Blogging Who You Are

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Ahead of the launch of its inaugural flight from Indianapolis to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago, Spirit Airlines announced two new year-round flights coming to market this November.  Since Spirit is new to our airport, John Kirby, vice president of network planning, delivered some introductory remarks at the press conference:“We are a leisure airline, so we look for opportunities to enhance our leisure position in the marketplace.”

In training Say It For You business blog content writers, I can use this one sentence to talk about niches. A niche is all about serving a particular group of clients with a particular need, applying a solution to that need.  After all, that’s what we do as blog content writers – serve niche markets.  As writers, we define a narrow target audience made up of people who are already looking for products, information, and services relating to a particular need they have.  For our part, rather than presenting ourselves (or the clients who’ve hired us to write for them), as knowing a little about a lot of things, we demonstrate that the owners are uniquely informed – and passionate – about just one or two.

“When approaching a new market niche, it’s imperative to speak their language.  In other words, you should understand that market’s ‘hot buttons’ and be prepared to communicate with the target group as an understanding member – not an outsider,” advises Kim T. Gordon, writing in Entrepreneur Magazine. That advice is particularly applicable to business blogging, and that principle is part of the “Power of One” concept on which Say It For You was founded. “The more focused a blog is, the more successful it will be in converting prospects to clients and customers.

Spirit’s “We are a leisure airline” is a great example of “blogging who you are.” It relates to what I call the “training benefit” of blogging.  When you create and maintain a blog, you’re verbalizing the positive aspects of your business in a way people can understand.  You’re putting your accomplishments down in words. You’re reviewing the benefits of your products and services, keeping those fresh in your mind.  You reveal some of the early struggles that helped you forge your business beliefs.  In other words, the very act of blogging provides constant training on how to talk effective about your own business or practice.

 

 

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Are-Both-Sides-Right Blogging for Business

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“Are both sides right?” asks veterinarian Carrie Donahue, writing in Good Health magazine, alluding to the debate about whether dogs should be on a raw diet or a conventional one. The raw camp emphasizes raw or lightly cooked meat, including organ meat and bones. The conventionalists are concerned about bacteria in raw meat and the threat of choking on bones.

The author concludes by saying that regardless which method is chosen, supplementation is important, going on to offer tips on which supplements help a dog have a healthy coat and skin, and which are beneficial for a pet’s brain, eyes, and heart..

Whether the topic of your blog marketing efforts is plumbing, pets, or pharma, the content itself needs to use opinion. It’s opinion, after all, that clarifies what differentiates your business, your professional practice, or your organization from its peers.  This Good Health article, takes a slightly different approach – airing both sides of a debate.

At Say It for You, I train content writers to reveal their unique “slant” or philosophy within their field.  That way, I explain, potential customers and clients feel they know who you are, not merely what you do,  and they are more likely to want to be associated with you.

For that very reason, one important facet of my job as a content writer is to “interview” business owner and professional practitioner clients, eliciting each one’s very individualized thoughts. The Carrie Donahue article about pet food suggests an alternate approach – present both sides of the story to readers.  When you clarify and put into perspective both sides of a thorny issue within your industry or profession, you’re performing a valuable service for readers.

On the other hand, I have observed, whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, there needs to be a slant on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

There’s value in Are-Both-Sides-Right blog posts, no doubt, as Carrie Donahue so effectively demonstrates in this article. In the big picture, however, I have to conclude that, to achieve the status of “thought leader” and inspire action, business blog posts will need to involve taking one side of an issue, not both.

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Blogging as Long as It’s Black

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Blog readers need to perceive you as an expert in your field, I teach at Say It For You.  And for that to happen, I believe, you need to clearly state a firm perspective on your subject. There’s no lack of information sources – and no lack of “experts” (purported or real) on any topic and that is the reason we need to go beyond presenting facts, statistics, features, and benefits, and get authentic and yes, even opinionated.

Around six months ago, I came across a wonderful feature story in the Wall Street Journal Magazine, featuring the Danish kitchen design company Vipp.  Explaining ”How a Salon Trash Can Turned a Design Brand Into a Phenomenon”, reporter Natalia Rachlin discussed CEO Kasper Egelund’s take-it-or-leave-it-approach:

“The first thing I always tell someone about the kitchen is that they can have it
in whatever color they want, as long as it’s black.”

 Vipp’s success is not in spite of, but precisely because of this firm posture. In the “lucrative and highly competitive kitchen market, which tends to be all about customization”, Rachlin posits,  being opinionated presents a picture of self confidence and expertise.

Expertise and exaggeration, of course, are two different things, and exaggeration is something blog marketers need to handle very, very carefully.  After all, we’re trying to build trust, and it’s crucial that we be factually correct in describing the extent to which our products and services can be of help. “Claiming to have expertise you don’t have can create customer dissatisfaction and complaints, ultimately eroding your reputation,” cautions the Ethics Center.

No, it’s not exaggeration we’re after in crafting blog posts, but influence. As blog content writers, our goal is framing our story in a way that this audience will focus on and respect. Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks, would remind speakers: Argue the rarer point or elucidate as only you can.”

Readers are looking to us for expertise and a firm perspective. It appears Vipp kitchen buyers, knowing  there is a rainbow of cabinet and backsplash finishes available to them, still love having Egelund tell them “as long as it’s black”. Shouldn’t we be “blogging as long as it’s black”?

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Should Blog Posts Be Op Eds?

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opinions in business blogs

 

“Opinionated editorial essays are often the most fun, fast and furious pieces to get into print – especially for nonfamous  witers with strong opinions and day jobs in other fields,” opines Susan Shapiro in Writer’s Digest.

What about business blog content marketing? Should posts do more than describe the products and services being offered and include the opinions of the business owner or professional practitioner? Three insights from Writer’s Digest can help answer that question….

1. “Convey a strong link to your subject,” Shapiro advises.  “Unless you have fought in the Iraq war, have lost a family member there, or are yourself from Iraq, your chances of selling a piece about it are slim.”

We must be influencers, I advise clients and blog content writers alike. Whether it’s business-to-business or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers.

2. “Be aware of your audience…..Beware of making too many New York or Los Angeles references in a piece aimed at the Detroit News.”

As writers, when we tell the story of a business or a practice to consumers, we “frame” that story a certain way. “Your opportunity,” Seth Godin tells marketers, “lies in finding a neglected worldview, framing your story in a way that this audience will focus on.”  Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks, reminds speakers to do a jargon check based on audience research, eliminating technical terms and acronyms that will be unfamiliar to listeners.

3.  “Don’t share the obvious slant. Nobody wants to print what everyone already knows…Argue the rarer point or elucidate as only you uniquely can.”

One point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions is that,  whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve gotta have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.
      
In “Ten tips to write an opinion piece people read”, A. Stone advises starting with an attention-grabbing opening line that cuts to the heart of your key message, evoking an emotion or curiosity.  It can be a strong fact, statement or even the beginning of an anecdote that has audience connection, he explains. “The first line is the display-window for all the goodies you have inside.” In opinion piece posts, the, the opener should at least hint at the “slant”.

Providing information about products and services may be the popular way to write corporate blog posts, but in terms of achieving Influencer status – that takes opinion!

 

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