Ideal Blog Posts: Focused, With a Sense of Forward Movement

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Back in 1960, when Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv were designing a logo for Chaseforward movement Manhattan Bank, Marketing News tells us, their goal was to find something “focused and concentrated, with a sense of forward movement.” (At the time, Chermayeff now recalls, American companies weren’t yet using abstract symbols to identify themselves.)

Blog posts, like logos, tend to be more effective when they focus on just one idea.  That idea might be:

  • Busting one myth common among consumers
  • One testimonial from a user of your product or service
  • One special application for your product
  • One common problem your service helps solve
  • One new development in your industry

For us Indianapolis blog content writers, it’s important to keep in mind that a tight focus is what helps blog posts stay smaller and lighter in scale, and much more flexible than the more permanent content on the typical corporate website.

On the other hand, in each blog post (just as Chermayeff emphasized for logos), there needs to be a sense of forward movement. One way content writers can convey that sense is through linking to another page, or by telling readers to watch for information on another product, service, or “how-to” in a coming blog post.

In business blog writing, while lack of focus can get uncomfortable and counterproductive, it’s OK to let readers know you have lots more helpful information, products, and services to fill their needs.

A business blog consists of many, many posts spread out over a long period of time, clarifying, adding, proving, restating, giving examples, testimonials, and stories, building belief piece by piece.

The goal is to stay focused, but with a sense of forward movement!

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Words That Help or Hurt a Resume or Blog

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resumeAccording to a 2014 CareerBuilder survey, 68% of hiring managers spend less than two minutes reviewing a resume, so it had better be filled with words they care to see, warns Debra Auerbach.

Boy, I couldn’t help thinking, is that ever true for blog content writing as well! In fact, according to Site Meter, the average reader spends just 96 seconds reading a blog.

Exactly what sort of words make employers cringe?  Words and terms that are vague, passive, and clichéd.  Employers would much rather see strong action words that highlight specific accomplishments.  Don’t use “I am” phrases, suggests Carina Chivulescu, director of human capital at The Expert Institute. Chivulescu prefers to see “I did” phrases, which tell her exactly what you were doing to bring value to previous employers.

Suggested action words include:

  • Achieved
  • Improved
  • Trained
  • Managed
  • Created
  • Resolved

Unfortunately, as a blog content writing trainer, I see a lot of the same sort of “fluffy stuff” on corporate blogs as Chivulescu sees on resumes, including

  • Best of breed (what does that even mean?)
  • Value added
  • Results-driven
  • Team player
  • Excellent customer service
  • Bottom-line oriented

“Instead of speaking in plain English, they (marketers) fill their conversations with overused jargon and buzzwords,” Carmine Gallow complains in Forbes.

Chivulescu sums it up neatly: “Employers (you may substitute ‘blog readers’) want to see words and phrases that clearly and succinctly define your skills, experience, and accomplishments.”

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5-Question Blogging for Business

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“Someone asked me a good question today about my business,” recalls executive man with question on white. Isolated 3D imagecoach Kim Stoneking.  “Fortunately,” he adds “I was prepared with an answer. The request from the prospect was, “Tell me five things that make you different from your competitors.” Because Kim had thought about that question and was prepared with a response, he was able to impress the prospective client. Kim’s challenge to his readers was to come up with that list of five for their own organizations.

I think the challenge posed to us as us business blog content writers goes one step further than that.  Not only must we (or the business owners and practitioners who’ve hired us to tell their stories) be prepared with the response to that 5-differentiator question, we need to offer the response before that question is ever asked!

And, whether the answer is five things or three or ten, online searchers need to learn the “whats” and the “whys”. Just what do you do, just what do you make, just what do you sell that sets you apart from your competitors, and just why would any of those differences matter to this prospect? You might go so far as to say that the essential purpose of a blog is to provide a forum for business owners and practitioners to answer those “what” and “why” questions.

There’s one caveat, though, I teach corporate blog content writers.. While you want to compare your products and services to others’, it must be done in a positive way. Your company blog posts can get the job done with subtlety, using the “Power of We”.  Try sentences beginning with “At _____(your company name), WE offer…………….  WE believe that……..    WE value.  Rather than devaluing other companies’ products and services, stress the positives about you and yours.

Don’t wait for someone to ask you that good question about your business – tell your readers and prospects the things that make you different from your competitors, and do it in a positive way!

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Helpful Hint Blog Writing

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hints and tipsHitting precisely the right “advertorial” note is the big challenge in corporate blog writing.  In fact, one point I’ve consistently stressed in these Say It For You blog content writing tutorials is how important it is to provide valuable information to readers, while avoiding any hint of “hard sell”.  Well, providing tips and help hints may very well be the perfect tactic for accomplishing that very goal.  

In a recent issue of AARP magazine, I found an article that uses a “kill-two-birds-with-one-stone” approach to offering helpful hints.  I think that approach could work really well in blogging to promote a business or professional practice.

The AARP article is titled “Great ways to save: tips from 20 experts that can save you thousands of dollars.”  Wow! That gets readers’ attention – useful information coming to them not from any sponsor or vendor, but from twenty experts.  What’s more, the authors have done all the work, collecting all this wisdom and serving it up for readers’ convenience.

I noticed that the “Great ways to save” article was about money management; the tips were collected from a money coach, a chief information officers, the fashion director for Men’s Health magazine, and a positive living expert.

OK, so as a business blog writing trainer, how would I advise adapting that helpful-hint/curation strategy to you business or practice?

Find complementary businesses or practices.  Ask the owners (or cite their blogs) for tips they can offer your readers.  Pet care professionals can share tips from carpet cleaning pros – or the reverse! If you’re a carpet cleaning pro, you can share tips from allergists as well.  If you’re an insurance advisor, offer tips from car dealers about accident prevention.

Of course, you’re going to want to add some tips of your own.  A realtor’s blog might offer tips for buying a house.  A restaurant’s blog might offer hints on tipping etiquette or the temperature of “rare”, “medium” and “well-done” steaks. Whatever the product or service, readers will be hungry for information that helps them gain maximum advantage for buying and using it.

Helpful hint blog writing can be very useful to your business or practice!

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Trying for Incomplete in Blogging for Business

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one piece of a whole“In blogging, it’s important to blog about a particular topic without being complete,” says Lou Dubois in Inc. “If it’s conversational as a blog is supposed to be, you get a chance to say one thing or one idea, and then it’s your customer’s turn to talk or respond.”

“Successful bloggers are focused on their audience and readers as they move out from behind the podium,” says Liz Strauss. “They come in with a beginner’s mind and aren’t afraid to say ‘I’m learning’ as they talk to others and improve.”

That “beginner’s mind” thing really struck a chord with me.  Nine-plus years ago, when I was an experienced writer but very new to blogging, I would attend seminars, read blogs and books about blog content writing and then share that material with readers even as I was learning it myself. (And that, as Paul Harvey used to say, is “the rest of the story” of the Say It For You blog.)

The idea of blogging about your topic (your business or practice) without being complete is an important one on several counts:

  • You cover one aspect of the topic, then link to another blog content writer’s comments about the subject you’re covering, showing that you stay in touch with others in your industry or profession.
  • You leave room to cover other aspects of the topic in future blog posts.
  • Your readers are “learning along with you,” rather like a travel agent who’s experiencing a location for the first time, along with her group.
  • Readers have reason to “put in their two cents”.

The “beginner’s mind” template might appear at first to be a direct contradiction to a piece of advice I often offer to clients and blog content writers, which is to establish themselves as thought  leaders in their field.

Actually, there’s no contradiction.  As business owners or professional practitioners (or perhaps as the blog content writers for those clients), we need to come across as “real”.  Yes, we have knowhow and experience to share, but, along with our readers, we learn something new every day.

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