Don’t Cut Your Business Blog Vocabulary Down to Size

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Word Toolbox Teaching Tools Resources Spelling Reading Lesson Ai“How many words are there in English? It depends on how you count them…a good conservative estimate is 250,000.” Perceiving that many of our words mean practically the same thing, back in the 1930s a British writer named C.K Ogden proposed a new form of English with a vocabulary of only 850 words. While Winston Churchill liked the idea of Basic English, Roosevelt joked that Churchill’s famous speech about “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” wouldn’t have been nearly as effective couched  as “blood, work, eye water, and face water.”

As a writer and corporate blog writing trainer, I must say I prefer the English language just as it is, chock full of nuances and variety. Time4Writing.com apparently agrees: “A good vocabulary is an indispensable tool,” Time4 explains. “Just as really good mechanics can pull out the right tools…good writers can pull out the right tools at the right time to make good writing even more powerful.”

“Style is the way writing is dressed up (or down) to fit the specific context, purpose, or audience,” Kathleen Cali of Learn NC teaches. “Good writers are concise and precise, she adds,” weeding out unnecessary words and choosing the exact word to convey meaning.”

Adding variety to prose can give it life and rhythm, the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) stresses.

Life and rhythm – I can’t think of any goal more important for a business blog content writer to achieve. There’s just so much content out there – being boring is a certain path to the bottom of the heap when it comes to engaging readers and converting them to buyers. We have such a rich, rich language to work with, I tell writers.  For Heaven’s sake, use it!

C.K.Ogden, I learned, wanted to eliminate all the English words beginning with the letter Z. No, no, no, I’d protest.  When writing a business blog, be conversational, sure. But what word variety can add to a marketing blog posts is ZEST! How about spunk? Pizzazz?

Were Roosevelt still alive, I’m sure he’d tell you the same thing: Don’t cut your business blog vocabulary down to size!.  

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Blame It On… the Printer? the Advertising Department? the Client?

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TJust whose mistake was that stray apostrophe anyway? I wondered, reading a very clever print ad for a local logistics company in a business publication a couple of weeks ago. Just who should shoulder the blame for writing that its client provide’s quality ingredients?

Great ad, by the way, showing a truck making its way up the layers of a tiered, iced cake. The concept – when the baking ingredient manufacturer was looking for an innovative and trusted logistics partner, they didn’t settle for half-baked solutions. After all, the logistics company claims that “we can ship better.”  But – somebody didn’t punctuate better, that’s for sure!

Aw, who’s gonna notice? Well, I did, for one. Typos can have a devastating financial impact on the publishers, companies, and people who make them, explains Zack Crockett in the grammarly blog.  Yes, but who should eat the crow/ foot the bill?

“We have a clause in our agreements that states it is the responsibility of the client to check spelling,” says David Scott of Cosmic Graphic Design & Advertising. (Well, that’s certainly one approach…)

Bloggers who commit punctuation and grammar sins don’t have clauses like that – there’s nobody to pass the buck to (“to whom” would be better, but, hey, the blog writing style is conversational, no?)  But, let’s draw the line in the sand. As Melissa Culbertson says so aptly in her blog, “Bad grammar and spelling is WAY different than using conversation style or slang.”  Proper grammar and spelling matter, even in the blogging world, she points out. Treat your blog like your resume, she advises. In fact, she adds, it IS your resume.

I agree, but, just in case, it will be my printer’s fault…

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Blog About Unexpected Benefits

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beerWhen it comes to choosing a title that attracts attention, I think Lifehack.org was onto something with its

“12 Unexpected Benefits of Beer That Give You Good Reasons to Drink It”

For one, I was curious to read about beer in a publication focused on healthy living (the same issue of the magazine carried an article warning of the negative effects of smoking and alcohol on the body).

But, see, here’s the thing.  It was unexpected. Surrounded by content about the science of beautiful skin, the skinny on indoor cycling, and winning the weight war, readers have every right to be surprised to see beer as a recommended healthful consumable.

Author Candace Nelson starts out by unifying her audience with a commonality: “Who among us hasn’t rounded down when doctors or nutritionists ask how much (beer) we imbibe?”  She goes on to list no fewer than twelve benefits of beer. The drink is rich in Vitamin B, and high in fiber and silicon. It’s anti-microbial, and helps reduce the risk of heart disease, muscle deterioration, and gallstones. Only the last item on her list (“Beer is a social lubricant”) seems a stretch in terms of being health-related.

As Steve Tobak writes in Entrepreneur Magazine, “Doing the unexpected is key to success in business. After all, the next big thing is never what anyone expects.”

As a corporate blogging trainer, I remind content writers that blogging about unusual ways your products or services have been applied in different situations is good way to capture interest in posts. Even sharing past business mistakes that resulted in unexpected improvements in the company’s products and service makes for engaging blog content.

That’s the question I’d pose to business owners and professional practitioners: Tell me about the benefits you offer, sure. But what are some of the UNEXPECTED benefits of what you have, what you know, and what you know how to do?

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Don’t Let Your Blog Readers Get the Wrong Idea

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Undo Red Button Correct Fix Go Back Revise Mistake Error“Sometimes, our very human fears and insecurities cause us to talk about ourselves in ways that don’t reflect the truth of who we are. We choose language that hides our strength…and this gives other people the wrong impression of us,” writes Annika Martins in postivelypositive.com.

Business blogging is one way we have of “talking about ourselves”.  And, whether it’s the business owner or professional practitioner herself doing the writing, or whether we professional blog content writers have been hired to do the job for them, we need to make sure we ”talk” in ways that give readers the right impression.

That’s because impressions matter, and, even more important, they last. I read an interesting anecdote about Abe Lincoln that illustrates the point. According to biographer Carl Sandburg, Lincoln bet a gambler that he could lift a barrel of whiskey off the floor and hold it up while he took a drink out of the bunghole. Lincoln actually did that, winning the bet.  But decades later, Stephen Douglas, while debating Lincoln, implied that Abe had a serious drinking problem!

Does this sort of thing happen today? Well, duh! “Anyone can post a bad review online and hurt your business,” observes the coauthor of the book Niche Dominance. “Business owners need to be proactive in developing their online reputation,” he advises.

There is little that you can do to get a negative online review removed, advises Ashley Bennett of instantshift. Accept it, she says, for what it is and then focus on the positive aspects of your business, putting a spotlight on your positive achievements online to displace the negative reviews. This can take a while, but start creating more listings that talk about new products, services, news, discounts, and partnerships. You can do this via social media posts, blog posts, or even press releases.

Every feedback, whether negative or positive, comes from somewhere, says Donald Latumahina of lifeoptimizer.org. Something you said or did made the person react this way. Is there any truth behind it, and would this be an alternate perspective you missed out originally? Is it something you should look into?

When I’m helping business owners and professional practitioners craft their messages, damage control can become a very real issue. As a corporate blogging trainer, I know how crucial it is for them to convey to their customers, as well as to the online searchers who are their prospects, the kind of message that will alleviate mistrust and create confidence. Blog posts, I believe, are especially valuable tools when it comes to “impression” challenges.  Blog content is current, talking about “now”, not “then”. Plus, customers’ customers’ concerns and fears are being dealt with out in the open, “in front of other people”. That gives the remediation more weight with readers.

Don’t let blog readers get the wrong idea about you or your company or practice.  Not for long, anyway!

 

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Tell How You Tripped at the Academy Awards

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Is your brand real enough for the next wave of consumers? asks Jamie Gutfreund in  Forbes. “Gen Zs  consider Child falling down the stairstaking risks an important part of life and mistakes as badges of honor.” Zs are savvy consumers, Gutfreund adds, preferring to see “real” people to celebrities in campaigns.  To them, failure builds character, and they have little interest in content that promises perfection.

Interesting. As a corporate blogging trainer, I’ve been preaching to Indianapolis content writers that engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for their business owner and professional practitioner clients may be a matter of writing about how those owners overcame the effects of their own mistakes.

No matter what generation of reader you’re targeting, I explain, real life conflicts are riches to be mined. Often, however, our business owner and practitioner clients are so close to the subject matter of their own past and present business battles, they can’t see how valuable those “failures” can prove to be. That’s where the “outside eye” of a professional blog writer becomes especially valuable.

“One thing you will notice about successful people, especially people with an entrepreneurial streak, is that they welcome detours and failures as a natural part of the journey they are on,” observes author Ekaterina Walter. Mistakes will not end your business. But will surface new opportunities, adds Meridith Valiando Rojas, CEO of Digitour Media.

“Who are You? Readers like to know about the author. It makes your writing more interesting because it adds context,” says K. Stone of lifehack.org. in advising writers to brand their blogs for success.

Good branding and good writing – they’re both about being real.  So, go ahead, tell how you (or your business owner or professional practitioner client) tripped at the Academy Awards!

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