DIY Blogging is Choice, Not Last Resort

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do it yourselfAt a recent event at Columbian Business Network, Charles Schwab VP Shelley Helmerick handed out a little promotional booklet that I believe holds some big lessons for corporate blog writers.  "Everyone wants great service," explains one section, "but not everyone wants it the same way…Sometimes people want to conduct business electronically – without direct personal service…At Schwab, do-it-yourself is a choice, not a last resort."

At corporate blogging training sessions, I explain that, at Say It For You, we agree. In fact, in a recent blog post I mentioned a Farm Credit Services radio ad with the tag line, "When you’ve seen one farmer, you’ve seen one farmer," point being that blog readers have different needs and need different choices for interacting with your company.

Whether it’s financial services, farming, or corporate blogging for business, the same idea holds true. Yes, I originally became an Indianapolis blogger in keeping with the "don’t-do-it-yourself" outsourcing trend I was seeing in writing for business. Still, for business owners with a preference for doing it themselves, it became important for me to offer business blogging assistance and training.

Certainly, just as one Facebook article about wedding planning puts it, "Do-It-Yourself Makes It More Personal!", adding that hand designing everything from the wedding invitations to the bridesmaids’ gifts adds "a more personal touch without breaking the bank".

Brides may be going back to Do It Yourself, but in social media, including the care and feeding of an SEO marketing blog, the dominant trend is towards outsourcing.  The obvious reason is that few business owners have the time to create and post blogs with enough frequency to attract the attention of search engines. Still, that Schwab booklet, I realized, hit upon a point – each client needs a different degree of business blogging help, and each client prefers a different ratio of help vs. DIY.

At one end of the spectrum, the business owner might want certain employees to receive corporate blogging training so that they can then take over the function of business blog writing.
At the opposite extreme a company might turn over to a business blogging service the entire effort of crafting the message and maintaining the consistent posting of corporate blog content.

But, to whatever degree DIY is the driving force behind the corporate blog writing, it needs to be conscious choice, never a last resort!


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Blog Content Writers’ Triggering Tidbit Challenge

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"Where do you get your ideas?" is the question Malcolm Gladwell discusses in the preface redheadto his latest book What the Dog Saw. In that same vein, today I’m posing a business blog writing challenge – along with a batch of freebie "triggering tidbits" – to readers of my Say It For You blog posts and those who need corporate blogging training.

What I dub a "triggering tidbit" is nothing more than a piece of unusual or little-known piece of information which bloggers for business can use in their posts, tying that information to explanations of their own company’s products, services, and culture in order to capture online readers’ interest.

The tidbits I’m listing today come from the latest issue of one of my very favorite magazines, Mental Floss.  There are always good ideas in the magazine applicable to writing for business.

Here’s the Triggering Tidbit proposition:


As an Indianapolis blog writer to all my business owner friends and readers, my challenge to you is this: Develop a blog post for your SEO marketing blog by building your business blog writing around that tidbit of information. Use that tidbit to explain your way of doing business or to clarify the way one of your products works, or why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem, or enhancing a user’s appearance or health.

E-mail the link to your ‘triggering tidbit"-inspired post blog by the end of May, and I’ll give it a mention here in my own Say It For You blog. Don’t yet have a corporate blog site  on which to publish your post? E-mail your creation to me, and I’ll publish it here (how’s that for free publicity?)

I’m just that curious to see how different businesses can come at the same information from different angles.  And of course, as a trainer offering business blogging help to business owners and employees, I’m anxious to verify my theory that good ideas for writing for business are all around us all the time.  We just need to keep our ears and eyes open.

Tidbit #1:  "Redheads require 20% more general anesthesia than non-gingers before going under the knife."

Who might use this tidbit in corporate blogging for business:

  • Hair salons (to talk about hair color analysis and treatment)
  • Dentists (to promote individualized, gentle dental care)
  • Skin care clinics (to provide information about delicate skin)



Tidbit #2: "About one in every 4 million lobsters is born with a rare genetic disease that turns it blue, which makes it easier for predators to spot."

Who might use this tidbit in business blog writing:

  • Marketing companies (how to make yourself stand out from the crowd)
  • Patent lawyers (discussing how success can trigger infringement efforts)
  • Billboard advertising firms (drawing attention with skillful use of color)
  • Wardrobe and fashion advisors




    Tidbit #3:  The "Poems in the Waiting Room" charity was founded in 1998.  The organization distributes cards with poems to the waiting rooms of medical practices in the British National Healthcare System (and, since 2010, in the U.S.).


Who might use this tidbit in writing for business:

  • Book stores
  • Physicians
  • Psychotherapists
  • School tutoring service
  • Medical centers

Tidbit #4:  The myth of the 5-second rule says that if a treat spends less than 5 seconds on the ground, it doesn’t collect germs.  Dr. Paul Dawson of Clemson University showed that "bacteria such as salmonella transfer onto food instantly upon contact."

Who might use this tidbit in corporate blog writing:

  • Restaurants (to how off their high standards of cleanliness)
  • Instant hand-sanitizer manufacturers or vendors
  • Housecleaning services
  • Grocery stores (to emphasize their extra precautions taken with produce)


Won’t YOU rise to the Triggering Tidbit Challenge?  This Indianapolis blog writer will be looking forward to your e-mails with examples of creative writing for business!


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It Isn’t Easy, This Blogging for Business Thing

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notebook and penBlog marketing isn’t easy. (If it were, everyone’d be doing it; they aren’t!) 

As an Indianapolis blog writer myself, I follow the blog of marketing professional Phil Steele. Steele sounds like an ad for a blog writing service when he counts the ways in which it’s so hard to sustain a consistent marketing program of any type…

"Urgent vs. Important:  As ‘urgent’ matters arise in managing customer, vendor, and employee relationships, ‘important’ matters, like marketing, get moved down the list," Steele explains.

Knowing the crucial importance of branding and conveying the corporate message are to the success of any business, Inbound Marketing author Brian Halligan observes, "Your next marketing hire…should be someone with great writing skills."  In fact, as a blog content writer  over the years, offering business blogging help, I’ve thought of myself as a sort of inbound traffic cop.

"Lack of dedicated resources: The sales manager, business owner, or employee has multiple responsibilities, so the chances are that, when marketing is getting done, it’s sporadic and the message content not thoroughly thought out."

In a Financial Planning Magazine article, Steve Bogan explains that, in any business, there are four distinct roles that must be filled in order for the business to succeed.  He names those roles Finder, Binder, Minder, and Grinder.  The Finders search for new business, the Binders consummate the deals, the Minders manage the client relationships and provide client services, and the Grinders handle administrative tasks.  While any of these positions could in theory generate excellent fodder for corporate blog writing, in reality, that rarely happens without consistent business blogging assistance.  Outsourcing the work to a freelance blog writer often proves the most practical solution for the business. 

"Not knowing where to start: Business owners and managers know their businesses very well. But ask them to put their sales message or the benefits of working with their company down on paper, and they don’t know where to start."

In fact, it was to satisfy this very need to put a company’s message to paper that inspired the founding of Say It For You. Often, after months and even years of procrastination, some intense corporate blogging training sessions are enough to give business owners or managers a place to start in creating their own SEO marketing blog.

Business owners who realize they do not have the time or resources for corporate blogging for business invite me to discuss the business blogging service I provide,  They tell me they want to take advantage of every possible marketing angle in order to reach their niche market and help their business to get found online. They know adding even one more item to their already full plate isn’t going to be easy.

Steele’s advice on marketing: "First, be committed to making it happen.  Secondly, put in place either internal or external dedicated marketing resources.  By putting someone in charge of implementing your marketing plan, the odds of it happening go up significantly."

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Where Blog Content Writers Can Get Ideas

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What the Dog SawThe question author Malcolm Gladwell gets asked most often just happens to be the same as I’m most often asked when offering corporate blogging training sessions: "Where do you get your ideas?"

Gladwell’s conclusion, interestingly enough, is very similar to the one I discussed in my Say it For You blog post series, "Learning Around For Your Blog".  The way Gladwell explains it, "The trick is to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell."

While the author is referring to making books and articles interesting for the reader, the challenge he pinpoints is precisely the one facing all blog content writers. "Our instinct as humans, after all," he observes, "is to assume that most things are not interesting."  I remind newcomers to corporate blogging for business that online searchers tend to scan rather than read.  That’s because, as Gladwell reminds us, "there’s just so much out there, so readers filter and rank and judge."

However (and here’s where Gladwell makes a point that’s absolutely germane to creators of SEO marketing blogs), "if you want to be a writer" (insert "blog content writer"), "you have to fight that instinct every day.’

Reminds me of something a waggish friend of mine used to say. "If your parents had no children, you won’t, either."  Point being, if you’re not keenly interested in your subject, chances are your readers won’t be, either.

The Gladwell bottom line for writing, as stated in the preface to his new book What the Dog Saw, is simply this: "Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade." (As an Indianapolis blog writer, I can assert that statement is particularly true. In offering business blogging help, I emphasize that in business blog writing, it’s crucial to avoid the urge to directly sell a product or service.)  "It succeeds or fails" continues Gladwell, "on the strength of its ability to engage you and to make you think." 

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Topical Business Blogging For Business’ Sake

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“Each post can be representative of a different type,” I reassured blog content writers in help lineWednesday’s Say It For You blog post, referring to Paul Gillin’s Secrets of Social Media Marketing in which the author outlines six or seven different categories of blogs.

One of Gillin’s categories is the topical blog. (In keeping with the advice I typically offer corporate blogging training session attendees, I kept Wednesday’s blog post to fewer than 350 words, and saved the elaboration for today.)

“It’s a wonder more companies don’t do it,” Gillin remarks about topical blogs, which he defines as one that “connects with customers about topics that are mutually interesting.” The purpose of a topical blog, he says is to “offer practical information that helps readers be more successful and productive, thereby associating the sponsor with that expertise.”

Two examples Gillin cites are Extended Stay Hotels’ Road Warrior Tips, which offers advice for frequent business travelers, and Clutter Control Freak by organizational accessories retailer Stacks and Stacks.

Serving as a “go-to” source for online readers can be a winning strategy for business owners, showcasing the blog content writer’s own expertise while offering useful, actionable, information to readers. Is this disingenuous? Not really.  As I explain when comparing blog posts to advertorials, when people go online to search for information about a product or service, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to capture business. 

But, if the information is relevant, helpful and useful, and if there’s no hint of a hard-sell, most readers are perfectly OK with the concept that the company offering them information would be happy to have them as customers. Most readers also understand they remain in control.  The choice is theirs to click through to the shopping cart or sign-up page – or click away!

So, go ahead, be helpful in your business blog!

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