Spicing Up Content Using Word Story Tidbits

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Just as spices can be used to enhance a standard meat-and-potatoes meal, at Say It For You, we’re always on the alert for ways to “spice up” content marketing text. Explaining the origin of unusual words and expressions can enhance content, making the information which providers of goods and services “serve up” to their readers a tad “tastier”.

 “Ghost words”:

Some words that appear in the dictionary actually originated from typos or linguistic errors, and marketers can describe these happy mistakes as part of their web page or blog post content.  Apparel vendors, for example can share with their readers the tidbit Angela Tung explains in Mental Floss: the word “tweed” may have come from a misuse of the Scottish word tweel,  which was how the Scots pronounced  “twill” (woven fabric).

Content marketers for tutoring or for academics programs might want to explain the mistake that resulted in the word  “syllabus” – Roman philosopher Cicero wrote about sittybas,  referring to the label on a papyrus roll. Somewhere along the line, this was misprinted  as syllabus.

Expressive expressions:

“All that and a bag of chips”, an expression from the 90s (meaning that something is especially  impressive or attractive), first appeared in a 1994 issue of People magazine, WordSmarts explains. Grocers, fast food restaurants and snack food companies might use this tidbit in their marketing materials.  A second expression that food providers might want to include is “spill the beans”.  In the ancient Greek process of voting, putting a white bean in the jar meant “yes”; black or brown ones signified “no”.  If someone spilled the beans, Melanie Curtin writes in Inc., the election results would be revealed.  

Sales trainers and  networking advisors might explain the origin of the expression “break the ice”. Before road transportation was developed, ships were the means of trade.  When ships got stuck during the winter, small ships would be sent to clear a path by breaking up the ice, as Anais John explains in Grammarly.

Spice up your content marketing using some of these word history tidbits!

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Thriving Under Pressure: Smart Strategies for Managing Explosive Business Growth

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(Guest post by Susan Booker)   The sudden growth in your small business can be both thrilling and overwhelming. Managing this exciting phase effectively requires adopting strategic approaches that support sustainable success. Enhancing your business skills, fostering team collaboration, and leveraging technology are key steps to navigating expansion smoothly. By staying organized and proactive, you can maintain stability while capitalizing on new opportunities, ensuring your business thrives during this dynamic period of growth.

Reinvest Profits for Sustainable Growth

Reinvesting profits into your business is a smart strategy to fuel sustainable growth. You can enhance productivity and foster innovation by directing funds towards areas like research and development or employee training. Financial tools such as budgeting software help you make informed decisions about where to allocate resources, ensuring your business remains competitive and adaptable.

Train Strategically for Sustainable Business Growth

Implementing scalable training programs is essential for addressing the skills gap and preparing your workforce for future demands. By investing in employee development, you not only improve retention and satisfaction but also drive innovation and profitability. Platforms that offer tailored solutions for skill assessments can help you accurately evaluate and enhance your team’s capabilities, ensuring your business stays ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Boost Your Business Acumen with an Online Degree

Enhancing your business knowledge is one of the most effective ways to prepare for rapid growth. Earning an online business degree can equip you with essential accounting, business, communications, and management skills. This may be a good option to check if you want to improve your leadership capabilities while maintaining your current job. The flexibility of online programs allows you to work full-time and keep up with your studies, making it a practical choice for busy entrepreneurs.

Harness Cloud Scalability for Small Business Expansion

Adopting scalable cloud-based systems can significantly ease the complexities of rapid growth. These systems allow you to dynamically adjust your data storage and processing capabilities, meeting increased demand without hefty infrastructure investments. During peak times, cloud solutions can automatically scale to handle higher traffic, ensuring smooth operations and enhancing collaboration among remote teams. Choosing cloud providers with strong security measures ensures your sensitive information is protected while enjoying the benefits of cloud technology.

Leverage Personalization for Sustainable Growth

Crafting personalized loyalty programs is a strategic way to nurture customer loyalty and manage growth effectively. By utilizing customer data and CRM systems, you can tailor marketing efforts to align with individual preferences, offering a unique experience for each customer. This approach encourages repeat purchases and promotes word-of-mouth referrals, expanding your customer base and turning satisfied customers into passionate brand advocates.

Adapt Your Business Model for Global Success

To manage rapid growth successfully, it’s crucial to adapt your business model to diverse markets. Customizing your products and marketing strategies to fit local consumer preferences and cultural nuances can broaden your brand’s global reach. Partnering with local experts and conducting thorough market research helps you navigate regulatory requirements and avoid common pitfalls, ensuring sustained growth and increased sales.

Perform a Competitive Analysis

Conducting a thorough competitive analysis is essential for navigating the challenges of rapid growth. By examining larger and smaller competitors, you can uncover successful strategies and identify potential threats to your market share. This approach provides insights into industry dynamics and helps you anticipate future shifts, enabling you to make informed decisions that enhance your product development and marketing strategies.

 

These strategies can set your small business on a path to lasting success. You ensure your business stays competitive and adaptable by honing your skills, strategically reinvesting profits, and adopting technological advancements. These proactive steps prepare you to face future challenges and create growth opportunities, helping your business thrive in an ever-evolving market landscape.

Susan Booker founded Side Gig Success, a vibrant online platform designed to empower individuals striving for financial freedom through side businesses. Side Gig Success serves as a guiding light for those eager to turn their passions into profitable ventures, offering practical strategies and expert advice to navigate the challenges of launching and growing a successful side hustle. With her innovative approach and actionable insights, Susan has cultivated a community where aspiring entrepreneurs can transform their dreams into reality and build a more financially secure future.

When Susan isn’t busy refining her website or managing her own side businesses, she enjoys attending yoga retreats, exploring local museums, and expressing her creativity through painting and writing.

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Don’t Kill With Your Critique

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Kill with your critique, but do it in a good way, Ryan G. Van Cleave advises in Writer’s Yearbook 2025. As an editor, van Cleave is regularly invited to conferences to give manuscript critiques.  He knew his comments were difference-making, but “best of all, no one cried”.

You can offer serious, honest feedback without it being crushing, Angela Ackerman notes, by following these guidelines:

  • being constructive, not destructive
  • praising the good along with pointing out the bad
  • focusing on the writing, not the writer

In comparative advertising, value is conveyed not only from quality, but from the disparity in quality between one product or service and another. The other company or provider serves as an anchor, or reference point to demonstrate the superiority of your product or service. Still, at Say It For You, we advise not “killing with critiques”. Yes, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition, but staying positive is still paramount.

What about the other extreme, offering positive comments about a competitor? While it might appear that praising or even recognizing the accomplishments of a competitor is the last thing any business owner or professional practitioner would want to do, prospective buyers need to know you’re aware they have other options, and that you can be trusted to have their best interests in mind.

 

The challenge posed to us as content writers relates less to critiques of our competitors, but in making clear just what our clients make, sell, and do that sets them apart from their competitors. Even more importantly, we must make clear why any of those differences would even matter to their prospects. In a sense, the purpose of content marketing is to provide a forum for business owners and practitioners to answer those very “what”, “how”, and “why” questions!

 

An essential point I often stress to clients is that the content must represent their opinion or slant on the information we will be  helping them serve up to their readers,  expressing the core values on which  their business or practice was founded.  That way, they protect themselves from being “killed with critique”, establishing themselves as thought leaders and subject matter experts.

 

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Putting the Personal Before the Factual

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Rules are important in English grammar, especially when using multiple adjectives to describe a single noun, Bennett Kleinman reminds us on wordsmarts.com.  All ten distinct adjective types aren’t required in a sentence, Kleinman reassures us, but, used in the wrong order, adjectives make for very awkward sentences. While most of us pick this up based on common speech patterns, Kleinman reminds us of the correct order, with personal opinion being first, followed by factual descriptions (size, quality, shape, age, color, origin, material, type, and purpose). 

The way Chris Tor explains the “rule” is that “the closer you get to the noun being modified, the more inherent to the nature of the noun the adjective is”. “You can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife, but if you mess with that word order you’ll sound like a maniac,”  @MattAndersonNYT cautions in a tweet. 

Is the same rule applicable to content marketing? You bet. How can you create ads that draw your intended consumers towards commitment? Using emotional appeal advertising is the ticket,‌ Nitzan Solomon reminds us in a wisestamp.com post. When ads evoke emotion, he explains, they are more likely to:

  • be remembered
  • influence opinion
  • drive action
  • build loyalty

Your smart phone may feature a high-resolution display, lightning-fast processor, and long battery life, but don’t start with that.  Instead, begin by describing the phone as being “the perfect companion for capturing and sharing all of life’s moments”. Solomon suggests.

One interesting perspective on the work we do as content marketing professionals is that we are interpreters, translating clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  That’s the reason I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”. I think people tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and when can they relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

At Say It For You, we’ve learned, corporate and professional practitioner content is part promo, part advertising, part bulletin, part tutorial, and part mission statement, but the bottom line is that it includes both the personal and the factual – in just that order of importance!

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Society-Happens-Here Content Marketing – Thanksgiving Food for Thought

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The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer reveals a new paradox at the heart of society. Rapid innovation offers the promise of a new era of prosperity, yet most institutions, including government and the media, are not trusted to introduce these new innovations to society, and so people are looking to business leaders for guidance. That means business owners are expected to comment, not only on their own products and services, but on societal changes that affect their industry or profession…

At Say It For You, our content writers know readers are trusting our business owner and professional practitioner clients to help them with more than good products and skilled services. In addition to information, searchers need help making sense of all the changes happening in their neighborhoods and in their world.

“When customers provide more data, they expect better experiences,” salesforce.com cautions, so marketers need to create experiences that are:

  1. connected
  2. personalized
  3. immersive

What I’ve learned over the years of creating blog content for dozens and dozens of clients in different industries and professions is that, in order to “turn readers on”, we must incorporate one important ingredient – opinion. Taking a stance, I’ve found, is what gives content its “zip”. We must be influencers, I advise clients and blog content writers alike. Whether it’s business-to-business or business-to-consumer writing, the content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers.
We need to be coming from a place of “who we are” as much as from a place of “what we offer”.

A content marketing alert: This Thanksgiving, an important part of our “food for thought” menu needs to be Society-happens-here content marketing.

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