Professional Ghost Blogger Poised To Go Viral In ’09

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Say It For You can’t compete with Wham-O, the maker of Hula Hoops and Frisbees I New Year 2009blogged about earlier this week.  In its first year of.business (fifty years ago), Wham-O sold more than one Hula Hoop for every two Americans alive at the time.  I’m hardly crushed, though.  For 2008, my first full year of professional ghost blogging, I’ve earned boasting rights of my own. Hard to believe, but I posted the equivalent of one and three quarters blogs for each day in the past calendar year. Most of these blogs, of course, were posted on behalf of my clients’ businesses and professional practices.  Now, with the help of some contracted writers, Say It For You‘s on track to triple those results for 2009.


2008 marked the death of a fellow blogger whom I never got to meet in person.  Olive Riley, promoted as the world’s oldest blogger, passed away at age 108 in her native Australia, after posting 74 blogs over a year and a half. 


While the blogs I write are what marketing guru Seth Godin calls “viral blogs”, meant to attract traffic to business websites, Olive’s were personal blogs, which Seth calls “cat blogs”.  Olive used blogging to stay in touch with friends, to share thoughts and experiences, and to discuss ideas.  Her online obituary says “she will be mourned by thousands of Internet friends.”


Whether blogs aim to attract customers or correspondence among like-minded people, all blogs must begin with a core philosophy, explains Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware.  “The content needs to be human, passionate, and authentic,” he says, adding that “Anything less is a waste of time.”


 



 

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Ball-Bearing Blogs Go “Swoosh”!

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“Hula Hoop was the granddaddy of all fads,” says the V.P. of marketing for Wham-O, the company that in 1958, its first year in business, sold more than one Hula Hoop for every two Americans alive at the time.  Fad’s the right description  for that early rush of success, because sales of Hula Hoops plummeted so rapidly from there, Wham-O took them completely off the market until 1965.

Chapter Two, The Comeback, began in 1965 and is still happening, and this is the chapter of Hula Hoop’s history most interesting to me as a professional blogger.  Wham-O’s co-founders came up with a new twist, inserting ball bearings into Hoola Hoop cylinders to make a “swoosh” sound.  Interest in the toy revived, and the toy was back in production.  This week, as we ring in the New Year, it will be Hula Hoop’s 51st anniversary.

Blogging for business is enjoying its own heyday just now.  Blogging maven Terry Philpott comments that blogs have evolved into low-cost advertising and marketing platforms that no business can afford to ignore.  Millions of blog posts enter the blogosphere day in, day out, begging the question of whether, one day, blogging will be relegated to the ranks of marketing “fad-dom”.

That’s not likely to happen any time soon, is my take.  But, just as with Hula Hoop, inserting new “ball bearings” will be what keeps business blogging in the “now”.  Search engine rankings reward recency, a.k.a. new content.  That, by the way, is the key reason traditional websites just can’t compete with corporate blogging, according to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware.  New information, new commentary, new insights, new stories – those are all ball bearings for blogs.

Happy 51st, Hula Hoop!  We bloggers plan to be around quite awhile ourselves!

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Like Astaire, Your Blog’s A Composer’s Singer

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Fred AstaireGlamorous Fred Astaire was so far from perfect, it isn’t even funny, biographer Joseph Epstein (“Fred Astaire”, Yale University Press) explains fondly. At 130 pounds, with big hands, dumbo ears, and a toupee, Epstein points out, Astaire hardly fit the movie star mold.  And, when it came to all that elegant, debonair singing that went along with his steps, Astaire had a one-octave vocal range!  Still, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and the Gershwin brothers loved composing songs for Astaire, calling him “a composer’s singer” because he delivered their songs so sublimely.

As a professional blogger, I think I understand why these great composers felt such an affinity for Astaire. – his singing had authenticity.  That’s really what blogging’s about, when you come right down to it –  reaching out to your audience and conveying your passion and persuasion, as Ted Demopolios explains in his book, “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting”.  And what about the third “P”, passion? asks Demopolis?  The answer: “Passion is very effective for profit.”

“A blog allows people to hear your distinct voice in a way that won’t come through in a sales call,” adds Mike Wagner of White Rabbit Group. What I try to convey to my ghost-blogging clients is that, If your voice has only a one-octave range, your limitations may be precisely what makes you seem real to your readers.  As Joseph Epstein puts it, “If Astaire had looked like Cary Grant, we might have loved him less.” 

And, since this is a blog about blogging for business, let’s not forget all the profits the imperfect Fred Astaire created and those your blog has the potential to create for you!

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Local Theme Nights Are Like Living Blogs

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Weekly music showcases are becoming quite the rage around Indianapolis.  For funk and hip-hop, it’s Wednesdays at the Jazz Kichen. Thursdays, it’s folk music at the Big Roots Show at Locals Only.  At Melody Inn, you can find Hillbilly Happy Hour on Fridays or punk rock on Saturdays.  As a professional ghost blogger, I can’t help thinking of these showcases as living blogs.  That’s because, as David Lindquist puts it in the Indianapolis Star, “they help musicians and their fans find each other.”


As I explained in one of my earliest Say It For You blog posts (see Won’t You Please Come In To My Blog?), business owners are always looking for ways to introduce what they offer to new customers of the right kind.  Those three words are the key, right there – “of the right kind”.  Cliff Snyder, co-founder of the Big Roots Show, says “The showcases are letting people know what the thing is.  If you’re into this thing, then come support the series.” 

Isn’t that exactly what a corporate blog is designed to do?  Through the search engine optimization process, potential customers, the ones who are searching for your type of product or service, get to your blog.  When they read the relevant information you’ve provided, they are led to your website and might just decide to do business with you.  By definition, these are customers of the right kind.


It makes sense. If you’re into folk music, you won’t be attracting Wednesday night hip-hop and funk seekers – it’s the folk music lovers that show up. As Steve Hayes, bass player at Punk Rock Nights puts it – “These audiences are willing to give you a chance. Then it’s sort of up to you to keep their attention.”


Online searchers have found your blog precisely because they’re looking for information on your subject, or a product or service you sell.  There’s your chance!  From there, it’s up to your blog and your website to keep searchers’ attention and convert them into customers.

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Even Critical Comments Bring “Bang” To Your Blog

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In an earlier blog post (see Buildings, Like Blogs, Can Be Interactive)  I  explained that one of the special things about blogs is that they’re available not only for reading, but for acting and interacting.  Good blogs invite readers to post comments and make it easy for them to subscribe to the blog.


As a professional ghost blogger, I’m a member of each client’s marketing team.  One of the things we discuss is comments that we hope will be posted on their blogs.  However, the topic of comments is one that elicits different responses from clients, largely because of fear those comments might be negative or critical . It’s interesting that a recent Indianapolis Business Journal article called “Critic Cutback Panned” addressed the same concern when it comes to local arts organizations; the reporter offered what I thought is the perfect answer: “As much as people in the arts wince at a critic’s stinging words, there is one thing they dread more than an unfavorable review:  no attention at all!”


I heard from humorist and author Dick Wolfsie that it takes two to make a joke funny.  The listener or reader needs to figure out the punch line of the joke in order to find it humorous. If a reader posts a comment to your blog, even if that comment disagrees with what you’ve said or is critical of your product or service, the fact is, now there are two in the game, and you’re getting bang for your blog with the search engines.   
 
As theater and concert producers would apparently agree, even bad reviews help ticket sales!

Likewise, even critical comments help blog rankings!

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