Blog To Control Your Own Journalistic Slant

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I read the most fascinating business story on David Meerman Scott’s WebInkNow blog.
As a professional ghost blogger, I make my living doing blog marketing for companies.  But, after reading the WebInkNow blog post, I think I’ll give myself a new title – Brand Journalist!

The true tale Scott referred to in his post began in 2008 in Port Wentworth near Savannah, Georgia. There was a tremendous explosion at the Imperial Sugar Company plant, with fires that burned almost two weeks.  Meanwhile, the media relied on search engines to put together stories about Imperial for their TV, radio, and newspaper sound bites and articles.  As you may imagine, this information was not necessarily complete or up-tp-date, and certainly some of it was not what Imperial’s owners would have chosen to say about the company.

So, after the crisis had passed, Imperial hired a veteran CBS news reporter, a print journalist, and a photojournalist and literally started a news service of its own.  Now, Imperial can control the stories by putting out accurate information on its own website and through press releases.

Not to stretch a point, I believe a business – whatever business or professional practice that is – can do the same, namely exercise journalistic control through blogging.  Even the best-designed websites are rarely flexible enough to allow day-to-day, even hour-by-hour updating.  With blog posts, businesses have the ability to put out the news about themselves with their own slant on it!

And, just as Imperial Sugar hired professionals to generate timely releases, many business owners with little time to manage social media and to create content, can, through hiring a blogging professional, be assured of putting their own "spin" on reports about their company. What’s more, material that is both recent and frequently posted is more likely to be indexed by search engines and help the business "get found"!  Then, too, if ever there is any negative news about the company, the blog is the perfect place to field questions and comments head-on.

Henceforth, not only will I think of my blog posts on behalf of my clients as "press releases", I plan to think of myself as a Brand Journalist, helping to clarify the particular
expertise of each client and helping set the facts straight! "

Extra! Extra! Blog all about it!"

 

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The Cure For Blog Phobia Is – Blogging!

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Fear of flying is a complex psychological issue, airsafe.com tells us. "It’s an anxiety disorder.  Fear can come about well before a person even gets to the airport, and some of the elements of flying fear have little or nothing to do with the actual risks associated with the flight."  Fear of heights plays a role, fear of the unknown, concerns about turbulence, and even concerns about being dependent upon technology.

It’s interesting that when I read a blog by David Meerman Scott about Fear of Blogging, it sounded to me like an alternative version of the AirSafe blog! Meerman Scott says that, every day, he runs across fear of marketing on the Web.  This fear, he adds, leads businesses to ignore blogs and refuse to participate.  Yet, he says, all the people who go on to have experience with blogging and other social media tells him that their earlier fears were overblown.

One of the main fears many business owners have that may prevent them from starting blog marketing is, according to Scott, "Fear of people saying bad things about us" (The equivalent of people being afraid of turbulence in a plane, I wonder?) In my own Say It For You blog posts, I’ve often calmed this very concern. 

First of all, you can set up your blog platform so that you have to approve readers’ comments before they go "live" on your blog, if that makes you feel more "protected".  But keep in mind that one of the goals of any business blogging effort is to create "conversation" between the business owners and the audience.  So what you really want to do is invite comments and questions, even negative ones, and then address any concerns as soon as they appear. 

Meerman Scott has had blogophobes confess to fear of looking silly or being afraid their blog posts won’t have anything important to say. I’ve had business owners embarrassed over their lack of computer savvy, afraid to admit they don’t understand blogging software. (This is the equivalent of fear of dependence on technology to keep one safe while flying.)

Meerman Scott advises blogging among trusted colleagues to "get the hang of it".  The reason clients rely on professional ghost bloggers like me is they can take advantage of blog marketing without having to overcome those twin fears connected with technology and with writing.

The most interesting fear described in David Meerman Scott’s  WebInkNow  blog was "fear that it does not work in our industry". "I’ve heard them all", he says, meaning the misperceptions that "blog marketing does not work for mutual fund managers, lawyers, dentists, politicians, Singapore-based software companies, Canadian blood donation centers, Florida real estate agents, churches or rock bands…"

From a business standpoint, fear of blogging can be a fearsome business mistake.  Comprehensive research developed by Universal McCann shows 73% of online users read blogs.  In the time it’s taken you to read this far into my blog post, thousands and thousands of new blog posts have been introduced, some of them by your competitors.

Experience brings mastery, Meerman Scott concludes.  To which I offer a second:  Just get going! There are no monsters in the closet, and the cure for blog phobia is simply – blogging!

 

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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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