Damage Control Blogging

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At least according to blogger David Meerman Scott, the reason Obama won the U.S. presidential election is that he was first to embrace blogging and social media. Scott goes even further, saying "bloggers helped elect a president of the United States."

Two weeks ago, I devoted my Say It For You blog post to a different use for corporate blogging.  I called it "controlling your own journalistic slant". Through putting their own "spin" on reports about their company, I said, business owners can exercise control over the way the public perceives any negative developments and correct any inaccurate press statements.

It’s so ironic.  Just after I’d posted that advice, David Letterman proved just how effective being proactive can be in the face of negative developments. The Fox News entertainment blog asked readers to choose among three possible reactions to what the New York Daily News dubbed the "Letterman nonscandal scandal" and to Letterman’s well-publicized on-air apology:
 
             A.  Letterman sincerely apologized to all those he hurt.  What else can he do?
             B. If he really meant it, he would have said this on Thursday.  He’s just playing us.
             C. It’s really none of our business.  Only those he hurt know if it was enough or not.

Very interesting – it appears inviting readers’ opinions had the effect of mitigating the damage and creating sympathy, not making things worse!

David Meerman Scott says Letterman demonstrated "getting in front of a media crisis". Because the news came directly from the main person involved in the matter, Scott believes, "Letterman was able to control the initial framing of the discussion." In other words, Letterman was able to use the media for damage control.

Kyle Lacy of Brandswag talks about using social media to "control your message".  Lacy explains that it’s actually not possible to control the way people might choose to  interpret your message. But by remaining alert and involved, you can exercise damage control by taking the conversation offline with individual customers and by directly confronting whatever is happening. 

I’ve said it before in these blog posts: If you don’t blog frequently, you won’t attract negative comments, but neither will you attract the attention of search engines who deliver readers to your blog site.  The real message here is not to avoid bloopers and business mistakes at all cost, but to expect that, sooner or later, there will be some negative comments or some negative news and to be ready to tackle those head on.

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Station WIIFM Blogging

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"When you have the chance to speak to the buyer," advises Joe Takash in the September issue of Indy Magazine, "get to the point and remember that less is more."
(Isn’t that exactly what I advised at the beginning of this week in my blog post about "lazy lobsters"?)

Takash, founder of performance management firm Victory Consulting,  lists five trigger tips to turn a "No" client into a Yes" client, and every one of those tips is good advice when blogging for business.  Let’s look at just three of the trigger tips:

See yourself as a peer.
How you present yourself is stronger than any service or product you offer, says Takash.

This whole blog marketing thing is not really about the technicalities of search engine optimization, although that’s how the story begins. What I believe it is really about is providing those who find your site with a taste of what it would be like to have you working alongside them to help with their challenges and issues. So, whether you’re writing your own blogs or working with a professional ghost blogger like me, your blog posts are your way to say to each searcher "We can do this thing together!"

 
Do your homework.
You must know your buyers and who your competition is in serving those buyers, Takash advises.

You’ve got to get a handle on who’s playing in the same sandbox as you, and the first step in researching that is to get on Google or Bing and type in the phrases you think consumers might use.  See what – and who – comes to the top, and then read what they’ve got to say. There’s no quick or magic way around knowing your marketplace and then carving out your own niche, both online and off.

Speak in sound bites.
For every piece of information you write or speak about your own company and service, remember the client will ask "So what?"

Takash reminds his readers that "decision-makers want you to be brief".  Nowhere is that truer than online, so business bloggers need to write in benefits-focused, buyer-friendly language.

Your potential buyer wants to know about Radio Station WIIFM – What’s In It For ME.  

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Blogs Let Readers Be Lazy Lobsters

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The latest issue of Hunt’s Headlines is titled "Crustacean Couch Potato".  It’s a spoof of a Maine restaurant one of Todd Hunt’s friends visited whose menu lists "Lazy Lobster" as one of the entrées. The waiter was able to clear things up.  A "lazy lobster", he explained, is one that’s been removed from the shell, so it’s easier to eat.  The lobster’s not lazy – the customer is, the waiter went on to say.

Since blogging is always on my menu of activities, I think this lazy lobster tale harks back to a point I’ve often stressed in my blog posts.  Online searchers rarely read.  Instead, they scan.  Your blog needs to be "removed from the shell", so to speak, so searchers can be "lazy".  With a minimum of effort on their part, they must be able to discern that they’ve come to the right place and that the information they need is right there with you and your company.

Notice that at no point in the restaurant story are diners criticized for wanting everything the easy way, including already-shelled lobsters.  On the contrary, the restaurateur was taking full advantage of patrons’ "laziness" by offering a unique service. Bloggers for business need to do the same, featuring the most important words, the ones relating most directly to the purpose of the readers’ search, early in each blog post.

The other thing about online searchers being scanners, not readers, is that each blog post should offer valuable and very relevant information, but just enough of it to engage searchers’ attention and entice them to visit the website to learn more. Don’t suppose for a moment that I’m recommending "dumbing down" your material – quite the contrary.  It’s highly likely you’re addressing people as smart – or smarter than – you are, and your respect for their intelligence has to come across loud and clear. What’s more, you want your audience to get a clear sense of your unique approach to your business and your insight into the issues they face.

What I am trying to express with this "lazy lobster" idea is that readers could have gone to more technical sources, perhaps to government websites, or to encyclopedias to find information, but they didn’t do any of those things.  That’s because they want you to help them make sense out of the ocean of information out there.

Serving "lazy lobster" in your blog could bring in some good business revenues!

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Tottoms For Burgers And Blogs

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You wouldn’t imagine Food Network would have much to say that’s useful for business bloggers, but, as I found out, you never can tell. An entire Food Network episode last week was devoted  to hamburgers and the business of marketing them.  The show was called “Heavyweights”, because it traced the history of McDonald’s and Burger King and of the competition that has been escalating between those two hamburger chains for decades.

In describing the Big Mac, one of McDonald’s signature products, the show host coined a term – “tottom”.  Alluding to the three-part sesame seed bun used in each Big Mac, she explained that the middle piece of bun (it’s not a top or a bottom – it’s a “tottom”)  is what holds the whole sandwich together.  It’s actually the "tottom" that keeps the patties, the lettuce, the cheese, the pickles, and the onions from sliding over the special sauce and falling out. 

Blog posts typically include several different “ingredients”.  A good post will include some valuable information about the subject the searcher was asking about, perhaps some interesting tidbits that most people don’t know. There might be a “marketing” element to the post, where the writer is explaining that he or she has a unique approach to the problem that might be more satisfying to a customer than the solutions offered by competitors.  Then there should be some form of Call to Action, something the reader can do to get more information, obtain service, or buy the product. 

Whatever the ingredients of that blog post, it’s the “tottom” that holds it all together, just like that middle slice of bread in the Big Mac. With a blog post, the “tottom” is the unifying idea, and each and every blog post needs to have one.  That way, your readers’ interest doesn’t ‘slide away”, and they always know where you’re headed with the blog.

For hamburgers or blog posts, you can have lots of different elements at the top and at the bottom and all the way through, but it’s the “tottom that holds it all together!

 

 

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Regulated Industries Can Blog, Too!

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Blog maven David Meerman Scott says he’s heard every excuse in the book.

Reasons business owners put forth for not embracing blogging as part of their marketing plan include, according to Scott, fear of looking silly, fear of negative comments, and plain terror about technology.  The most interesting excuse of all, he says, is "Blogging does not work in our industry". Nonsense, says Meerman Scott.  Blogging does work in every industry. Just to prove his point, he mentions lawyers, dentists, politicians, Singapore-based software companies, Canadian blood donation centers, Florida real estate agents, churches, and rock bands. In each of those categories, he implies, companies and practitioners are successfully employing blog marketing.

Of course, blogging is a relatively new field.  It was not so long ago, says Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott, that there was still a lot of skepticism about using email as a business communications tool.  Today, of course, email has been adopted by just about every business and organization as a way to stay in touch with clients and customers.  But, since you can’t email people without permission, corporate blogging helps a business or practice acquire those clients and customers in the first place.

Having spent close to thirty years in the financial services industry, writing newspaper columns on personal finance during all that time, I know a thing or two about being highly regulated, and about needing to get the approval of corporate attorneys on every piece of communication. I was fascinated to read David Meerman Scott’s report on how Putnam Investments (70 year-old global money management firm) has begun to use blogging and social media. Putnam has a blog, and Bob Reynolds of Putnam is the first CEO in the mutual fund industry to Tweet!

I remember how, during my financial planning career, I often felt resentment about all the rules. I certainly did my share of griping about all the regulations and what I sometimes considered to be my employer’s over-zealous interpretation of those regulations.  Despite the griping, I always believed in playing by the rules, and so I did.
 
I sure hope, now that Putnam’s broken the ice, blogging will no longer be considered against the rules.  In fact, blogging might become the rule – even in highly regulated industries!

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