Tidbit Blogging – a Trend that Never Goes Out of Style

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Slices of watermelonIn blog marketing, is it worth the effort of digging up curious and little-known facts related to your business or industry?  Make that a big “Oh, yes”!  Readers’ interest is piqued, you’re positioned as an expert in your field, and you’re rewarded with precious extra moments of precious attention. (Just learned that my favorite source for ripe tidbits is Mental Floss Magazine has just published its last paper issue;  from now on it will be digital all the way!)

Here’s just one juicy tidbit from Mental Floss to illustrate my point: In 2007, editors inform readers, the House of Representatives in the state of Oklahoma voted 78 to 19 to make watermelon their state vegetable. State Senator Don Barrington justified the vote by saying watermelon is a member of the cucumber family (Botanically speaking, Mental Floss reminds us, cucumbers are fruits.)  Meanwhile, in Arkansas, the Vine Ripe Pink Tomato is both the state’s official fruit and its official veggie!

Sure, that info is funny and unusual, but why do I think bloggers could use those tidbits to advantage? For one thing, this tidbit explodes some commonly held myths (cucumbers and tomatoes are vegetables and belong in salads, never desserts). More importantly, those true tales engage readers’ interest, and we can use them to lead into some little-known facts about our own (or our clients’) products and services. Think cukes and tomatoes in:

  • Catering
  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Restaurants
  • Beauty products

How does the process work?  Well, the tidbit becomes the jumping off point for explaining what problems can be solved using that business’ products or that practice’s services, for defining basic terminology, and for putting modern day statistics into perspective. 

I could see business bloggers using a second funny tidbit I pinpointed in this latest Mental Floss issue as a lead-in to a serious discussion about educational policy and parenting:

Wooden paddle spankings are still legal in 19 American states.

This little gem deals head-on with the touchy issue of corporal punishment both at home and at school. Think about your own business, I ask owners in the course of providing them with business blogging assistance: Is there anything that might be considered unsafe, cruel, or environmentally non-friendly about your industry or your business? Rather than avoiding the topic, what about using the blog to explain what you as a business owner are you doing to mitigate those factors?

Funny or serious, tidbit blogging is a trend that I can’t see ever going out of style!

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Ad Mining for Blog Content Writers

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Advertising concept with smartphone

 

Blogs are not ads, to be sure, and yet blog content writers can learn a lot from browsing the advertisements, I’m convinced. To test that theory, I decided to browse a collection of 50 different print ads published in the November 2016 issue of TheHomeMag, a free home improvement magazine.

Hitting precisely the right “advertorial” note is one of the big challenges in corporate blog writing, I knew. In fact, one point I’ve consistently stressed in these Say It For You blog content writing “tutorials” is how important it is to provide valuable information to readers, while avoiding any hint of “hard sell”.

Quite a number of the HomeMag print ads, I found, stressed price and cost savings:

  • “We’ll beat any quote by 10% to 60%!”
  • “Remodel your kitchen at an affordable price!
  • “Save big on kitchen countertops & cabinets.”

A second category of ad focuses customers’ attention on “the hurt”, meaning the risks they’re facing and the problems they have.

  • “Protect your chimney from winter.”
  • “Cabinets looking outdated?”
  • “Common countertop problems resolved.”
  • “Never paint again!”
  • “Ugly tub? Reglaze it.”
  • “Inefficient windows can be scary!”
  • “Foundation or moisture problems?”

In blog content writing, once readers are hooked by your understanding of their “hurt”, you can offer the “rescue”, the solutions your expertise and experience can bring to the table.  (I take a moderate view, preferring content that emphasizes the solutions to the problems, rather than taking a “fear-mongering” approach.)

The HomeMag ads that I liked best got readers to visualize themselves using and enjoying the product or service.

  • “Experience the beauty of outdoor lighting.”
  • “Access everything you need, every time you need it.
  • “Turn your backyard dream into a reality!”
  • “Host Thanksgiving in your new kitchen.”
  • “Refinish your existing tub & tile in time for holiday guests.”

    When you’re composing business blog content, I tell writers, imagine readers asking themselves – “How will I use the product (or service)?” “How will it work?” “How will I feel?”

Blogs are not ads, to be sure, and yet blog content writers can learn a lot from browsing the advertisements.

 

 

 

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Selling Dreams Through Blog Marketing

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dream

 

“Apple’s strategy involves selling their consumers a global package of dreams, personal experiences, and status,” explains Camila Villafañe of Postcron.com. “Apple is different from all other brands because for Steve Jobs, consumers weren’t just consumers, they were people. People with dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and he got Apple to create products to help them achieve their dreams and goals,” she says.

There’s been a lot of buzz around the “Starbucks experience” – the crackle, the aroma, the barristas – all of it. I think there’s a lesson here for blog content writers: online visitors to your blog need to find an experience along with information.  “Analyze how it feels to use and buy your products, and think what you need to improve, and what you need to focus on”, Steve Jobs taught.
Each blog post needs to get readers to visualize themselves benefiting from an experience: “You won’t know how good you’ll feel until you do”, one bankruptcy attorney’s commercial says. After using your product or service, will new users feel relief? Pride? Belonging? Strength? Security? When you’re composing business blog content, I tell writers, imagine readers asking themselves – “How will I use the product (or service)?” “How will it work?” “How will I feel?”

Villafane pointed out another Steve Jobs marketing lesson:  Find an enemy. “Make it clear who the enemy is, and try to get people to take a side. The idea is that people are drawn to belong to the ideology of a brand that matches their own thoughts and values,” she says. “If you don’t stand up for what you believe in, you’ll go unnoticed. And what better way to state what you believe in, than stating clearly what you DON’T believe in,” she asks?

In training new blog content writers, I always remind them of the importance of including opinion in marketing blogs. Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing 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.
Before you publish, subject each blog post to two tests:

  • Is it designed to get readers to visualize themselves benefiting from an experience?
  • Does it reveal what you do and don’t believe in?

 

 

 

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The Power of “When” in Blog Marketing

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the-power-of-when

It’s not only what you do, but when, Michael Breus explains in his new book The Power of When. There’s a best time for each of us to eat lunch, ask for a raise, write a novel, and take our meds, depending on our individual “chronotype”, Breus teaches.

Circadian biology in humans is a rather new field of study, but the concept of good timing can be traced back to the Bible. Surely you remember this passage from Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:  a time to be born and a time to die…”.

Does timing matter when it comes to marketing your business or practice using blog writing? It certainly does, maintains Melissa Albano-Davis of Grapevine Marketing. In positioning your business to take advantage of timely marketing opportunities, Albano-Davis says, “the key is to be ready and able to move on a dime”.

“If you’re not paying attention to the trends as they occur, you’re going to miss the boat…tune into major events and the types of programming that is most popular with your audience.” You can take advantage of:

  • obvious events, such as the presidential debates and Superbowl
  • events happening within your own community
  • things that affect everyone in your area, such as the weather
    topics trending on Twitter

Consumers are more inclined to do certain things on certain days of the week, and if you can understand those habits relevant to your business, you can make sure your marketing campaign hits when the consumer is in the right frame of mind to act, suggests Chloe He in business2community.

Ms. He offers a couple of valuable timing hints having to do with weekends:

  • Social media is quieter on the weekend.  Even though fewer people check their accounts, those who do are more active than they might be during the week, more likely to read articles.
  • Weekends are about DIY

When it comes to the science of blog timing, the main thing people think about is when to publish a post, but that’s not the only timing consideration, Kissmetrics points out. You must also consider the timing of:

  • How often you publish
  • When to promote the posts
  • When to repurpose the content

As blog content writers, we would do well to heed the reminder which authors from Ecclesiastes to Michael Breus so aptly offer –  it’s not only what we do, but when!

 

 

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More About Using Skeletons to Bring Life to Your Blog

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In the delightful little book Unfortunate English: The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use, you can find a treasure chest of fun ideas for livening up business blog posts. Author Bill Brohough alerts readers to the fact that many of the words we use daily used to have very war-related, sexually oriented, or even disgusting meanings.

Last week in this Say It For You blog, I suggested several ways in which that collection of verbal “skeletons” which Brohough put together can be used to enliven blog marketing content for different types of businesses and professional practices,. skeletonThose word “skeletons” can be use, I explained:

  • to define basic terminology or give basic information to readers
  • to explain why this practitioner or business owner chooses to operate in a certain way:

After all, every business blogger faces the challenge of creating material about the same subject over long periods of time, and anything we can use to deepen and broaden and generally “freshen up” the topic tends to be a good thing.

Two words we’re used to seeing in marketing content, terms used to describe everything from clothing to home décor to autos, for example, are “sophisticated” and “luxury”.  Today, Brohough points out, if you call something or someone “sophisticated”, you mean cultured and refined.  The original meaning of the word was quite different.  To “sophisticate” something was to adulterate it by mixing it with something inferior, and being sophisticated meant the opposite of genuine. The word “luxury”, Brohough adds, has a similarly shady past. The Old French word meant “indulging in abundance”, lacking in taste, or even lecherous.

In corporate blog writing, the target audience dictates the nature of the content, including the writing tone and style, the length of the posts, which keyword phrases to include, and what the Calls to Action will be.  But, even with all those preparations made and research done,  writers need to maintain a full content “quiver” (with the arrows pointing in the right direction!).

Trivia such as those in Unfortunate English can add a dash of humor and a whole lot of new interest to business blog marketing content!

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