Getting To The Point By Getting Orthogonal In Your Business Blog

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A couple of Michigan justices learned a new word when law professor Richard D. Friedman, consultant to one of the judges, mentioned that a point was "entirely orthogonal" to the argument in front of the court. After being met with a "What?" response, Friedman explained the point in question was "at right angles, irrelevant, and unrelated" – in other words, off on a tangent from the main issue.

The judges reportedly got a kick out of the new word, and so did I. As a professional ghost blogger and blogging coach for business owners, I’ve found going off on "tangents" can serve a real purpose in business blog posts. The business blogging challenge is both simple and daunting: How can the content of a business blog stay relevant over long periods of time, without becoming repetitive and even tedious (to both writer and reader)?

On the one hand, blog posts need to stay on task and on topic.  After all, the search engines helped readers find your blog by indexing it high on page 1 or 2 (on Google, Bing, or Yahoo precisely because the needs of the searcher (based on the phrase or question they searched on appeared to match what you’re talking about in your blog posts – what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

But on the other hand, there are two crucial motivations for not being repetitive in blog posts:

  • Technical reason:  avoiding "duplicate content".  Search engines tend to penalize rankings of sites that duplicate content that’s already in the blogosphere.
  • Common sense reason: avoiding staleness and continuing to engage readers.

So, how do you keep talking, several times per week over periods of months and years, about essentially the same thing, without becoming either duplicative or stale?

Professor Friedman used a "word tidbit" that captured the concept of a "right angle" that veered 90 degrees "off" the main point.  The anecdote made the papers precisely because it was about capturing attention with something unusual and unexpected.

My Say It For You blog is about business blogging.  So why, back in August of ’08, did I blog about an advertisement for a piano? I was being orthogonal.  Why? To show that in your business blog, you can convey to readers different levels of involvement are welcome and that ultimate buying decisions don’t need to be made the moment a customer "steps into" your website.

Blog posts need to capture readers’ attention in precisely the same manner, by presenting examples and illustrations that don’t at first glance appear to relate to the subject at hand.

Don’t get stale – get orthogonal!

 

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Business Bloggers Can Take A Tip From Mel Tillis

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If anybody’s got a keen sense of what an audience wants, it has to be singer/actor Mel Tillis, who’s been onstage for the past fifty two years.  Now age 77, Tillis is still going strong, performing 100 or so live shows each year, according to a recent article in Speaker Magazine.

Today Tillis performs at the speaker’s lectern, giving motivational talks about how humor helped him through his career. In fact, I’m going to hear Mel Tillis speak at the National Speakers’ Association Winter Conference in Nashville, Tennessee next month.

There are two points Tillis emphasized in his interview with Speaker Magazine’s contributing writer Jake Poinier that I believe are worth sharing with all my Say It For You readers and clients, in fact with anyone using blogging to market a business:

         1.  Talking about the twenty different performances he’d done last November alone in the Branson theatre he used to own, the singer/comedian remarked "I’m always coming up with new anecdotes and stories, so it seems to work."  
   
This lesson is one bloggers need to learn, for sure.  Since maintaining consistently high rankings on search engines means maintaining the discipline of posting blog material by putting content on the Web over and over again over long periods of time, what makes the tactic work is finding new anecdotes and stories to keep the material fresh.

        2.  Tillis, Jake Pointer stresses, empathizes with one of the main challenges facing 
professional speakers.  "Sure, I get tired, like if I have to sing ‘Coca Cola Cowboy’ one more time, I think I’m gonna die. But what you need to do is act like it’s the first time you’ve ever done it."

Whether composing blog post #17 or #577 for that business, the blogger needs to write as if it were #1. In fact, since blogging is a form of "pull marketing", attracting only searchers who have a need relating to what you do, what you sell, or what you know about, for most of those searchers, it will be the first.time they’ve ever read your blog posts!

"Every time I walk out there, it’s a different audience," says Mel Tillis. 

Every time you step up to the blog "lectern" (or hire a professional ghost blogger like me to do it for you), that Tillis mantra can serve as the inspiration to deliver your blog message – in every single post – with gusto and panache!

 

    

 

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Business Blogs Should Stick To Their Knitting

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Seasoned professional speaker Michael A Podolinsky, CSP, says to speakers, "Stick to your knitting.  In an attempt to impress the audience when you do a big presentation, don’t change what you have been doing…", he says.

CVTips.com comes at the issue from the other end, advising job seekers to learn about the corporate culture of a prospective employer, getting a glimpse of some of the organization’s core values.  "The more aware one is about the corporate culture of a particular organization, the more the possibility to strike the right chord with that organization."

Corporate culture? Isn’t that something that’s been done, way done? Well, says Inc. Magazine, "it’s back. (It never left!) Your employees crave it.  Your customers will love it. And the one who needs it most is you."

I think the "two C’s" (Corporate culture) relate to two of the "Four P’s of Businss Blogging": Passion and Personality.  That’s because, in business blog posts, as compared to brochures, ads, or even the 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.

The concept of revealing the corporate culture through blog posts doesn’t have to mean you stick to one narrow topic, with each post offering the sort of detailed information you’d find in a catalogue or product manual. In fact, when I’m "meeting" a business through its blog, I like to get a sense that the owners are tuned in to the bigger picture of what’s going on in their industry and to what’s happening the everyday world around them. I want to know what they "make of it all" from their little corner.

Yes, I expect a business blogger to focus on what’s relevant (that’s the "expectation" of the search engines, as well!). But, the more revealing the blog is of the owner’s slant on what’s going on – and what should be going on and how – the more engaging and interesting I’m likely to find that business’ blog posts.

You might say that sticking to one’s knitting while still managing to knit something with a little personality to it is the real challenge in blogging for business!

 

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Blogging To Keep Up With Changes

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Mature businesses face challenges different from the ones new businesses need to overcome. 

In the course of my work as a professional ghost blogger and coach for business blogging, I've found it's the same with new bloggers versus seasoned business bloggers.  Keeping content relevant and fresh is an ongoing challenge in marketing of any kind, of course, but today I want to deal with a particularly interesting issue:

You learn that information you'd put in a blog post months – or even years – ago isn't true, or at least isn't true any longer: 

  • Someone posted a comment that contradicted what you said, and, upon looking into the matter, you discover you'd been mistaken.  
  • You've learned there's some better way to solve a problem, a solution you didn't know about then, or perhaps one that didn't even exist at the time you wrote that old blog post.
  • The "regs" have changed in your industry, and the old information is simply outdated.

What's the best way to handle that situation in your blog?

According to Gardner and Birley, authors of Blogging For Dummies (they solved the problem of bringing their material up to date by issuing a second edition!), bloggers should avoid editing posts after they've been published, in keeping with the "transparency" principle. Many bloggers, they explain, make corrections by using strikethrough text on the original entry, followed with the correct version, while others use italics, bolding, or notes at the top or bottom of the original post.

Here's what I think: Since blogs are more conversational and less formal than websites or books, admitting mistakes can actually add to the "human" side of business blogging.  Your being a lifelong learner who keeps up with new thinking and with ongoing developments in your field can't help but add notches in the "plus" column for you and your business.

My idea is in keeping with something Blogging For Business authors Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulis are saying, which is that one of the characteristics bloggers should have is "the ability to write in a natural, authentic, human voice."

The solution I like best for expanding on and correcting old blog posts is the one suggested by Garner and Birley for"when you really mess things up": Start a new post.

Armed with your new understanding of the information or of a better solution to a problem, share what you now know with your readers.  Explain what you used to think (linking back to the old blog post), then share the new, better information you have today.

So, here is my new version of an old saying:

To err is human; to update your blog posts is divine!

 

 

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Blog Them Ready For The Two “Would You?”s

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Customer service expert Sheldon Goldstein teaches companies how to get the most actionable information out of customer surveys.

There are two clincher questions that ABC Company can use to take its own customer service "temperature":
 

  • How likely are you to purchase from ABC again?
  • How likely are you to recommend ABC to friends and family?

Loyalty, explains Goldberg, is a behavior with satisfaction as its foundation, adding that the right survey can measure that behavior (or its absence!) in new clients, repeat clients, lost clients, and even competitors’ clients.

Blogging for business is targeted to a fifth group – potential clients. Blog posts are your "elevator speeches", the perfect venue to showcase your products, the services you offer, and your unique approach to delivering those to clients.  But no matter which of the five groups of clients you’re targeting, always remember the Radio WIIFM principle. One thing is for sure: those clients (no matter whether they’re new clients, repeat customers, other companies’ clients, or potential customers or clients) are all thinking, always thinking, and will continue to be thinking…

                                    "So what?  So what’s in it for me?"

Given that you’re using your blog to attract online searchers with "pull marketing", can surveys work in business blogs?  There are actually two different yes answers to that question:

Asking qualitative survey questions (questions that can’t be answered with a simple "yes" or "no") in a blog post is about engaging the reader through interaction. 
Answering the questions allows you to showcase your knowledge of the subject, and, even more important, your company’s deep sensitivity to customers’ needs.

No, it wouldn’t make sense to ask potential clients how likely they are to purchase again, nor if they’d recommend you to family and friends. But, with your opening blog encounter, you’re setting the stage for positive customer survey responses to those two questions later on.

 

 

 

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