Reach Into the Tidbit Treasure Chest

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TFor freelance blog content writers, the tidbit “bin” turns into a treasure chest. If you’re working on a business blog and you can include interesting information most readers don’t know, that’s gold. Even if such information appears useless on the surface, if we get creative, we can put it to very good use in adding interest to our blog. One of my favorite sources for tidbit “ore” is Mental Floss magazine.

Take these three tales recounted in Mental Floss:

1.  Frank Humely, imprisoned in the Los Angeles County jail for forgery and miscellaneous other misdeeds, hatched a plan to escape.  An accomplice would mail him sugar-fronted cakes with a gun and ammo hidden inside.  Frank planned to shoot the guards, take the keys, and hightail it. The plan failed – the cakes attracted attention because they were so heavy…

(I can see a bakery using this story to illustrate the lightness of their own wonderful cake creations.)

2.  In the 10th century, the Vikings in Denmark had a special way of singing. They made a rumbling sound from their throats, described as “similar to a dog but even more bestial”.

(I can see this story being used in a blog for a cough lozenge company, a physician’s practice that treats severe sinusitis, or a voice studio!)

3.  During the Vietnam War peace talks, the North Vietnamese insisted on having a square table for the meeting room, so that all four parties would appear equal, while, for that very reason, the U.S. and South Vietnam wanted a rectangular table.

(A furniture store could do a lot with this story. I can also see this in a blog for meeting planners, or even one offered by a school architectural firm.)

Continually coming up with fresh content to inform, educate, and entertain readers is a pretty tall order for busy business owners and employees. Trivia can solve the problem.  Tidbits of information  can be used in business blogs for defining basic terminology, sparking curiosity about the subject, putting modern-day practices and beliefs into perspective, and for explaining why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way.

Reach into your own tidbit treasure chest!

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A Profoundly Moving “Final” Blog Post

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“In October of 2014, I was told I was about to embark on a journey.  As I prepared In Memory Letterpressfor this journey, I learned many things about life and myself…I had been given a special gift – time to prepare for my final ‘destination’, what baggage to bring or not bring. As you read this, you know I have reached that destination.”

Just last week, in my monthly e-newsletter, I talked about “changing voices” in business blog content writing.  “I/you” writing, I explained, is very personal, with the business owner or practitioner talking directly with the reader. By contrast, when interviewing clients and reporting on their experience or when interviewing experts, that writing might be done in third person.

Never before, though, had I come across “I/you” writing in the form of a self-composed obituary. Donn K. Miles, who died June 17th, had prepared the obit which I read in the Indianapolis Star. “I was born…”  “I was adopted…”  “I graduated…”  “I served…” “I was married…” “My curious nature and the love of people led me to a lifelong employment in the world of sales….”

The late Mr. Miles was so right – he had indeed been given a special gift and he was able to give me and all the other readers a special gift by putting his story into words.

Naturally, as a content writer for so many years, I feel reverence for the power of words, of “voice”, of messaging.  And, while the marketing messages we offer online readers may not be as profound or as stirring  as Miles’ story about his final journey, the words we use in our blog are the best tools we have for letting others hear the story of what we do, what we’ve learned, what we offer, and, essentially, who we are.

Thank you, Donn K. Miles for your profoundly moving “final blog post” obituary, reminding us Indianapolis blog content creators of the power of I/you writing!

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Helpful Hint Blog Writing

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hints and tipsHitting precisely the right “advertorial” note is the big challenge in corporate blog writing.  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”.  Well, providing tips and help hints may very well be the perfect tactic for accomplishing that very goal.  

In a recent issue of AARP magazine, I found an article that uses a “kill-two-birds-with-one-stone” approach to offering helpful hints.  I think that approach could work really well in blogging to promote a business or professional practice.

The AARP article is titled “Great ways to save: tips from 20 experts that can save you thousands of dollars.”  Wow! That gets readers’ attention – useful information coming to them not from any sponsor or vendor, but from twenty experts.  What’s more, the authors have done all the work, collecting all this wisdom and serving it up for readers’ convenience.

I noticed that the “Great ways to save” article was about money management; the tips were collected from a money coach, a chief information officers, the fashion director for Men’s Health magazine, and a positive living expert.

OK, so as a business blog writing trainer, how would I advise adapting that helpful-hint/curation strategy to you business or practice?

Find complementary businesses or practices.  Ask the owners (or cite their blogs) for tips they can offer your readers.  Pet care professionals can share tips from carpet cleaning pros – or the reverse! If you’re a carpet cleaning pro, you can share tips from allergists as well.  If you’re an insurance advisor, offer tips from car dealers about accident prevention.

Of course, you’re going to want to add some tips of your own.  A realtor’s blog might offer tips for buying a house.  A restaurant’s blog might offer hints on tipping etiquette or the temperature of “rare”, “medium” and “well-done” steaks. Whatever the product or service, readers will be hungry for information that helps them gain maximum advantage for buying and using it.

Helpful hint blog writing can be very useful to your business or practice!

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Blog a Time Traveler’s Guide to Your Business

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RIn ancient Greece, I learned by reading the “Time Travelers Guide to Table Manners” in Mental Floss Magazine, napkins hadn’t been invented yet, so you wiped your greasy hands with a piece of bread, then threw the bread on the floor for the dogs. In ancient Rome, by contrast, people ate with their hands, but always kept their pinkie and ring fingers clean.

Fascinating tidbits of information such as these can help content writers come up with ideas for business blogs. I can see the two specific examples above being used in a vet’s blog, a blog about pet food, a blog about keeping different kinds of floors clean, even a blog about pinkie rings. Trivia can be turned into idea triggers to help practitioners and business owners blog about the products they sell, about their skills and particular beliefs.

Today, though, I want to focus on using the time traveler template in business blog content. What’s the purpose of talking about the way things used to be done in a particular industry or profession?

  • Business owners and practitioners come across as knowledgeable and committed.
  • Readers (read potential buyers) are moved to take advantage of all the new technology and expertise now available to them.
  • The “I never knew that!” response is how readers become engaged by the information.

Blogging about the history of your own (or your client’s) company can have a humanizing effect. Learning how any business owner or professional practitioner overcame adversity tens to  engender feelings of empathy and admiration.

But even reaching back to the history of  the entire industry or profession is a valuable technique when writing about any type of business or practice. That’s because, in every industry and every profession, things are not the same as they used to be.  Helping readers understand how to get the maximum benefit out of today’s version of products and services is the point.

What can you include in a time traveler’s guide to YOUR industry or profession?

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Say It For You Magazine Challenge Revived – Part 2

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This week I’m offering a challenge to all SIFY readers to come up with blog post ideas out of a single magazine of their choice. Choose articles that trigger ideas for you to blog about your business or practice – what you sell, what you know, what you believe, and what you know how to do. I’m using one of my favorite sources of interesting information:  Mental Floss.  (If you’ve never been exposed to this bi-monthly publication, I highly recommend you try it – you’ll be hooked for sure!)Mental Floss magazine-cover-copy

In this month’s issue of Mental Floss, for example, there’s a whole page of interesting historical tidbits about seating. Did you know, for example, that:

  • Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair back in 1775, by adding rollers from window sash pulleys to make a spinning seat. (The Declaration of Independence was signed by Jefferson while sitting in that chair!)
  • William McKinney designed a chair for the White House by having persons of varying sized sit in snowbanks, then transferring the curves left behind to the drawing board.
  • President Kennedy had such a bad back, his doctor prescribed a rocking chair.  Kennedy gifted rocking chairs to other heads of state to his valet, and the chair became popular.
  • Before the 16th century, churches had no seats. By the early 1800s, some British parishes installed pews and then rented them out.

In this case, seating is the topic “thread” that unifies all the tidbits from different periods of history. This is very much like the “letimotifs” used in blog content writing. In corporate blogging training sessions, I teach that effective blog posts are centered around key themes, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.
What blog writers might use this particular set of facts about seating as a jumping-off point to discuss their business or practice?  The obvious answers are furniture stores and home decorators. But how about a chiropractor (using the material about rocking chairs for Kennedy)? On the question of renting out the pews, I can see that tying in with a discussion about renting versus owning (life insurance agents? Realtors?).

I know just how challenging it can be to sustain the discipline and “the faith” needed for long term business blogging success. Ideas for blog posts, on the other hand? That’s the easy part.  Just pick up a popular magazine– and learn!

 

 

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