More Words About Images for Your Business Blog

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“Don’t put that stock photo on your website,” begs Peter Wolfgram of Roundpeg. “You didn’t have to do time is moneyit,” he says. “You could have taken that picture yourself. You could have shared your unique people and culture with a picture taken by your unique self.”

Over the past two weeks in my Say It For You blog, I’ve been discussing the use of images in business blog posts. The Roundpeg newsletter piece about using original vs. stock photos happened to coincide with my choice of topic at the time, making we think all the harder about the whole visual component in blogging for business.

“What we see has a profound effect on what we do, how we feel, and who we are,” Mike Parkinson of Billion Dollar Graphics asserts. Parkinson quotes famed psychologist Albert Mehrabian, who demonstrated that no less than 93% of communication is nonverbal.

There’s no question that visuals are one of the three “legs” of the business blog “stool”, along with information and perspective or “slant”. I’m not sure, on the other hand, that I agree that all OPI’s (Other People’s Images) are a bad thing. Yes, photos of you and your team members are part of “getting real” and introducing your company or practice to readers, so they get to know the people who will be serving them.

The other category of images for sale, though, is clip art, and I happen to like many of those images a lot. And, no, they’re not original to my clients’ businesses or to mine, and they are not able to – or intended to – show the products and services offered.  What those images do accomplish is capturing concepts, which helps me as the content writer, express the main idea I’m trying to articulate.

Since I’m a corporate blogging trainer as well as a blog writer, I’m keenly aware there’s another piece to this whole stock art question. That piece is time. While business owners know that blog frequency impacts customer acquisition, (see HubSpots’s State of Inbound Marketing.), most have a very hard time sustaining their content marketing efforts even without the additional burden of generating original photography. Sure, finding a good stock or free image takes time, too, but good stock clip art can offer a reasonable compromise.

My advice: definitely go ahead and use visuals to add interest to your blog. When it comes to photos, try for originals, and for concept pieces, OPI’s are AOK.

 

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The Sincerest Form of Blog Flattery?

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Choosing Between Right or Wrong“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Yet on the Internet, some people take this type of compliment way too far,” says Nick Schaferhoff of torquemag.io, referring to plagiarism of blog content.

“Building on the work of others is good.  Stealing from them is not,” says Michelle Lindblom of wiredimpact.com.  Of course you want to offer quality information your readers can’t find elsewhere, she acknowledges, and coming up with totally original information is not the only way to do that.  So what can you do to build on the work of others without stealing their words? Lindblom offers a number of tips for blog content writers who want to curate content in a professional and ethical way:

  • Take Your Time. Give yourself enough time to research, write, and rewrite blog content.
  • Read multiple sources and combine the information into content that is original.
  • Link liberally to the original authors’ work.
  • Paraphrase, putting the ideas into your own words.

Actually, I think well-done blog posts need to do a lot more than simply avoiding the sin of plagiarism.  In training newbie business blog writers, I explain that in business blog posts, as compared to brochures, ads, or even the company website, it’s easier to communicate the unique personality and core beliefs of the business owners.  Over time, in fact a business blog becomes the “voice” of the corporate culture, whether the “corporation” (or partnership or LLC) consists of one person or many. That means that, no matter how valuable the “other people’s wisdom” you choose to share in your blog, you absolutely need to put you(or the business owner’s or the professional practitioner’s unique slant on it.

If blog content writers properly attribute content to its source, their “imitation” may be welcomed as a sincere form of flattery by the original content writers, and the information may be useful and therefore welcomed by readers as well. But assuming the purpose of blog marketing is to gain friends and customers, it’s only when blogging for business reveals your unique slant or philosophy within your field that readers will feel they know who you are, not merely what you do.

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“Iffy” Blog Content Writing

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National Geographic Kids collects quirky, fun facts. I like the ones presented as “ifs”. I think we blog content writers could sometimes present business information in that same thought-provoking format.  The “If”, I find, is what puts each fact into perspective and makes readers curious to learn more.

“If you continued to grow as fast as an average baby, you’d weigh about 413,300 pounds by age 10.”
Any of the following business owners or professional practitioners might use that fact to kick off a discussion about child growth, offering useful information to prospects and clients and demonstrating their own expertise:

  •   Child care centers
  •   Pediatricians
  •   Children’s magazine publishers
  •   Child psychologists
  •   Photographers

“If the longest blue whale could stand on its tail, it would be as tall as a ten-story building.”
Who might be interested in using such an arcane comparison in their content marketing? How about…

  • Cruise companies
  • Travel agents
  • Recreational boat operators
  • Science and nature publications

“If you spent a dollar every second, it would take about 32 years to spend a billion dollars.”
Sometimes, in quoting statistics about the economy or about events in the news, we’re forced to use numbers so large we cannot comprehend their meaning. Marketers can play off this concept:

  • Organizations raising money to fight world hunger
  • Financial advisors talking about economic trends
  • Money management counselors
  • Science academies

As a business blogging trainer, I urge bloggers to ask themselves why the facts they’re offering might matter to readers, and to demonstrate ways that readers can use that information for their own benefit.  Engaging readers’ interest by including in your blog posts facts that are even loosely related to your industry is a fine tactic. That information, though, doesn’t always need to be actionable.  If the facts you present in your blog are intrinsically interesting, it’s worth including them. Why?  To add variety.  To make reading your blog posts fun. To demonstrate your own interest and knowledge in your field.

What “iffy” thought provoking statements can you think of to put your business messages (or, in the case of freelance blog content writers, your clients’ messages) into perspective for readers?

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Blogging the “Real Truth” About Your Business

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Is coffee good or bad for you? Turns out the answer is quite complicated, as Jenn Wood explains in Mental Floss coffee potMagazine.

“Excessive coffee consumption can lead to anxiety, depression, and frequency of psychophysiological disorders,” stated the journal article “Advances on Alcohol & Substance in 1984. Yet, by 2015. a study reported in “Heart” showed that “moderate coffee consumption was associated with a lower prevalence of subclinical coronary athereosclerosis.”

“Individuals with a genetic variation associated with slower caffeine metabolism appear to have an increased risk of non-fatal heart attacks with higher amounts of coffee intake,” warned the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006. Yet, by 2011, the Archives of Internal Medicine was reporting that “the risk of depression was 20 percent lower among women who drank four or more cups of coffee.”

“In the last decade alone, scientists have published hundreds of papers attributing both harms and health benefits to coffee,” observes Christie Aschwanden in slate.com. There’s one problem with all the studies, she says – they are observation, finding associations without establishing causality.

Helping readers sort truth from myth is one important use for business blogs.  In the natural order of business, many of misunderstandings about a product or service present themselves, and shining the light of day on misinformation shines light on your own expertise in your field.

Even when (as is the case with the ongoing good/bad coffee debate, there is no final answer, blog content writers can summarize the different schools of thought and recap the research that is being done in the field. That in itself can go a long way towards making your blog a “go-to” place for readers seeking information relating to your industry or profession.

Is blogging good or bad for you and your readers?  No complications there – the answer is a resounding yes.  Even where there really is no one “real truth”, it’s helpful to discuss what we know so far and how your business or practice is using the information that is available as of today.

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Bloggers’ Tidbit Challenge

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Since this week, I’m reaching into the “tidbit treasure chest”, I thought I’d issue a challenge to Treasure Chestmy Say It For You blog readers. The concept is to help blog content writers continually come up with fresh content to educate, inform, and entertain readers (and at least indirectly, get the “cash register” to ring). Tidbits, I explain at corporate blogging training sessions, can be used in business blogs in a variety of ways, including:

  • Defining basic industry technology
  • Sparking curiosity about the subject
  • Putting modern-day practices into perspective (relative to the way things were once done)
  • Explaining why the business owner or practitioner has chosen to operate in a certain way

OK, time for the quiz: I’ll give you a tidbit; you tell me what kinds of businesses might be able to use this in their blog. (I promise to publish the best couple of answers in a future post – anonymously if you request that, or I’ll be happy to link to your website).

Tidbits: (Source: Money Bags)

  1. Glass takes one million years to decompose.
  2. Gold is the only metal that doesn’t rust.
  3. If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water – when a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
  4. Kits were used in the Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
  5. Nine out of every ten living things live in the ocean.
  6. The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.
  7. Caffeine increases the power of aspirin.
  8. When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go.  The first sense lost is sight.
  9. In ancient times, strangers shook hands to show they were unarmed.
  10. The earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.

Whether you take me up on my challenge or not, next time you’re at loss for new content ideas, reach into the tidbit bin!

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