How Not to be Boring in Corporate Blog Writing – Fortune 500 Examples to Follow

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boringThe very last thing any business owner would want, whether that owner is doing his own blog content writing or using a blog writing service, is for readers to label the blog
“BOR-ing”!

Yet, according to a recent report by Forrester Research, most corporate blogs are “dull, drab, and don’t stimulate discussion”.  Blogger Josh Catone explains why, pointing out what the Forrester Top 15 corporate blogs are doing right.

As a corporate blogging trainer, I don’t necessarily agree with Forrester’s top blog picks, but I think it’s worthwhile pointing out their researchers’ reasons for liking those 15 more than the others.

Dell, Catone points out, “posts with a great conversational voice” and often breaks news on its blog.
In offering business blogging assistance, I stress that good blog content writing is conversational, using “I” and “you”, not third-party dialect.

Lenovo intersperses posts about its product line with musings about business and life.
Corporate blog writing is a great way to demonstrate that, as a business person, you stay actively involved in your industry and in the community around you.

BBC publishes a series of “behind-the-scenes” blogs that online readers like.
“Opening up” to readers about what makes a business’ owner tick, and even what “ticks them off”, allows readers to identify with the business in a personal way.  Remember, people want to do business with people. Use corporate blog content to allow readers to get a sense of being shown what’s behind the curtain.

GM “throws in interesting treatises on current hot-button issues, such as alternative energy”.
In any SEO marketing blog, it’s vital to write about current, time-sensitive issues that people are reading and talking about right then, showing what’s new, why it matters to you – and why it should matter to readers.

Catone has the greatest praise of all for Amazon Web Services, because corporate blog writer Jeff Burr writes in the voice of someone amazed each day by the stuff built at his company.

The greatest business blogging help I can offer in corporate blogging training sessions is to urge blog content writers to “let the passion show”!  Passion is “real” and it sells. And, to the point of this Say It For You blog post – real passion is never boring!

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Blogger Relevates to Say It For You Magazine Challenge

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Relevate“Even I get blogger’s block,” admits fellow blogger Serina Kelly of Relevate, who uses “touches” to “turn prospects into clients and clients into raving fans.” Promptly rising to the Say It For You magazine challenge, Serena composed “Blog Topics are Everywhere – Just Pick Up a Magazine and Get to Reading”, helping me prove the point that business owners or freelance blog content writers can find corporate blog writing ideas at the nearest magazine stand.

Serena’s magazine pick was Whole Living. She applied the first article she selected, “Move Into the Fast Lane”, which urged readers to ramp up their exercise routine, to the need for business owners to “get in the fast lane” to make their business grow. Often, in corporate blogging training sessions, I acknowledge that creating business blog content takes sustained effort.  Still, I emphasize, the results can be very rewarding.

Kelly’s second Whole Living article pick, “Get Healthy”, reminded her how important it is for us to avoid getting stuck in our daily routine.  In fact, she resolved to spend 30 minutes every day learning something new. The two specific results Serina expects are very much in line with the side benefits business owners can reap for themselves from the effort of producing an  SEO marketing blog:

  • It keeps things exciting and builds momentum. Putting up fresh posts about new products or recent accomplishments is great reinforcement for YOU as well as for readers!
  • It makes you appear quite “in the know”. In providing business blogging assistance, I explain that verbalizing the positive aspects of your business, you’re constantly providing yourself with training!      

The final article Kelly chose was “Don’t Wait Until Thanksgiving”, discussing gratitude. In Serina’s relationship marketing business, she stresses the importance of letting people know you appreciate them, including not only clients, but vendors, strategic partners, and vendors who are making a difference in your business.

And what better way is there to do that than to include testimonial stories in your business blog?
 


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Screw-ups to Avoid in Blogging for Business

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Tom VanahnI’m sure glad my new Facebook friend Tom Vanahn of Viral Solutions sent me a piece called “12 Ways to Screw Up a Virtual First Impression”.

First off (and I’m not sure Tom even knew this), when I’m not writing Say It For You blog posts or running corporate blogging training sessions, I serve as Executive Career Mentor at Butler College of Business.  I need to show this Viral Solutions piece to my students, who are typically social media savvy, but unsophisticated when it comes to social media etiquette.

Second, business owners and managers, whether they’re doing their own corporate blog writing or working with a freelance blog content writer like me, need to understand the subtle differences between blog “production” and blogging with style and grace.

Of the 12 common “screw-ups” Vanahn lists, the three I think are most relevant to SEO marketing blogs are these:

Linking to inactive social network accounts. Let’s say that on your blog page, remarks Vanahn, you have a Twitter icon, but blog readers click on that icon only to find “the last time you tweeted was back in late 2009. "Please go back and update or report to the principal’s office,” he exclaims.  When giving business blogging assistance, I constantly stress delivering on the promise – blog navigation paths need to lead to expected results rather than to negative surprises.

Too much ME, not enough THEM. “Check out my….  I’m speaking at…  My latest blog post…” are not designed to win raving fans.  “Make others look like rock stars,” Vanahn advises. The WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) is still online searchers’ favorite radio station, and content writers in Indianapolis need to remember – writing for business means writing all about THEM!

Broadcasting instead of interacting… “Let’s make sure that somewhere between all the links, quotes, tips, etc.,, we are thanking, acknowledging, validating,…Show the world that there is indeed a human being behind the tweets,” says Vanahn.  The blog content writers’ version of that principle – our job is to bring across the human factor within the business we’re blogging about.  We get there by being conversational, not bombastic.

Bottom line for anyone involved in writing for business – you invested a lot of effort in “pull marketing”, using your blog content to draw searchers to your site.  Don’t screw up that first impression!


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Making a Mess in Corporate Blog Planning

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Never mind that there’s no room in the lo-carb diet I’m on for the “luscious, yet healthy,Eton Mess dessert summer dessert” with the odd name “Eton Mess”.  As a blog content writer, I loved the story behind it (I read in USA Weekend that the dish was developed in the 1930’s at Eton College outside London as a school snack.)

Looking longingly at the picture of the berry-heavy cream-meringue cookie confection reminded me of the way, in corporate blog writing, each of my Say It For You posts seems to come together out of a mixture of ingredients I’d been assembling:

  • Expressions I hear speakers use
  • Catchy phrases from signs and billboards
  • Verbiage from food  or cosmetic labels
  • TV ad copy
  • Comic strips,

all captured on little pieces of paper or snippets cut out of the paper or magazine, then saved in an “idea folder” for each client for whom I provide business blogging assistance.
In fact, an idea folder is one of the blog content writing ABC’s I introduce in corporate blogging training sessions.

Interestingly, there’s a video showing chef Pam Anderson and her daughters demonstrating how to prepare the Eton Mess.  The name of that mother-daughter trio is itself a juicy language tidbit – Three Many Cooks (think about it for a minute!).

That is not to say that an effective blog post can be a hodgepodge – quite the contrary.  Each post should focus on one central idea. But in order to keep coming up with engaging content over weeks, months, and years that it takes to implement a successful blog marketing strategy, you need to stock your “pantry” with diverse ingredients.

In providing blog writing services, the skill, of course, lies in the writers’ ability to make tasty finished products out of the “mess” of diverse ingredients!

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Corporate Blogging for Business Begins with Inspiration

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inspiration bulbFellow blogger Steve Guise divides bloggers into no fewer than 23 “breeds”, pointing out the pros and cons of each type.

I decided to risk falling into Guise’s “Name Dropper” category because, as a professional ghost blogger offering business blogging assistance to corporations, I found several pieces of excellent Guise advice worth sharing….

“Inspiration comes to us in different forms.  Sometimes the people inspire us, other times the content inspires us,” he says.

There’s a lot of talk in blogging circles, (at least among the Indianapolis blog writers with whom I converse all the time), about incorporating testimonials from satisfied customers in corporate blogging for business. But, what Guise’s article reminded me is that customer testimonials don’t typically ooze inspiration.  Business blog writers need to find stories illustrating how someone’s life was truly improved through using the company’s products or services, rather than collecting the usual “I’d-certainly-recommend-ABC-roofing-to-my-neighbors” type testimonial.

What about having the content itself of business blog writing be inspirational? Obviously, one of the purposes of any SEO marketing blog is to “inspire” action (read “buying”!). After reading Guise’s piece, I concluded that corporate blog writing needs to aim for copy that proves the writer understands the problems customers have.  In other words, “you” copy.  The online searcher should get a sense of relief that she’s found a business with people who “get it” –ultimately, that relief is what inspires customers to act.

When Guise sees bloggers who “refuse to write about anything they wouldn’t lose a kidney for”, he names them Passion Purists, pointing out that “passion is contagious and humans are attracted to it.”

Without a doubt, conveying business owners’ passion for what they know how to do and for what they sell is the big challenge for any freelance corporate blog writer.  There’s a reason counselors teach long-time marrieds techniques for “keeping passion alive”. Like success in marriage, success in blog marketing depends on sustaining the discipline of content creation over long periods of time, keeping the spark of passion going all the while.

In describing the “SEO Fanatic” breed, Guise warns that “stuffing an article with key words has a chance of sounding contrived.” As I caution Indianapolis blog writers, it all comes down to the need for inspiration in blogging!


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