Blog Boasting of the Right Kind

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“High levels of confidence, even if unwarranted, can make people appear more attractive to potential collaborators,” A.M. Hammond writes in Psychology Today, explaining the importance of the way confidence is expressed. One tip about confidence offered by the American Marketing Association in Business Writing Tips for Professionals is relevant here: “Phrases like ‘We’re #1’, ‘We’re the leader in our field’, or ‘We provide the best service’ aren’t going to get you anywhere.”

Ironically, a concern many new clients of Say It For You express to me is that they don’t want to come across as boastful in their blog.  At the same time, they know they need to convey the reasons prospects ought to choose them over their competition.

Let the facts do the boasting, I explain. The whole idea behind blogging is that, rather than running traditional ads for your brand of hats, or vitamins, or travel, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, and about exciting places to go on safari.  Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name, will come to see you as a resource.

When trying to make a compelling argument, besides putting thought into your choice of words, you may employ paralanguage, A.M. Hammond suggests, meaning modulations of volume, pitch, or speed in your speaking, which have been shown to add persuasiveness to an argument without eroding sincerity.

How can blog content writers add persuasiveness when they are communicating without sound??? Equivalents to “paralanguage” in written pieces include bolding, italics, and repetition of key phrases. Images also go a long way to help reinforce core concepts in each blog post.

Bullet points are mini-headlines, explains copyblogger.com, and they help focus attention in the same way a speaker’s change in pitch and speed might. Italics in a written piece serve to draw attention to a word or an entire line, similar to a speaker’s slowing down and enunciating each word to stress a particular idea. “Your imagery should act as a further explainer of your main point,”advises Neil Patel.

With the right kind of “boasting”, business owners and practitioners can project the kind of confidence that inspires trust.

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Using Skillful Surprise in Blog Content Writing

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Blog post titles have a multifaceted job to do, arousing readers’ curiosity while still assuring them they’ve come to the right place. One compromise I often suggest to blog content writers is using a two-tiered title, combining a “Huh?” (to get attention) with an “Oh!” (to make clear what the post is actually going to be about).

In the body of a blog post, surprise can be used in a different way. I remember, several years back, listening to Jeff Fleming of the National Speakers Association of Indiana meeting, talking about misdirection as a way of adding humor to a presentation. Fleming explained the “Rule of Three”, in which the first two statements serve as a “set-up”. The third statement is not what the listeners are expecting, he added. That “misdirection”, Fleming said, causes a surprise, which tickles listeners’ funny bones.

I thought about that Fleming demo the other day when browsing through Coffee House News Indiana:

 

What has four legs, is big, green, and fuzzy, and, if it fell out of a tree would
hurt you? Answer: a pool table.

Now, as blog content writers offering information about a product or service, we’re not necessarily “into” tickling readers’ funny bones. What we are “into”, of course, is engaging readers and sustaining interest.

To be sure, using humor is an effective way to connect with your audience and humanize your brand or company, as Jason Miller of Social Media Examiner observes. All marketing doesn’t have to be serious, he adds, along with the caveat that “being funny is a risk…Some people might not appreciate your company’s brand of humor!”

So what do I think the bottom line is for using humor and surprise in blogging for business? Well,…barring politics (including company, city, state, national, and international), religion, ethnic groups, physical appearance, food preferences, insider information, and anything anyone might conceive as risque – go right ahead.  But keep the humor centered around your own weaknesses and around the consumers’ problem you’re offering to solve.

As for surprise, it can be highly useful in business blogs. At least some of our readers already know quite a bit about our subject.  What they’re looking for is new perspective on the subject, new ways to connect the dots. People are going to want to do business with people who have something different to say. There’s great power in offering strong recommendations and opinions in a blog.

Surprise them with the strength of your convictions, the depth of your knowledge, and the courage to map out a unique approach to doing business!

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Give ‘Em a Glimpse of the Guiding Principle

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The opening speaker at a recent Financial Planning Association Study Day was talking about recession. Are we “due” for a recession, given that we’ve been experiencing the longest period of economic growth in our country’s history?

Seated in the audience, I was listening with “two ears”. Now retired from my financial planning career, I continue to keep up with the educational requirements for my CFP® designation, and very much enjoy the lectures and the discussions with former colleagues.

My other “ear”, though, caught something very important for blog content writers. Brandon Zureick of Johnson Asset Management was there to “bust a myth”, contradicting widespread financial media “hype” about the recession lurking around the corner. “Some believe the Federal Reserve will save the day through cutting interest rates, while some think additional stimulus cannot combat the looming downturn,” writes Yun Li of CNBC.

Every one of the financial planners in the audience had clients reading, listening, and watching talking heads repeating the same so-called “rule” – a recession is “overdue”. Telling their clients they are “wrong” to believe that so-called rule isn’t going to work. Zureick knew what would work – arming the planners with a “guiding principle” to share with their clients in order to replace the framework within which many investors have been operating.

Here’s the new guiding principle Zureick offered: Economic recessions aren’t time-driven; they are factor-driven. Recession isn’t “due” or “overdue”. When and if we experience the next recession will relate to employment, consumption, and trade levels, not to timing.

Business blogs are wonderful tools around facts.  That’s why business owners and professional practitioners can use corporate blog writing as a way to dispense information, but, even more important, to address misinformation.

Why is that important to do? False beliefs about products and services often stand in the way of customers taking action. You might say that the de-bunking function of business blog writing is owners’ way of taking up arms against a sea of customers’ unfounded fears and biases.  Blog content writing is a way of “cleaning the air”, replacing factoids with facts, so that buyers can see their way to making decisions.

To do that, however, requires introducing guiding principles that offer readers a way to organize the barrage of information. Guiding principles allow readers only to move forward with buying decisions, but to explain those buying decisions to others.

Give ‘em a glimpse of the guiding principle!
.

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In Your Blog, Give Them Hints They Weren’t Hunting

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Political speak’s in season, for sure. One of the many terms you might hear bandied about is gerrymandering, which is what happens when politicians manipulate the redrawing of district lines to help their own party win more seats. And, while this Say it For You blog is about content writing, not politics, the Mental Floss magazine article on the origin of the term gerrymandering illustrates one way we can capture blog visitors’ interest. Two features of the article worth noting:

  1. The title is in the form of a question – “Who was the ‘Gerry’ of Gerrymandering?” Where, What, Why” titles work, Location Rebel posits, because they promise that by reading the article you’ll learn something new along with finding a solution to your problem.
  2. The topic offers a jumping-off point or “trigger” for blog content. (Most readers will not have known the origin of the term gerrymandering or imagined that it was named for a person named Gerry; I know I didn’t!). Demystifying an arcane piece of information, I teach at Say It For You, allows business owners or practitioners to clarify how some technical terms used in their own field came into use.

After the initial few paragraphs, I must admit, I found that the Mental Floss article wasn’t a great example for business blog content writers, after all. Why not? The writer shares a rather long narrative without ever giving readers a reason to act. Even the author’s observation that Elbridge Gerry might have gone down in history as Father of the Bill of Rights, but instead “is remembered first and foremost for another, less admirable claim to fame” is buried in the middle of the content rather than being used as either a “pow” opener or to sum up the story at the end.

“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,” business writing coach Henneke Duistermaat advises. In your blog, she says, you’re starting a conversation, not asking people to buy.

Offering fascinating information – things readers weren’t even hunting – is a great way to start a conversation.

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Mythbusting? Don’t Forget to Throw the Camel a Coat!

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“Was it daylight savings time this weekend?” Brett Molina asked a couple of weeks ago in USA Today. “Nope. But it was daylight saving time.” Molina goes on to explain (citing a post from the blog Grammar Errors), that “daylight savings time” is grammatically incorrect, and that, next time, we should lose the “s” along with that hour of sleep, because there are not multiple savings.  Grammar Cops is even more precise, explaining that we don’t really save daylight; the term Daylight Shifting Time would be more accurate.

Reading this little information-you-could-have-done-without essay, (with eyes simultaneously crossing and glazing over), I couldn’t help remembering a Say It For You blog post I composed almost ten years ago. In “Myth-Bust in Your Blogs, but Give the Camel a Coat”, the point was this: While mythbusting is a great use for corporate blogs, since addressing misinformation shines light on the owners’ special expertise, the technique must be used with caution.

You see, just prior to writing that original blog post, I’dread in the Book of General Ignorance that camels do not store water in their humps – they store fat. Far from appreciating the new insight, my reaction was a bit resentful – something I’d taken as true for all of my life, was, in fact, a lie. But then, authors Lloyd and Mitchelson “threw me a coat” in the form of interesting new information about camels: When a camel builds up resentment towards human beings, a handler can calm the animal by handing over his own coat to the beast, who “gives the garment hell”, biting it, jumping on it, and tearing it. After that pressure is relieved, the authors explained, “man and animal can live together in harmony again.”

Now ten years later, I felt an identical twinge of resentment about Brett Molina’s correcting the Daylight Savings Time misnomer. Business blog writing lesson relearned: When debunking myths, follow up by throwing readers a “coat” in the form of some intriguing, little-known information related to your industry.

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