Blog Genres: Take Your Choice – Carefully

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Your choice of genres may be very different depending on who you’re writing for and point you want to make,” the authors of Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts in One Big Fat Notebook explain. “Different genres alter the focus of the topic.” The journalism genre, for example, puts the most important facts first, leaving out all personal opinions or personal history of the author. The memoir genre, in contrast, focuses on the memories of an individual and does not refer to research.

Since blog content writing is, by definition, nonfiction, authors can follow several of the guidelines in the Notebook:

  • using research (old newspaper articles, interviews, eyewitness accounts)
  • including charts, graphs, and photos
  • skillfully using both explicit and implicit evidence

In a non-fiction text, Notebook authors explain, explicit evidence is actually stated. Implicit evidence, on the other hand, involves conclusions readers draw from the text. In order to “steer” readers to arrive at certain conclusions, “choosing the BEST evidence from all the evidence is crucial, in order to get the point across quickly and convincingly”. In fact, “choosing evidence” is a foundational aspect of blog content creation. At Say it For You, we teach that, in addition to having a focused topic for each blog post, writers must have a specific audience in mind, choosing the best evidence for that target audience.

“Every author writes with a purpose in mind,” the Notebook states. “In opinion pieces, it is an established fact that the authors have a purpose and are trying to convince the reader of something.” Still, a good writer knows that not everybody agrees, and therefore includes counterclaims or counterarguments.” When it comes to blog marketing, visitors will be subjecting your content to an “acid test”, judging whether this site is the “real deal”. That’s where presenting “evidence” in the form of facts and figures comes in.

Some “tried and true” blog genres include:     

  • advice
  • collections and top lists
  • reviews
  • predictions
  • motivation
  • trouble-shooting
  • interviews
  • how-to
  • editorial
  • personal reflection

Whichever the genre of choice, a central idea is the most importance element in any piece of writing, Notebook authors remind us. Around that central idea, the content of any piece can be constructed. As blog content writers, we can take our genres, but it’s important to do that carefully!

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Tidbits, Not Tag Lines, Work Best in Blog Marketing

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In content writing, word tidbits and tag lines are both designed to help readers remember something– a concept, a company, a product, a service. Just the other day, when I came across examples of both, I realized just how important the difference is between a tagline and a word tidbit when it comes to blogging for business…..

“We wanna see-‘ya in a Kia” – is a tag line. It’s catchy, it’s memorable – it’s advertising. Thing is, that tagline tells me nothing about the car, about the company, about any one dealership or salesperson, nothing about the experience I would have if I chose to purchase and drive a Kia.

Contrast that with a word tidbit I caught last week in a local news bulletin about the fact that Edwards Drive-In restaurant is closing after more than sixty years in business, but that their food truck business will be continuing. “We’re selling the store, not the soul”. So much more than a tag line, this word tidbit captures the sense of “we” (the owners of the store) and how much the owners care about continuing their decades-long relationship with customers.

Fully fourteen years ago, with Say It For You in its n infancy, I’d mentioned a word tidbit found in Daniel Gardners’ book The Science of Fear. “We report the rare routinely, and the routine rarely,” he said. That powerful combination of everyday words unified concepts I already knew, but which I hadn’t synthesized into any true understanding about the media.

Just about a year later, I blogged about another “grabber” tidbit from a review of Maxine’s Chicken & Waffles restaurant: “And, wow, those wings…the breading was crispy and well-seasoned without overpowering the tender meat.” (Here’s the tidbit: “Maxine’s wings are nothing like the fast-food varieties that are more batter than bird”.

That word tidbit made me think about business blogging: Searchers arrive at your blog seeking information about what you do, what you sell, and what you know. The “batter” might be the way the blog site is laid out, the pictures and illustrations, and even cleverness in the writing. But, when it comes right down to it, the “meat” is the well-researched information, and the links you provide readers to sources they might not have thought to research themselves.

What a blog should aim to do is capture concepts relating to your business, putting words together is a new way, sharing an “aha!” experience with your readers that helps them know the subject better, but also helps them get to know you a little better.

Taglines may help them remember it, but word tidbits force them to think about it!

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Are Your Blog Questions for Learning or Judging?

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Questions open our minds, says executive coach Roz Savage, but we need to go from judging to learning. While old-style leaders ask questions to elicit facts, new-style leaders ask questions “to unlock the intelligence of the team”. In her book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, Marilee Adams compares judging questions with learning questions. When we leap to judgment, that prevents us from learning very much, she teaches.

At Say it For You, always on the hunt for ways to improve the way we go about business blog content writing, we wondered how questions can be used in blog content itself, in which the “conversation”, at least at the start of the encounter, is one-way! Neil Patel suggests asking questions on social media as a way of learning more about your target audience for the blog. The first and most important question you need to ask, Patel says, is What are my readers worried about? The answers will allow you to provide a better customer experience and blog reader experience.

A question in a blog post title is an invitation to participate in a conversation, Patrick Armitage of BlogMutt suggests in uplandKapost.com.  And, while in a blog post, Armitage says, you’re often providing answers to questions that your potential customer might ask, the very fact that it’s in the form of a question allows readers to feel you’re helping them form them form their own opinions.

Visitors are, without a doubt, judging your website. If it does not appear attractive, easy to navigate, or knowledgeable, you’ve lost your customer, cautions Webociti. Relevant information they should find includes questions and answers, Joe Mediate explains.

As Marilee Adams emphasizes, learner questions lead to discovery and understanding, while judger questions more often lead to blame and frustration. In keeping with that concept, blog content should focus on expansive and productive questions, such as “What’s possible?” “What are my choices?” “What’s useful here?” In the real blog marketing world, I’ve found, the content writers focus on appealing to consumers’ fear. My own thought has always been that, to appeal to a better kind of customer – the one who buys for the right reasons and remains loyal, the content must appeal to readers’ better nature – and to their ability to arrive at intelligent answers to “learning” questions.

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5 Ways to Create Delicious Omelets and Blog Posts

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There are four types of omelets, Course Hero explains: American style, French Style, Frittata, and Souffle. Interesting information, I thought, but Upfront Magazine’s article “Good Eggs: 5 Ways With Omelets” is a better example for my blog content writers. Why?  The Upfront piece went beyond providing information to readers, offering ways they can put that info to use.  blog post illustrations

The five “ways” (each attributed to a particular chef) include:
  1. using pizza toppings
  2. trying sweetness (tucking banana slices into the omelet, with powdered sugar and chocolate sauce)
  3. adding richness with goat cheese, meet, and herbs
  4. adding yogurt
  5. going Midwestern by adding fried kielbasa
I found a number of things in the “5 Ways” article that illustrate good practices for blog content writers:
It’s a “listicle”. 
Lists spatially organize information, helping create an easy reading experience, and by most accounts, search engines like lists as well.
It uses “chunking”.
Chunking is a way for business bloggers to offer technical information in easily digestible form, tying different pieces of advice and information into a unifying theme. The “5 Ways” article combines cooking advice (“It shouldn’t be brown or crisp” with a variety of ideas.

It uses visuals.
Visuals are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, along with information and perspective, or “slant”. Whether you use actual original photos or “clip art, visuals add interest and evoke emotion, in addition to cementing concepts in the minds of readers. “5 Ways” is headed by pictures of the 5 types of omelets being discussed.

It has an effective title
“How long?” is one question I hear a lot at corporate blogging training sessions, referring to the blog post itself, but also to the title. While the most effective length for a title is whatever it takes to signal to online searchers that “right here” is the place they want to be, titles should not be overly complicated or cumbersome.

It curates and properly attributes to sources
Quoting others in your blog adds value – you’re aggregating resources for the benefit of your readers. Then, as business blogging service providers, we need to add our own “spin” to the material based on our own business wisdom and expertise. At the same time, it’s crucial to properly attribute quotes and ideas to their sources.

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Triggering Trivia in Business Blogs

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Modern technology has made it possible to find and share fascinating information, explains Alex Palmer in the delightful little book Alternative Facts. Of the 200 entries in the collection, about one-third are “true-ish” rather than true, and readers are invited to guess which those are, with answers found at the back of the book.

Trivia in general, I’ve long maintained, represent useful tools for blog content writers. In addition to adding some fun to the discussion of a topic, trivia can be used in business blogs in at least four different ways:

1. defining basic terminology
2. sparking curiosity about the subject
3. putting modern-day practices and beliefs into historical perspective
4. explaining why the business owner/practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way

Of course, stocking up on ideas for future blog posts isn’t all about trivia, as I explain to newbie blog content writers. The trivia tidbit is just the jump-off point for the message.

Here are eight facts, culled from Palmer’s book, that illustrate the value of “triggering” the discussion of a subject using a piece of trivia and relating it to the sponsor of the blog:

Who might use each of these tidbits in their blog?

1. Chewing your food longer can help you lose weight.
(weight loss advisor, spa, health provider, health food store) ,:

2. Of all creatures, moths have the strongest sense of hearing.
(audiologist, hearing aid company)

3. Americans are the only people who label pencils No. 2.
(private school, tutoring center, office supply store)

4. Warner Music Group owns the rights to the lyrics of “Happy Birthday”, and earns royalties on every use of the song on film, on TV, or in a public performance.
(patent attorney, birthday party organizer, party favor store, child care center)

5. William Shakespeare wore one gold earring.
(jeweler, fashion advisor, salon)

6. The bathroom scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” was the first time a toilet was flushed on screen.
(plumbing supply store, plumber, home builder, realtor)

7. The oldest preserved human body in the world was covered in tattoos.
(tattoo parlor, salon, spa)

8. Being double-jointed is something a person is born with.

(dance studio, exercise coach, dance equipment or exercise equipment provider)

For blog content writers, adding fun and interest to blog posts might be a “trivial” matter!

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