Archive for category: the Say It For You blog

Each year, Speakers Platform recognizes five top speakers.  These Top 5 awards are for excellence, which is measured several ways:

• Expertise
• Professionalism
• Innovation
• Client testimonials
• Presentation skills

These same five quality "measuring sticks", it occurs to me, might be used in creating top-notch content for business blog posts.

1.  Expertise:
Corporate training company owner David Markowitz uses his blog to provide timely and useful information to people working in FDA-related industries.  By making his blog a "go-to" site for his target market, he provides proof he understands the needs of his target clients. Your blog is your way to showcase your own expertise, but also to showcase your website as the link to information from many authoritative sources.

2.  Professionalism:
Providing valuable information to readers in generous portions without being too "sales-ey" is one facet of acting professionally in business blogging. The way you link your blog to other websites is important to the way you are perceived as well.  While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery and all, always provide a link to the writer or source you’re quoting, or whose idea you’re using as a jumping off point for your own comments.

3.  Innovation:
Online searchers will undoubtedly have heard some of the information you’re providing before.  It’s your unique slant or innovative approach that’s likely to elicit that all-important "Never thought of it that way!" response.  Your blog post is a way to show readers that this is no cookie-cutter company they’re about to meet. I always advise clients to use their blog to provide information – particularly new information – related to their field.

4. Client testimonials:
Client success stories and testimonials can be turned into a success story for your blog.  Showing how you solved problems for clients in the past boosts your credibility with prospects.  Real life tales add interest to any piece of writing.

5.  Presentation skills:
The meat of the matter is always the content readers find in your blog post, but, just as presentation matters in a restaurant, an important part of the blog post is its presentation. The way you use language to make the text interesting, different, conversational, yet right "on point" will go a long way in engaging readers and assuring them they’ve come to exactly the right place to find what they need.

I remember one of my high school teachers posting a sign on our classroom wall, saying "Autograph your work with excellence!"

Before putting it out on the blogosphere, measure each of your blog posts by at least one of the Speakers Platform Top 5!

 

I don’t make a practice of forwarding any of the joke-list email messages that, after circulating around the globe, spreading from distribution list to distribution list, seem to want to set up housekeeping in my inbox.  (Enough with the jokes and puns, already!)

Over the holiday weekend, however, I received a message which, while undeniably corny, I think carries an important lesson for us business bloggers.  The email, which came all the way from Israel, is titled "An Exercise Program For Everyone".  Here’s a program, the introductory paragraph assured me, that does not require all that much strenuous activity:

• Beating around the bush
• Jumping to conclusions
• Climbing the walls
• Swallowing your pride
• Hitting the nail on the head
• Pushing your luck
• Bending over backwards
• Jumping on the band wagon
• Climbing the ladder of success
• Picking up the pieces
• Starting the ball rolling
• Wading through paperwork
• Passing the buck
• Throwing your weight around

"Whew! That was some workout!", the message concluded, encouraging me to "Sit down, rest, and exercise caution." (Told ‘ya it was corny!)

But, just think about our English language and what a rich patchwork of expressions it is, with folklore from our own history and from other cultures and languages built into quaint expressions such as the ones on this list.  English offers a near-endless variety of ways to convey our message in our business blog posts.

True, as a professional ghost blogger, I’ve built an entire business based on the fact that most entrepreneurs (as they readily admit) lack the time and discipline to keep posting enough content to be successful at marketing their business through blogging.

Some business owners and employees, however, want to do their own writing. They ask for my help in the form of coaching on how to create engaging blog content that can drive home their message without being too sales-y. One challenge they – and all of us bloggers – face actually increases as time goes on:  How can we keep our content as fresh in blog post #213 as it was in post #Two?

That’s precisely where the lesson of the "Exercise Program For Everyone" lies. Worried about repeating yourself in talking about what you sell, what you do, and what you know about? To keep it fresh, exercise your own English language Capture a point you’ve made often before by using a new expression that "hits the nail on the head."

Before readers "jump to conclusions", debunk their myths.  "Start the ball rolling" with startling statisticsa, and "throw your weight around" by sharing your experience and expertise in your field.

For a business blog exercise program, there’s no need to circle the globe or even the gym. After all, you’ve got the ever-changing English language as your content-freshening appliance!