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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Be-a-Mentor Blogging for Business

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“To gain business with your blog, you should stop thinking like a salesman and start acting like your reader’s mentor. A salesman wonders how to get his next sale. A mentor cares about his students. He wants to help them get ahead and live a more fulfilled life,” Neil Patel advises.

The first way that blogging gets you customers is it shows you’re open for business, Sarah Carnes writes in HubSpot.com. The second way? It educates your prospects. Take your frequently asked questions (FAQs) and turn them into blog posts. Once a potential customer sees you as a resource, they are much more likely to consider you when they are considering buying the product or service you provide. After researching and building your target audience, you know what they care about most – and what keeps them up at night. Using your content to answer those fears means that you can begin to “own” the conversation.

In the book Good People, author Anthony Tjan names five types of mentors. At Say it For You, we realize that in different blog posts, a business owner or professional practitioner can take on one of these mentoring “roles’:

Master of Craft:
Communicate armed with facts from reliable, trusted sources. As a content writer, link to outside sources to add breadth, depth, and credibility to the ideas you’re expressing and the advice you’re offering.

Champion their cause
Comfort and connect with compassion and encouragement. Soft skills such as relationship-building and interpersonal communication are going to be as important in coming years as technical skills.

Co-pilot
“Collaborate” with readers, showing you understand the obstacles and challenges they face. Encourage them to “vent” by answering the tough questions in your content. But searchers haven’t always formulated their questions, and so what I suggest is that we do that for them.

Anchor
An anchor needn’t work in the mentee’s industry, but is someone who offers insights that readers can use to better cope with issues they are facing.

Reverse mentor
A reverse mentor can be of a younger generation with insights to share that can help older readers make sense of technology or see situations from a different vantage point.

What you can do with the blog is offer different kinds of information in different blog posts, curating content from many different points of view. In blogging for business, be a mentor!

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Lists Are a Good Fit for Blogs – Once in a While

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Of all the types of list-style blog posts you could write, the “curated list’ is probably the easiest, Virtasktic.com explains, because “it is more about researching and trying to find content from others than about writing your content from scratch”. Still, curated lists require thought and care, and need to be structured in a way that makes it easy for your readers to consume.

That lists in general are a good fit for blogs is actually something I stress in corporate blogging training sessions.  By most accounts, search engines like lists and bullet points.  Even more important, I’ve found over the years at Say It For You, lists help keep readers – and writers – on track.

Interestingly, I came across two different lists, both listing resource programs available to Indiana residents.

  1. The first of these is on the state’s website, Indiana.gov, and offers a comprehensive list of assistance programs including food and clothing, mental health & addiction, health care, housing & utility assistance, children and family, tax assistance and education, employment.
  2. The second list, also abut resources, appeared in the Indianapolis Business Journal‘s promotional supplement “IN Career Ready. This list is focused on assistance programs in only the area of education. However the title does not make that clear (it’s titled “Free Money from the State of Indiana”.

Each of these two lists would be highly useful for readers searching for information about Indiana assistance programs. There is no attempt to editorialize, advise, or even organize the information in a new way. Each list is simply an organized collection of information.

In marketing a business or practice, organizing relevant and useful information in list form, geared towards the needs of your target audience can be very useful to readers. As in the two examples I found, the lists might be of resources for further information, tactics to try, or alternatives for solving a particular problem. Unlike the case with the IBJ supplement, the title must make very clear precisely what readers will find in the list. “Listicles help present a large amount of information in small, easy-to-scan, numbered sections,” explains Neil Patel.

Are list blogs meant to be an “instead of”? Of course not! For instance, listicles cannot…

  • allow your audience to know, like, and trust you
  • offer soft sales messages in value-added content
  • build community
  • highlight the specific needs fears, and wants of your target audience
  • offer opinion and thought leadership

But, when it comes to sheer utility and convenience – list blogs just can’t be beat!

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