Blogging About What They Said, Not What You Heard

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“Anyone can say, ‘I heard”; only a journalist can say ‘They said'”, explains Amelia Dieter McClure in the Indianapolis Business Journal, emphasizing the commitment to the truth as the core tenet of a journalist.

While blog marketing is not journalism in the true sense of the term, commitment to the truth should take two forms in blog posts, we teach at Say It For You:

  1. Using data to back up claims
  2. Properly attributing ideas, images, and text that come from others’ work.

“The best content marketers aren’t afraid to share,” Corey Wainwright of Hubspot explains. (By giving credit in a hyperlink, not only am I giving Wainwright credit for the quote, I’m linking to the Hubspot website where his blog post appears.

With literally trillions of words being added daily to the World Wide Web, the Internet has become the largest repository of information in human history. Blogging for business has become a rapidly growing part of this information swell, and (inadvertently or on purpose) there’s undoubtedly a lot of “borrowing” going on.

As an occasional high school and college level English tutor, I teach my students to avoid plagiarism by properly attributing statements to their proper authors.  The blogging equivalent of citations is links. There are actually rewards to be gained in this arena for doing the “right and proper thing”: Electronic links enhance search engine rankings for your blog by creating back-and-forth online “traffic”.

There’s a second aspect to “truth-in-blogging” when it comes to claims. Most business blog posts make claims.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly on the money, but still – a claim is a claim. The problem is, often blog visitors don’t know how to “digest” the claims you’ve “served up”.  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field. What I’m getting at is that every claim needs to be put into context, so that it not only is true, but so that it feels true to your online visitors. Readers must be shown how that claim has the potential to help them with their problem or need!

Anyone can blog about “what “they heard” or “what they think” or “what they claim”, but the best business blog writers are committed to the truth.

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Blog Content Writing is Choice Architecture

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Choice architecture is not just about how websites are designed or how policies are implemented, Eric J. Johnson explains in the book The Elements of Choice. We are all designers every day he says, posing choices to our friends, colleagues, and families.
You think you’re choosing dinner from a restaurant menu, a fund for your retirement plan, or a movie to see with your spouse, but the decisions made by the restaurant, by your employer, or by your spouse about how to pose those choices to you influence what you end up choosing.

The author relates a fascinating experiment conducted by a professor named Irwin Levin of the University of Iowa. Two groups of undergrads were asked to rate samples of raw ground beef. One group was shown packages labeled 25% fat”, while the second group was shown packages labeled “75% lean”, with the second group reporting a more positive perception of the meat. Carrying the experiment even further, Levin and his team actually cooked the meet in front of the individuals involved in the study. Half the “customers” were told the beef was 75% lean; the others were told their hamburgers were 25% fat. Those to whom the percentage of fat was told reported that their hamburgers were greasier and of lower quality!

When we create blog content, we realize at Say It For You, what we’re doing involves choice architecture. Without exception, of course, we’re striving to present the most honest and fair information about the products and services our clients have to offer their reader prospects. But in order to offer the most amount of value to prospects and customers, while at the same time creating a “honeypot”, marketing firm ON24 cautions, content writers must first understand what customers want, involving the sales team in the process. In other words, successful marketing involves planning “architecture”.

“Writing is very much about the order of ideas presented and the emphasis given to them,” Brandon Royal explains in The Little Red Writing Book. There are different “floor plans” for pieces of writing, including a chronological structure, where you discuss the earliest events first, then move forward in time, and an evaluative structure, in which you discuss the pros and cons of a concept. Different blog posts might use different “floor plans.” But no matter which approach, readers will expect to see the things most important to them, their needs, given the greatest emphasis.

Blogging is actually an ideal architectural tool, because different blog posts can emphasize different aspects of the overall message. In fact, in offering corporate blogging training, one rule of thumb I often emphasize at Say It For You is using each blog post to focus readers’ attention on just one idea, one aspect of the message.

Blog content writing can be choice architecture at its finest!

 

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Blog to Generate Feelings of Familiarity and Liking

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An experimental psychologist in the US asked a group of people to view various Chinese characters that were displayed on a screen. The volunteers were asked to return a few days later to look at a further batch. Some of the characters they viewed this time around were those they’d been shown the week before; others were new to them. Asked which ones they recognized from the week before, the subjects had absolutely no idea.

In a second experiment using a different group of volunteers, participants were not asked which characters they recognized from the week before. Instead, they were asked which images they liked best. The “mind-boggling fact’, relates John Cleese in his book Creativity, is that the ones the participants said they liked best were those show to them the week before! In the unconscious mind, familiarity generated a feeling of liking. 

Cleese wasn’t talking about blog marketing, but there’s a very important connection here. Precisely because blogs are not one-time articles, but conveyers of messages over long periods of time, they serve as unique tools for building a sense of familiarity (and ultimately trust) in readers. As Hubspot’s Corey Wainwright puts it, “If you consistently create valuable content or articles for your target audience, it’ll establish you as an industry leader or authority in their eyes”

 

A second point Cleese stressed is that “the language of the unconscious is not verbal. Instead, it shows you images. There’s no question that visuals are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, along with information and perspective or “slant”. Social marketing maven Jeff Bullas lists at least two rather startling statistics to demonstrate the reason images and photos need to be part of any business’ marketing tactics:

  • Articles with images get 94% more total views.
  • 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results.

Just as marketing professor Demetra Adam explained, increasing the number of “cues” increases prospects’ perception of their own knowledge, making it easier for them to buy (see our post of Feb. 22). Combining verbal and visual “cues” in a blog post increases that feeling of familiarity and “liking”.

Blog to generate familiarity!

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Tidbits, Not Tag Lines, Work Best in Blog Marketing

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In content writing, word tidbits and tag lines are both designed to help readers remember something– a concept, a company, a product, a service. Just the other day, when I came across examples of both, I realized just how important the difference is between a tagline and a word tidbit when it comes to blogging for business…..

“We wanna see-‘ya in a Kia” – is a tag line. It’s catchy, it’s memorable – it’s advertising. Thing is, that tagline tells me nothing about the car, about the company, about any one dealership or salesperson, nothing about the experience I would have if I chose to purchase and drive a Kia.

Contrast that with a word tidbit I caught last week in a local news bulletin about the fact that Edwards Drive-In restaurant is closing after more than sixty years in business, but that their food truck business will be continuing. “We’re selling the store, not the soul”. So much more than a tag line, this word tidbit captures the sense of “we” (the owners of the store) and how much the owners care about continuing their decades-long relationship with customers.

Fully fourteen years ago, with Say It For You in its n infancy, I’d mentioned a word tidbit found in Daniel Gardners’ book The Science of Fear. “We report the rare routinely, and the routine rarely,” he said. That powerful combination of everyday words unified concepts I already knew, but which I hadn’t synthesized into any true understanding about the media.

Just about a year later, I blogged about another “grabber” tidbit from a review of Maxine’s Chicken & Waffles restaurant: “And, wow, those wings…the breading was crispy and well-seasoned without overpowering the tender meat.” (Here’s the tidbit: “Maxine’s wings are nothing like the fast-food varieties that are more batter than bird”.

That word tidbit made me think about business blogging: Searchers arrive at your blog seeking information about what you do, what you sell, and what you know. The “batter” might be the way the blog site is laid out, the pictures and illustrations, and even cleverness in the writing. But, when it comes right down to it, the “meat” is the well-researched information, and the links you provide readers to sources they might not have thought to research themselves.

What a blog should aim to do is capture concepts relating to your business, putting words together is a new way, sharing an “aha!” experience with your readers that helps them know the subject better, but also helps them get to know you a little better.

Taglines may help them remember it, but word tidbits force them to think about it!

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Don’t Just Blog There – Engage!

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Kudos for the most-watched Netflix series used to be based on how many households had watched a particular movie or show, Mental Floss magazine explains. But watched is a loose term. Anyone who who clicked “play” on a title would be counted, even if they made it only 10 seconds into the material, the authors explain.

When Netflix’s switched its popularity model (where only subscribers who’d watched a show for at least two minutes (and only then within the first 28 days of the show’s release) were counted, there were dramatic shifts in the popularity rankings, Mental Floss authors explain…

When it comes to blog marketing, getting found is most certainly a primary goal, but even after searchers have “found” your blog site and clicked “play”, the job of engaging those readers has just begun.

Steve Mehler of Techsling names things blog readers “really want from you”, including:

  • timely topics
  • a simple read
  • information
  • problem solutions
  • entertainment
  • visuals
  • emotional connections

“The definition of engagement has changed slightly over the years.” Jim Henshaw of Raventools explains. While early measurements focused on Bounce Rate and Pages per Session, that’s not enough (users may keep clicking on different links because they can’t find the content that interests them!) Truly engaged readers continue reading through to the bottom of the article.

Online publishers have spent the last few years trying to attract as many visitors to their website and apps as possible, but were later forced to rethink their online strategy and to put greater focus on maximizing loyalty and engagement, Jorrith Schaap observed in Crowdynews. Enhancing audience engagement is important, Schaap explains, because engaged users:

  • are more likely to trust the publisher’s brand
  • return more often to the website
  • visit more pages during a session
  • are more inclined to sign up a newsletter or RSS blog feed
  • are more likely to become customers and clientsAbove all, do not annoy your readers, Nick Stamoutis of BrickMarketing warns, with:
  • Slow loading
  • Cluttered design
  • Confusing navigation systemSo, don’t just blog there – engage!
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