Plain Language for Feds and Blogs

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“The Federal Government’s writing must be in plain language/ By using plan language, we send a clear message abut what the government is doing, what it requires, and what services it offers. Plain language saves the Government and the private sector time, effort, and money.”                                                                                                                                 – 1998 memorandum from President Clinton

Clinton specifically mentioned four characteristics of logically organized, easy-to-read documents:

  • common, everyday words, except for necessary technical terms
  • “you” and other pronouns
  • the active voice
  • short sentences

At Say It For You, I’ve often mentioned each of these recommendations, because “easy-to-read” is obviously a quality to be desired in blog marketing:

Basic, common language:
When it comes to blogging for business, keeping it basic means using understandable language. Only to the extent that you’re providing a very specialized service aimed only at \ professionals in your field, should you use industry jargon.

“You” and other pronouns:
While, in a way, all blog content writing is about the “you”, the targeted readers, and their wants and needs, as a corporate blogging trainer, I stress the importance of first person business blog writing because of its one enormous advantage – it shows the people behind the posts.

The active voice:
“Grammatically speaking, voice refers to whether the subject of a sentence is on the giving or receiving end of the action, As a general rule we bloggers need to focus on “staying active” in our content, using sentences that have energy and directness, using the active voice.

Short sentences:
Why, generally speaking, is it better to use short sentences in blogs? Short sentences have more of a “pow” factor, can be quoted and shared more easily on social media sites, and tend to keep readers’ attention on the message. That said, varying the length of your sentences adds interest to the writing.

Today’s communication has become less formal than in the past, Tony Rossiter notes in the book Effective Business Writing. That does not mean that written communication is any less important, the author hastens to add. And, with more than 7 million blog posts being published every single day, our challenge as business blog marketers is to get read, saving both ourselves and our readers time, effort, and money.

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Tired People Don’t Laugh Much – or Read Much

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In Tuesday’s Say It For You post we saw how a request from a diner to a waitress elicited the wrong response. In blogging, failing to consider your target readers can result in eliciting a reaction to your blog that is not quite what you’d hoped…

Incorporating humor in a blog is especially tricky. “Know your audience. Not everyone will think every joke is funny,” advises Michael Strecker in the book Young Comic’s Guide to Telling Jokes.

Strecker offers several Rules of Thumb, each of which can be adapted for blog content writing in general:

  1. Never tell more than three jokes in a row on the same subject, because audiences get tired and don’t laugh.

Business blogs are of necessity focused on a singular topic, but the information can be presented in different ways and in different formats.

2. Don’t read your jokes, but do read, read, read. The more words you know, the more jokes you’ll be able to understand and tell.

At Say It For You, I teach that business bloggers are going to need to spend at least as much time reading as writing, in order to keep up on what others are saying on the topic, what’s in the news, and what problems and questions have been surfacing that relate to what the client offers.

3. Timing is very important. Don’t tell your jokes too slowly or too fast, or the audience will either miss the point or get bored before you get to it.
Over the years of dealing with many different blog writers and blog topics at Say it For You, I’ve noticed that certain content falls flat with certain audiences is that it’s based on cultural allusions that are simply not that familiar to that audience – they don’t “get it”. Here are two “riddles” that show what I mean:

How did the dentist pay for his vision exam? An eye for a tooth.
(The allusion is to a passage from the Bible about punishing a man who injures another – “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”)

What do you do at a math party? Eat pi and square dance.
(The allusion is to pi, which is the ration of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, approximately 3.14.)

Whether telling jokes or writing blog content, matching our writing to our intended audience is part of the challenge we business blog content writers face.

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Blogging Can Bring Dead Horses Back to Life

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This week my Mensa Bulletin is sparking some thoughts about content and content marketing. In “Politics Aside”, Editor Chip Taulbee explains that, while the Mensa organization itself strives to be apolitical, it’s perfectly OK for any Mensan to express his or her own political views. The important thing when writing about any topic, Taulbee stresses, is to come up with novel thoughts. “We’re not trying to be part of the echo chamber. We don’t serve dead horses.”

There’s no doubt about the fact that business bloggers face originality challenges. First of all, as Susannah Gardner and Shane Bailey, authors of Blogging for Dummies, point out, “Anything and everything you see on the Internet is protected by copyright.”  Blog content writers can avoid plagiarism by properly attributing statements to their authors in any of several different ways:

  1. direct quotes
  2. paraphrasing others’ remarks (and explaining where the idea came from)
  3. creating links in your blog posts to other websites

In order to move higher in search rankings, blogs must provide fresh, relevant content. Perhaps even more important, though, bloggers need to introduce fresh ideas simply in order to engage readers’ interest.  But, with the sheer volume of information on the Web on every topic under the sun, how do we keep providing new material in our blog posts week after week, month after month, even year after year?

Almost a decade ago now, in a totally unexpected way, I was fortunate to discover an answer to that very question. I had seen – and absolutely loved – an old TV movie about Marie Antoinette. On the surface, historical film making in general seems the very antithesis of fresh content-centered blog writing for business. As a viewer, I knew how the story would end before it began! Why, then, I asked myself, did I find “Marie Antoinette” so riveting?  Why did I hang on every word of dialogue, waiting for what I knew had long ago already taken place? It wasn’t about the material itself being “fresh”; it was about the “fresh“ point of view. Sure, in high school and college I had studied the events leading up to the French Revolution, but I’d never experienced those events through Marie Antoinette’s eyes.

Readers may know some or all of the information you’re presenting in your business blog, but they need your help putting that information in perspective.  In fact, that’s where blogging for business tends to be at its finest, helping searchers with more than just finding information, but helping them understand its meaning and significance.

“Fresh” doesn’t have to mean “new” facts.  If our content is “fresh” in that it offers a new perspective on familiar information, we have a chance at having our online readers find value in every word.

 

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In Blogging, Don’t Be “Leo the Lip” – Ask for Actiion, but Explain Why

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In my Mensa Bulletin, there was a interesting piece about kindness and meanness, recalling former Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher’s famous quip, “Nice guys finish last.”

The article’s author, Garrison Klueck, thinks the Durocher quote stuck because its meaning is consistent with the general belief that strength and authoritarianism is the most efficient way to run things. Authoritarian parenting involves a “because I said so” approach; authoritative parents, in contrast, explain to children the reasoning behind the rules, Klueck adds.

In blog marketing, calls to action (CTAs) often use imperative verbs designed to provoke immediate positive action: find out more, call now, provide contact information, etc. The concept, Tara Horner explained in “Writing a Better Call to Action”, is to show consumers how to take the next step and to create a sense of urgency around the offer.

At Say It For You, I must admit, we agree with Klueck, advocating a nice-guys-finish-first, authoritative parenting-type approach. Of course content writers must create a sense of  urgency, but, the way we figure it, searchers who’ve found themselves at your blog want to know why they ought to keep reading/foll

Durocher, nicknamed “Leo the Lip” did win games, But, as Garrison Klueck pointed out, so did Tony Dungy, the “universally-embraced- as-a nice-guy football coach” who led the Indianapolis Colts to their 2007 Super Bowl win.

“Whenever you tell someone they’re wrong, your mind goes through a series of specific mental steps to come to that conclusion. In doing so, you are actually harming yourself and your relationship with the others, and you’re killing any chance of anyone bettering themselves from the situation,” advises careerconservatory.com. “Stop telling people they’re wrong.”

As a professional blog copy writer, when I’m working with a new business client, our task is to find just the right “tone” and direction for the series of blogs. Today, the challenge is producing high authority content without sounding authoritarian. Nice blog content writers, we convinced at Say It For You, finish first!

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In-Your-Neck-of-the-Woods Blogging for Business

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Listening to the morning weather report on TV, I often hear Al Roker say, “That’s what’s going on around the country. Here’s what’s happening in your neck of the woods”.

In blogging for business, that Roker model is a good one to follow, we teach at Say It For You. Your blog is a way to educate leads and customers by helping them stay generally informed on industry trends and developments, Hubspot explains. Once you are perceived as an expert or “thought leader” in that industry or profession, you can then go on to explain your own products and services, and your very own “neck of the woods” approach.

Hubspot offers examples of blogs that describe the general industry climate before bringing matters down to a local level:

Manufacturing
Manufacturing blogs are used to inform readers about best practices news, and trends in manufacturing, supply chain distribution, and logistics. The Marlin Steel blog, for example, talks about what robotics and automation mean for US manufacturing jobs (national picture), but also provides information on how to use specific steel tools.

Healthcare
In Six Month Smiles’ Chair Time blog, industry experts, doctors, and hygienists write about developments in their field. Potential customers can learn about specific services they may be interested in paying for on a local level.

Ecommerce
The M.M. LaFleur blog discusses general issues of women in the workplace, but then narrows down to specific advice about what to wear to different business occasions.

In fact, the function of “news” in blogs is to inform readers of “what’s-going-on-and-how-do-we-fit-in”. In a blog post, you might cite material from the news story, relating it to new developments in your own industry or field. The idea is not to regurgitate what’s already been said, but to showcase your own expertise and experience, offering a new perspective on that topic.

According to strategist Neen James in Speaker Magazine, a Subject Matter Expert or SME (pronounced “smee”) knows something. A thought leader, by contrast, is known for something. In their blog content, business owners and professional practitioners can first bring their audiences up to speed on general industry issues and developments. Through “in-your-neck-of-the-woods blogging for business,” they then become known for translating that knowledge into usable, actionable steps their readers can follow.

 

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