Is There Something Your Corporate Blog Readers Should Know About Your Best Practices?

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mothsSometimes it seems that no matter what business you’re in, and no matter how well you run it, there’s some organization or person out to prove your industry and all its practitioners are cruel, uncaring, wasteful, and in for the money only.

As a content writer in Indianapolis offering business blogging assistance and corporate blogging training, one thing I suggest stressing in blog posts is best business practices.  While one goal of any SEO marketing blog is to help your business "get found", once that’s happened, the goal changes to helping the online readers get comfortable with the way you do business.

Mental Floss Magazine highlights the making of the 1991 movie "The Silence of the Lambs", in which the serial murderer is obsessed with collecting rare moths.  Animal rights groups might have protested the exploitation of harmless insects just to make a film, but, thanks to animal wrangler Raymond Mendez, the 300 tomato hornworm moths traveled first class, were kept in a room with special heat and humidity settings, outfitted with tiny harnesses during high speed stunts.  As an Indianapolis blog writer, I was amazed to learn that once the filming was concluded, Mendez housed the moths and cared for them in his own apartment for the rest of their lives.

Blog content writing is the perfect vehicle for conveying a corporate message like this one. Think about your own business.  Is there anything that might be considered unsafe, cruel, or environmentally non-friendly about your industry or your business? What are you doing to mitigate those factors? Certainly, the content on your website can deal with the subject and offer reassurances, but there’s nothing like the cumulative effect, spread over time, of stories, testimonials, tidbits, and information delivered through corporate blog writing.

Negative criticism, say authors Doug karr and Chantelle Flannery in Corporate Blogging for Dummies, is an incredible opportunity for your company…Consumers want to see what happens when your company is faced with its own imperfections.

Take a Say It For You tip straight from the Mental floss Magazine story about the Silence of the Lambs – Don’t stay silent about your best practices!
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Warning to Blog Content Writers: Don’t Assume!

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As a content writer in Indianapolis, I give web designers’ and marketing directors’ Rothko paintingdifferent views about writing for business a serious listen. Most of the time, I must say, I gain valuable insights into the best ways to offer business blogging help.

Occasionally, though, I realize that a false assumption lies behind the advice of the person pontificating about corporate blog writing.  Remember the old sports coach’s saying "Don’t assume. It makes an a-s-s out of u and me." Well, as an Indianapolis blog writer, every so often I find that saying right on the mark when it comes to blog writing services.

I read a great, true story in Mental Floss Magazine that perfectly illustrates what I mean.  In the 1940’s and 50’s, painter Mark Rothco used the Multiform art style, consisting of huge abstract rectangles of color, intending for his paintings to invoke a "religious experience" in viewers.

When collectors began buying his paintings as investments, Rothko was devastated, and started to purposely create bad art, knowing collectors would buy whatever he put out. 

In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I stress the importance of putting out only quality work to represent the high quality of your business. So, when I hear a business owner being advised that, in an SEO marketing blog, only keyword use matters (to the exclusion of high quality writing), I fume. After four years of studying – and, in my capacity of ghost blogger – writing thousands of blog posts, I never consider quality dispensable. Yes, blog writing is more casual and personal in style than the typically more static website text, but I never advise disrespecting online searchers, thinking "They’ll read whatever I put out."

A second erroneous assumption is that corporate blog writers don’t want them to read it! Isn’t the goal, after all, to have readers scan, then click through to the shopping cart?

The best possible business blogging service I can bring to any entrepreneur is to repeat that old saying about assumptions making a you-know-what out of you and me.  To the extent there is a sure-fire strategy when it comes to blog content writing, I believe it’s this: In writing for business, aim content towards a reader who is intelligent, on the search for information, products, and services.  You’ll end up getting found based on what you look for!


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Never Give a Business Blogging Party If…

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Mickey FriedmanNovelist Mickey Friedman offers this advice about entertaining:  "Never give a party if you will be the most interesting person there."  Since I offer corporate blogging training, it occurs to me that the same advice might apply to business blog writing.

Blog content writers need a touch of humility – and a touch of realism.  Our ideas are not necessarily the most interesting to all of our readers, at least not all of the time.  "Inviting others to the party" by quoting their thoughts and ideas can spice up the "party" immensely.

The way Friedman’s advice applies to corporate blogging for business is simply this: It’s not enough to write blogs (or even to hire a blog writing service to do it for you).  It’s important for whoever is doing the business blog writing to "invite others to the party" by first reading what others are saying on the topic and then by sharing the best "finds" with readers of your SEO marketing blog. 

Lorraine Ball of Roundpeg wrote in a guest post on the Say It For You blog: "I am constantly testing new techniques to build buzz and drive traffic."  In offering business blogging assistance, I emphasize the importance of actually "inviting people to your party" by using social media to spread the word about your corporate blog writing.

In planning the "refreshments" for your "party", think outside your own expertise.  (Remember, you don’t want to be the most interesting person there!) As an Indianapolis blog writer, I try to season each blog post with information from other sources, so that I’m not always talking only about myself and my business.  After all, there are so many interesting people and ideas to introduce to readers at Say It For You "parties"!

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Loading Up Your Corporate Blog Writing Quiver

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Comic strip writers Parker and Hart ("Wizard of Id") might have been thinking of business quiverblog writing in their cartoon about firing a bow.  "OK, recruits, I’m going to teach you the proper way to fire your bow and arrow," the lesson begins.  "Checking that the bowstring is good, identifying your target, reach into…" Here’s where things start to go wrong, and why, after a big "Yeow!", the next Wizard directive is "OK, let’s talk about how to load your quiver."

In corporate blog writing, identifying the target audience is a crucial preparatory step which dictates everything to follow, including the writing tone and style, the length of the posts, the blog content, which keyword phrases to include, and what the Calls to Action will be. 

Even with all those preparations made, blog content writers need to maintain a full content "quiver" (with the arrows pointing in the right direction!).  In corporate blogging training sessions, I’m constantly hearing that the biggest challenge business owners face is sustaining their SEO marketing blog over long periods of time.

One way for anyone writing a business blog or providing blog writing services to "load up" with content for future posts is to stay current in the "now".  Reading, bookmarking, clipping – and even just noticing – new trends and information relating to your business field goes a long way towards keeping the quiver stocked with content ideas.

When a prospect or customer poses an interesting question, make note of that question to use in a future blog post. When a customer service or product issue arises, handle it post haste, of course, then jot yourself a note to talk about it again in your blog. If you notice a "factoid" circulating about your industry, a common misunderstanding by the public about the way things really work in your field, be sure to take note and refute that myth in a future blog post. Of course, if you see an interesting advertisement or billboard, take note so that, in a future post, you can show how that applies to situations that arise in your industry. 

Become a collector of word tidbits and information trivia.  For years now, I’ve made a habit of saving notes on everything from song titles to food labels in order to keep my freelance blog writer’s quiver full of information – all "pointing" to  my own business blogging service Say It For You,  as well as to each of the various businesses for which I’m a content writer in Indianapolis.

So, like the Wizard of Id, I’d caution: Check that your bowstring is good, identify your target, and …let’s talk about how to load your content quiver!


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Acing the Blog Content Writers’ Tidbit Challenge at Port-to-Port

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graduation capAs a content writer in Indianapolis, I can think of few professional pleasures that top having a fellow blogger take one of my ideas and run with it.  Damon Richards of Port-to-Port Consulting has done just that, and four times over, composing a different blog post for each of thetidbits listed on my Say It For You blog.

Damon helped me prove a point I stress in corporate blogging training sessions: Blog content writers need never worry about "getting stuck" for new material to use in presenting their own products, services, and viewpoints.  Aside from their understandable lack of time to compose blogs, business owners often express the fear of running out of ideas.  My response is that ideas are everywhere – once you get in the habit of listening, seeing, and jotting down "tidbits" of information.

It’s interesting.  At Ivy Tech Community College, where I tutor in the English lab and conduct workshops on writing college papers, I find that students often have a hard time knowing the difference between the Topic and the Thesis of a paper.  I offer them the example of "Graduation Cap Tassels" as a topic.  Their thesis needs to answer the question "So, what about those graduation cap tassels?  Is moving the tassel from one side of the cap to the other an outmoded custom, or is it a venerable tradition, without which a graduation wouldn’t be a graduation?"

Relating that to my little corporate blogging training exercise, the "tidbit" is your topic.  (Of course, in any SEO marketing blog, the over-arching topic is the business itself, but the tidbit forms the topic for this one blog post. The tidbit might be a slogan from a bulletin board or magazine advertisement.  It could be a line from a song, a photo, a fact, a statistic, or a storefront sign.  If, in writing for business, bloggers were to keep an "ideas folder" (either digital or an actual file folder), a good portion of the work of composing a blog post would already be done! What would remain to write would be the thesis, answering the question of how that tidbit of information relates to your business and your industry.

Damon Richards took the tidbit about redheads needing more anesthetic at the dentist and used it to explain that some of his technology service clients need more handholding and are more resistant to change in technology.  He used the tidbit about blue lobsters to discuss rare but not unexpected glitches that occur with computer hard drives.  In short, Damon used the tidbit topics to highlight aspects of his own business practices.

A good part of providing business blogging help to my clients, I’ve found, is providing reassurance that corporate blog writing can be sustained over months and even years without ever running out of ideas! 

The Say It For You blog writing tidbit challenge deadline isn’t until June 15th. There’s still time for YOU to use a tidbit or two to explain what you do, what you sell, and what you know about!


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