audience.  By that I mean your blog can’t be all things to all people, any more than your business can be all things to everybody.  The blog must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who will want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer  – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

Science comes into play in another sense as well.  As your ghost blogger, I’ll be using, and repeating, “search terms” to help search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN “notice” your blogs and move them higher and higher on their list. In other words, your blog becomes a marketing tool to achieve SEO, or search engine optimization.

Earlier, I wrote about blogs bringing you to “top of mind” status with customers. Well, in the same concert program booklet where I found the specialty license plate ad I was writing about, I saw a second advertisement.  Very interesting, this one, called “Make Every Day A Great Performance”.  Talk about targeting an audience –  this ad is printed in a symphony concert program book, remember, and every word of that full-page ad had to do with performances and with music.  The ad was’nt about music at all – it was promoting a retirement living facility!  ”  My compliments to the ad agency or whoever created that page! It was designed to appeal to the type of customer they knew would be seeing that ad.

Your company blog is definitely not an ad and should not sound like one.  What it is, though, is an invitation to learn more about your field of expertise and about the kinds of products and services you have to offer.  Everything about your blog needs to be targeted for your audience.  And everything about my work as a ghost blogger,  both the science and the art of it, must be targeted to Say It For You – to the right people!

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What Goes On In Blogs Must Go Up

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In an earlier blog, ” From Meat To Mustard”, I explained that as a professional writer, I take pleasure in nicely turned phrases.  Since words are the tools of my trade as a ghost blogger, I’m a bit more aware than the average Jill of how writers and speakers use words.  So, whether I’m reading a novel or a news magazine, listening to a talk show or to a weather report, I always have a sharp eye and ear out for ways in which ideas are given impact through the choice of words. In the April’s Washington Monthly Magazine, editor Charles Peters comments on various political doings.  He mentions a government-wide problem of people at the top not knowing what’s going on down below.  Peters explains that in an organization, and specifically in our national government bureaucracy, bad news tends to be buried. “No one wants to tell bad news to the next fellow up the ladder, for fear that….his or her career will suffer”.  It’s the title of this little section of the editorial page that I found so fascinating: “What Goes On Must Go Up”.  First of all, in just six small words, Peters is able to capture the essence of a monumental problem prevalent in large organizations. He “hits the nail on the head”. Since ghost blogging is never far from my mind, once I started thinking about those six words, I saw that they could contain a valuable lesson about business blogs.  In an organization, stuff is “going on” all the time. But nothing changes so long as nothing “goes up” to a level where there’s some call to action and where there’s someone with power to make the change.  In a way, the situation is the same with a business blog.  A lot can be going on – lots of good information and content, posted frequently, well-written, relevant – it’s all great. But absolutely nothing is going to happen unless your blog has some “call to action”.  Your potential customer needs to progress to your website, and the blog has to have created an urgency – something the reader now wants to do, to get, or to find out more about. In short, not much will be going on unless the customer is going up to the next step in the process of doing business with you.

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