In Order to Engage Blog Readers, Avoid Spoon-Feeding

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Feeding a cute Lovely Baby Girl“Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”

I was hearing this phrase for the first time, spoken by a police chief in a news broadcast, but later learned that the saying has been around for decades.

As a writer, I’m always fascinated by what makes certain word combinations pack such tremendous power.  In this case, I concluded, it was because I. as the listener, needed to go through a certain thinking process in order to get the meaning. Couldn’t that same concept apply to readers of our business blog posts, I wondered?

Reminds me of something that humorist Dick Wolfsie teaches. In order for a joke to be funny, he explains, the person listening to the joke or reading the joke has to figure things out!  The laughter is the reward that the listener or reader gives himself for having figured out what the punch line is really saying.

It may be that the same concept applies to the material presented in our business blog content writing, and that, for the blog to cause real communication, it takes two.

People go online and use search engines to find information.  They need to know more about something, and that something has to do with what you have, what you know about, or what you know how to do.  If you’ve provided relevant, up to date content in your blog post, the reader’s browser found you, and you’ve got yourself a potential client or customer. That individual, just like the person who gets a joke, feels rewarded for the search.

Needless to say, the content needs to be understandable.  But what the “Better to be tried by 12…” lesson might add here is that we don’t want to spoon-feed the readers. They need to be able to do part of the “work”.  Otherwise, like bored students at a lecture, they might doze off (or, in the case of online readers, click off!).

Educational theory supports my understanding.“A lecture is still a lecture, and having students simply listen is still a passive action,” observes Ben Johnson of Edutopia. “The solution is simple,” he offers: “If a teacher wants to increase student engagement, then the teacher needs to increase student activity — ask the students to do something with the knowledge and skills they have learned.”

Engage blog readers, but avoid spoon feeding!

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A LASSI Assessment for Business Blogging

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ExamDid you know that our ability to learn can be diagnosed?

The LASSI (Learning and Study Strategies Inventory) is an 80-item assessment based on the theory that success in learning relies on thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.  What’s the purpose of the assessment? The LASSI, developed at the University of Texas, gives students feedback, so they can focus on improving their  knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and skills.

The aspect of LASSI that was so fascinating to me as a trainer in the field of business blogging was its three components: Skill, Will, and Self-regulation.

Skill
One key skill the LASSI looks for is information processing, including selecting main ideas.

As I think about that, before the reader ever sees our blog content, we writers need to have exercised skill in selecting the main idea we want to present.
A repeating theme in my corporate blogging training sessions is focus. Each blog post should emphasize one story, one idea, one aspect of the business or practice. If the writer has exercised that very key skill of selecting a main idea, it will be that much easier for the “student” (consumer of the blog material) to focus and get the point.

Will
This component of strategic learning has to do with attitude and motivation, with diligence and self-discipline.

In fact, in the early years of my company Say It For You, I talked about the “drill sergeant discipline” needed by blog content writers and about the fact that the main key to business blogging success was going to be simply keeping on task.

Self-regulation
An important part of the self-regulation component of strategic learning is time management. The LASSI scale measures how well student do in managing their time and maintaining concentration.

Couldn’t help recalling the Say It For You video I’d recorded about time management for blogs. Allowing 120 minutes total per blog post, I explained, I’d allocate 40 for research and “reading around”, learning others’ opinions on your topic and gathering information.  50 minutes should be used, I advised, for the actual writing and editing of the business blog, with 10 minutes for finding photos, charts, and clip art for illustrating your points, and 20 minutes for the actual posting on the site.

What might a LASSI assessment tell YOU about achieving greater business blogging success?

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Learning the Business Blogging “Trade”

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A saying often credited to author James Bennis goes like this: “Don’t justContractor standing with toolbelt on white background learn the tricks of the trade – learn the trade.” 

In and around Indianapolis, a big hub for blog content writers and IT mavens of every ilk, there’s lots of talk about “tricks” and “tips” for creating engaging content for business blogs.  In fact, when I lead blogging training sessions or communicate with my business owners or practitioner clients, I like to share helpful “tips”.

I came across a website called “Working the Web to Win”, where three published authors put together a rather specific to-do list for blog content writers, including such basics as

  • Create a “killer” title.
  • Make them an offer they can’t refuse in the opening paragraph.
  • Provide a “quirky’ conclusion.
  • Make sure you provide ample subheads and pithy quotes throughout the article.
  • Make sure the article is visually appealing.
  • Include a call to action.

Every one of these pieces of advice is valuable, I believe, and I certainly wouldn’t categorize them as “tricks” or as taking the easy way out. I’d say “The Free Dictionary” definition of “tricks of the trade” as being those “special skills and knowledge associated with any trade or profession”, is very fitting.

Is writing an art or a trade? James Chartrand asks. “I don’t like being called an artist. I don’t really like other writers calling themselves artists, either. Come to think of it, I don’t really feel anyone with a computerized job is an artist,” Chartrand concludes.(Well! We could certainly pass some time tossing that one around, now couldn’t we?)

My own take is that “learning the trade” when it comes to blogging for business is that’s it’s all about “learning around”, getting ideas from everywhere and everyone, constantly looking to make connections between our own experience and knowledge and “Other People’s Wisdom.”

In a sense, a true business  blog content writer never stops learning the trade!

 

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Accentuate the Negative?

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“Eliminate the negative an’ latch on to the affirmative” was Johnny Mercer’s musical advice back in 1945.dog food Playing to one’s strengths has, in fact, been a popular fad in management development circles. As a blog content writer, though, sometimes I wonder.

The latest issue of Modern Dog magazine features eight article titles on its cover:

  • How Not to Train Your Puppy
  • Gift ideas galore
  • Big Dogs and their Puppy Counterparts
  • Winter Survival Tips
  • Great Gear
  • I’m Adoptable
  • Find a New Best Friend
  • Why is My Dog Staring at Me?

Guess which one attracted my attention the most – Yeah, gotta admit… it was the negative one telling me how NOT to train my puppy. And guess what? It’s not just me.  People are drawn to articles with negative titles, my friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball pointed out a year ago. Posts with negative titles stand out in a blog roll, on a Twitter feed or LinkedIn page, and the negative posts are more likely to be shared, retweeted and read.

What’s with us? Well, “edgy language draws attention”, Lorraine explains. (Lorraine’s title “Why Your Blog Titles Suck” is a bit too edgy for me, but I get the idea. I do.) Fact is, I would’ve picked “Why is My Dog Staring at Me?” before “How to Train Your Puppy”.  It was that How-NOT-to that drew my attention.

But that doesn’t jibe at all with Rich Brook’s advice on socialmediaexaminer: “The how-to is the most powerful of all the blogging archetpyes.”  Your prospects and customers have a problem and you can help them solve it by creating a step-by-step post that walks them through a solution, he says. That may be true, counters Lorraine Ball, but fear of failure is core to who we are as people, and it’s hard to resist reading material about how to avoid it.

Could it be that accentuating the negative, and only then latching on to the affirmative is the best advice for us business blog content writers?

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Are You Blogging as a SME or a Thought Leader?

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When it comes to blogging for business, positioning ourselves (or our business Lowner/professional practitioner clients) as  Subject Matter Experts is obviously a worthy goal.

We might be able to go one better, though, according to strategist Neen James. Writing in Speaker Magazine, James describes a 90-day action plan for going from expert to thought leader. Is that mere semantics? Not at all; as a leadership expert, James’ focus is on helping her meeting planner, speaker, and coach clients be more influential while getting more done.

A Subject Matter Expert or SME (pronounced “smee”) knows something, explains James. A thought leader, by contrast, is known for something. “The thought leaders know how to package ideas in a way that appeals to a marketplace craving direction or solutions to a problem. Those ideas often shift conventional wisdom,” she goes on to explain.

Now, Neen James is not addressing blog content writers per se, but she could have been. “Audiences are educated and sophisticated, and they are overwhelmed, overstressed, and overtired,” she tells speakers. (She might as well be describing online readers.) In fact, as a corporate blogging trainer, I find every one of the steps James describes relevant for creating good content.

Step #1: Clarify your message: What do you know? What is your message to share with the world?
Step #2: Define your market.  Who values your expertise? Who are the clients you could work with all day?
Step #3: Select your method for delivering your expertise. Will you be a trainer, helping people learn a new skill? Will you be a facilitator, drawing out others’ ideas and opinions? Or will you share your method directly for greater influence and engagement?

As someone involved full time with online content writing, I realized I was being reminded of a really important point as I read James’ article Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to contain opinion and insight, not only information and products. There’s a saying that comes to mind:  “There’s a big difference between having to say something and having something to say.”

Our readers need even more from us than expertise, I’m convinced. Yes, we’re giving them subject matter, but they need help processing that subject matter. They need thought leadership!

 

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