Blogs – Long Interviews To Help Them Hire

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When Seth Godin wrote that it’s paradoxically harder to hire great people in a tough economy, a comment posted on his blog caught my attention.  According to FOARP, in recruiting employees, "Testing helps, but only if you’re recruiting people to pass tests…In the end, the interview is the best measure of a candidate."

Musing about interviews led me to the conclusion that blogs are nothing more than extended interviews.  After all, searchers have some sort of need, and they are recruiting help!  Just as in a face-to-face interview, those searchers read what you put out there in your blog posts and evaluate that content in light of their own needs.  Their scanning your blog is the equivalent of them interviewing your business to see if your’e a good fit for them.

So, what is it interviewers really do? Helium Jobs & Careers website says "The interviewer will attempt to get a look at your personality." Well, blog posts, shorter, less formal, and more personal than websites, are the perfect venue to showcase your business personality and your unique approach in your field.

Several of the potential interview questions and the answers Helium’s blogger L. Beall suggests are made to order for blogs:

Employers want to know the "reliability you’ve shown in the past," says Beall. 
Your blog posts should include stories about how you solved client problems in the past, and lessons you’ve learned through your experience that you’ll be applying for the benefit of new customers and clients.

"They will ask you to describe yourself. You want to be confident and competent," Beall points out. 
What better way to tell your story and convey your passion and your expertise than by "speaking" to your potential customers through your blog?  

"They will ask what others would say about you."
Here’s where testimonials and client anecdotes do the trick.

"With an interview you should be relaxed, especially if you are going to work directly with the customers," advises Beall.
Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware apparently agrees, stressing that people want to do business with people they like and trust.

Putting your blog readers at ease, letting them get to know you through your blog posts, makes blog marketing an ideal business recruitment tool.

 

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Where’s The Baxter In Your Blog?

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Since this appears to be my month for quoting blogger Seth Godin, I found another provocative post of his, this one about marketing.  Godin says that if you’ve created something worth talking about, it probably hasn’t been done before, which means it needs a name.  Godin names unique  things "baxters", and he puts in that category everything from the service you get at a spa after your massage is over, to the free course in between the main meal and dessert. 

When I looked up the term "baxter" in Wikipedia, what came up was a 2005 film directed by comedian Michel Showalter.  That movie defines a "Baxter" as the nice, dull guy in a romantic comedy, the one who ends up dumped by the girl. This use of "Baxter" almost seems like a direct opposite of the uniqueness Godin was talking about! The Free Dictionary defines "Baxter" as a female baker (perhaps it was unusual to find female bakers at some point in history?).

In any event, I continue to think that one of the very important purposes of any business blog is to demonstrate to readers how that business is unique.  Business coach and author Jim Ackerman urges entrepreneurs to to find a "point of only-ness", meaning one statement that differentiates that business from all similar businesses.  It has to be done, Ackerman, stresses, in a way that appeals to the customers that business is targeting.

As a professional ghostwriter of business blogs, I think that "only-ness" message is a key goal of each blog post.  Potential clients arrive at your blog, and now that they’ve found you, they need for your unique proposition to come across loud and clear. In other words, each blog post has to demonstrate what your "baxter" is, so that searchers will understand the benefits of doing business with you as opposed to your competitors.

In 1893, the chef at the Savoy Hotel invented the dessert Peach Melba to honor opera singer Nellie Melba. That same famous chef, August Escoffier, invented Crepes Suzette to honor French actress Suzanne Reichenberg, while the Salisbury Steak was created in 1886 by James Salisbury as a treatment for gout and bronchitis.

Ask yourself – what’s the "baxter" in my blog?

 

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Amazing Doesn’t Have To Be Harder To Find

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"Lots of organizations have used the downturn as an excuse to trim people who weren’t producing.  So," remarks blog maven Seth Godin (who seems to have wisdom to share on a variety of topics), "if you need cheap bodies, this is your moment."

"But," concludes Godin (and here’s where I think Seth’s analysis of employment markets applies, yet does not apply, to business bloggers), "if you need amazing people. be prepared to work hard to find them."

On the one hand, yes, it’s hard to compose amazing blog posts week after week, year after year (that’s true even for professional ghost bloggers like me!). Reassuringly for business owners, though, even unimaginative blogs have proven themselves to be valuable components of  businesses’ marketing strategy.

The point I want to make, though, is that every once in a while, a business blogger "nails it" with some brilliant blog posts that truly do the business proud in the way they convey the company’s special expertise and uniqueness. 

Remember that the whole point of business blogging is that you, the business owner, are not going out to find anyone.  Blog marketing is "pull marketing"; the point is to make it easy for them to find you! Then, once they have found you, the "amazement" factor comes into play by keeping the time – and that time is counted in seconds, not minutes – between those visitors’ arrival and their becoming engaged with your content, to an absolute minimum.

The two crucial factors in that engagement process, as I brought out in a former blog post (see "Top Reasons Blogs Get Read And Speakers Get Hired"), are:

1. The readers can quickly determine that the blog’s content matches their needs.

2. The blog offers expert (a.k.a. amazing) information and advice in an unusual, yet professional, easy-to-understand way.

Amazingly, when it comes to helping searchers FIND your blog – with a little bit of planning, market research, and the use of key words and phrases – that  part needn’t be difficult at all. Writing amazing blogs – ( to borrow a tag line from a credit card company) – that could be priceless!



 

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Great Headlines Drive Traffic – guest post

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Lorraine Ball of RoundPeg and I are trading guest blog posts.  RoundPeg is devoted to "helping small businesses become big businesses." Yesterday I blogged about Variety Is The Spice Of Blogs, and I had asked Lorraine to blog about how she uses Twitter to promote blogs.


I have been actively using Twitter as my primary Social Media connection for almost a year, and I can’t imagine my daily routine without it. I have learned how to be funny, sarcastic and somewhat smart in 140 characters or less. I have made friends around the globe, and feel more connected to a number of local folks as well.
 
As I explored Twitter I expected those things would occur, but I have discovered an interesting side benefit. I am becoming a better writer overall. The restrictions of the 140 character limit have trained me to look at every word and consider the value each word adds to a sentence.  This new habit has drifted over to my blog and business writing as well.
 
I am even looking at headlines differently.  While content rich headlines work well for Google search they don’t work when I try to promote a new post on Twitter.  Commenting on this dilemma, it was clear Louis Gray  wasn’t sure which strategy was a better choice when he said:
 
“As Twitter’s impact on immediate traffic expands, it should be interesting to see how many blogs change their approach to headlines and to see if they are in any way reducing longer-term traffic benefits from SEO for instant returns”

For me, the small business marketing space in Google is very crowded. It is hard to get noticed or rise to the top. I have had more success promoting my blog through Twitter, so I am likely to continue to down that path, working to make my headlines more Twitter-friendly.
 
I use Twitter feed to send my new posts to twitter.  The shorter headlines have helped catch the attention of friends and followers who visit, read, and ReTweet. Some of my most well trafficked posts have catchy titles which are short enough to Tweet, ReTweet and even Re, ReTweet. For example:
 
Mistakes are like Sandcastles
Discount Tire Gets My Vote
Twitter is Not Broccoli
 
In some ways this is simply a return to better writing.  Advertising copy writers and journalists have for years relied on catchy titles to entice the reader.  For awhile Google, and SEO strategies  in general distracted us. Today Twitter and other social media which focus on the human interaction are challenging us to become better writers once again. 

 

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They’re On A Fact – Finding Mission – Give ‘Em The Facts!

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As a blog writer, I couldn’t help notice WFYI’s magazine feature about Avon car dealer Terry Lee, and Lee’s approach to what he calls "the car buying experience". 

"We recognize that our customers’ first visit should be a fact-finding mission," Lee says.  "So, right off the bat, we give them all of the information they’ll need to make an intelligent buying decision."

That advice is right on target for corporate blogs.  Online searchers arrive at your blog on a fact-finding mission, looking for information about what you do, what you sell, and what you know about. Give ’em the information they came to find – and quickly. Posting fresh, original, and relevant blog content that relates directly to the purpose of the reader’s search is exactly how you’ll reassure search engines – and ultimately searchers – they’ve come to the right place to get the facts.

Make no mistake about the importance, for any business, of winning "organic search" (meaning non-paid advertising on the Web).  Since 2002, according to the Pew Internet and American Life study, the number of Internet users who search at least once a day has risen to more than 60% of U.S. adults, beating out other online activities such as reading the news, checking the weather, researching a hobby, surfing for fun, and visiting social networking sites.

It is still true that most businesses do not blog today, as blog mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos point out.  Yet the number of businesses that do, and gain benefits, is growing steadily. Different blogs can have different purposes.  But if you are blogging for business, which is the area of my expertise as a professional ghost blogger, remember that your readers are on a fact-finding mission.  The earlier, and the more completely, you give ’em the facts (remember Dragnet, the old radio show – "Just the facts, Ma’am!"), the more likely you are to convert searchers into customers and clients!

 

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