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Bacteria Help Put Blog Content in Perspective

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bacteria Biomass is what scientists use when there’s no way to do an exact count, Bill Chapell explained in an NPR radio broadcast five years ago, referring to the “fact” that The Day We Hit 7 Billion (October 31, 2011), was actually impossible to prove; it is impossible to count all the world’s people alive at any particular moment.  So, he says, the experts estimate by calculating biomass. Biomass is determined, Chapel patiently explains, by multiplying an estimated population by its members’ average weight.

Fascinating stuff, but what does biomass have to do with blog content writing? Wait…wait…wait for it – it’s all a matter of perspective. Get a load of these comparative biomass numbers:

  • Whales – 20 million tons
  • Chickens – 40 million tons
  • Sheep – 65 million tons
  • PEOPLE – 350 million tons
  • Termites – 445 million tons
  • Cattle – 520 million tons
  • Fish – 800 million tons
  • Ants – 3,000 million tons
  • BACTERIA – 1,000,000 million tons (yes, you read it here!)

When Chapell was interviewing researchers at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. about biomass, one researcher had this to say: “Of course, within each human there are animals.  So, our own parasites outnumber us!”

We business bloggers are, in a very real way, interpreters. Effective blog posts, I teach, must go from information-dispensing to offering perspective.  Before a reader even has time to ask “So what?” we need to be ready with an answer that makes sense in terms with which readers are familiar. I call it blogging new knowledge on things readers already know.

The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to give readers a deeper perspective with which to process the information. The facts, those raw ingredients of corporate blogging for business, need to be “translated” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers.
Remember the bacteria, and put your blog content in perspective for readers!

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Blogging in the Goldilocks Zone

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Woman and Porridge BowlsRemember the story of Goldilocks and how the little girl tried sitting in each of the Three Bears’ chairs? After rejecting the first two chairs because they were the wrong size, she tries the third: “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighs. That’s exactly the sensation you want your reader to have about your blog post! But, as was the case with Goldilocks, it’s going to take some testing to achieve that result.

Each section of text has a particular feel, writes fiction editor Beth Hill. The “feel” of a story or scene, she explains, is primarily achieved through three elements:

  1. tone – in non-fiction, this is the writer’s attitude towards the subject matter
  2. mood – what the reader feels based on the atmosphere or vive of the material
  3. style – the way the writer uses words, including word choices and syntax

“Recognize that, even if you don’t purposely create tone and mood, they are still there in your text, Hill cautions. Once you’re ready to rewrite and edit, she advises, check each paragraph for mood and tone, so that you’re not sending mixed signals to your readers.

Beth Hill’s list of styles should give pause to any blog content writer. (Ask yourself: is this the way I’d want to come across to my – or my client’s – business blog readers??):

  • approachable
  • business-like
  • condescending
  • conversational
  • deceptive
  • forthright
  • long-winded
  • overly familiar
  • preachy
  • rambling
  • sarcastic
  • scholarly
  • uncaring

“Do you obsess about the tone of your writing as you revise?” asks Adair Lara of Writer’s Digest. “You should,” Lara says. “Tone is one of the most overlooked elements of writing.  It can create interest, or kill it.”

A writer doesn’t have a soundtrack or strobe light to build effect, Lara explains.  Instead, she has imagery, details, word choice, and word arrangement. In the first draft, Lara advises, you write what people expect you to write.  During the revision, go deeper and say what you wouldn’t be expected to say.

We all want to blog in the Goldilocks zone, but it’s going to take some testing to achieve that “Ahh, just right” result.

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To Blog, Slash Back the Range of Topics

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TEDTalks“To provide an effective talk, you must slash back the range of topics you will cover to a single, connected thread,” cautions Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks. Done right, he says, carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy and sharing knowledge.

Much of the wisdom Anderson shares can serve as a guide for effective blog content writing, I found. Here are a few of the gems I found in this wonderful book:
“The goal is for you to give the talk that only you can give.”
Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to be unique to you, showing clearly what differentiates your business, your professional practice, or your organization from its peers. The goal to “birth” the content that expresses your personal brand.

“You will cover only as much ground as you can dive into in sufficient depth to be compelling.”
Blog posts have a distinct advantage over the more static website copy.  Each post can have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business or practice. Other important things to discuss? Save those for later posts!

“Different talks can have very different structures. One might introduce the problem the speaker is tackling. Another might be simply sharing pieces of work that have a connected theme.”
While our first instinct in writing a blog post might be to follow a linear structure, that’s not the most effective way to present ideas in every situation. Different blog posts can compare and contrast, show cause and effect, compare advantages and disadvantages of a product or a particular approach,  use testimonials, and develop story lines.

“People aren’t computers.  They’re social creatures who have developed weapons to keep their worldview protected from dangerous knowledge…To make an impact, there has to be a human connection.”
One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we translate clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  People tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

To blog impactfully, slash back the range of topics!

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No Need for Those Serious, Sometimes Fatal Effects

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Successful business illustration concept

“In recent months, the FDA has been talking with drugmakers, medical groups and consumer groups about ways to make (pharmaceutical) ads clearer and drive home the most important safety risks,” reported the Chicago Tribune on August 11th. As an example, reporter John Russell talks about Humira, the best-selling drug in the world, made by AbbVie of North Chicago.  While the video portion of the ad portrays an attractive, self-confident woman leading a very healthy and active lifestyle and modeling “that dress”, 35 seconds of audio informs viewers of all the “serious, sometimes fatal events” that can result from taking the drug.

While I’ll leave it to the FDA and the drug industry trade association to carry on their discussions about the optimal length of side effect warnings, I look at the issue from the point of view of a marketing content writer.

Just why do these ads, with 50% of their verbal content so negative, even frightening, work so well (at least well enough to entice pharma companies to keep shelling out millions of dollars to get them in front of consumers’ eyeballs)?

Science teaches us that visual content reaches our brains in faster and in more understandable ways than textual (or auditory) information. 40% of nerve fibers to the brain are connected to the retina (and not to the ears), Felicia Golden of eyeQ.com reminds us. In the Humira commercial, the images of that attractive woman doing yoga or dressing for a date cancel out, in large part, the awful list of drug side effects. (In fact, the fact that the effect of the warnings does get “cancelled out” is precisely the cause of concern on the part of the FDA.)

The main message of a blog is delivered in words.  Where the visuals come in, whether in the form of “clip art”, photos, graphs, charts, or even videos, is to add interest and evoke emotion.  People absorb information better when it is served up in more than one form.

There’s a second phenomenon to explore for blog content writers, which appears to contradict what we noted in the power of the visual portion of the Humira ad. The “negativity bias” refers to our tendency to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information.

My experience with reading and creating hundreds, even thousands of different blog posts over the years tells me that if we blog writers can go right to the heart of any possible customer fears or concerns by addressing negative assumption questions even before they’ve been asked, we have the potential to breed understanding and trust.

If there are misunderstandings or negative myths surrounding our products and services, let’s get those questions – including the ones the readers don’t even know how to ask – out on the table. In the final analysis, I’m convinced, positive messages pack more power than negative ones. Add a visual, and you’ve got a winning formula!

 

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Blog Ladder-Jumping

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aha light bulbHow can you jump off a 35-foot ladder onto solid concrete and not hurt yourself?

Where can you find rivers with no fish, roads with no cars, seas with no ships, and towns with no people?

These riddles are two of 150 brain training challenges in Parragon Books’ Professor Murphy’s Brain-Busting Puzzles & Riddles. (Psst: You jump off the bottom rung; on a map.)

As psychologists Sternberg and Davidson explained in Psychology Today, the thinking involved in solving puzzles is a blend of imaginative association and memory. Finding out the answer to the riddle produces an Aha! effect. What’s more, the researchers commented, once the answer to a riddle is understood, the memory of it remains much more permanent because it is unexpected.

As a blog content writer, I’m always fascinated by what makes certain word combinations pack more power than others. Could it be because the reader needed to go through more of a thinking process to figure out the meaning?

Reminds me of something that humorist Dick Wolfsie teaches. In order for a joke to be funny, he explains, the person listening to the joke or reading the joke has to figure things out!  The laughter is the reward that the listener or reader gives himself for having figured out what the punch line is really saying.

It may be that the same concept applies to the material presented in our business blog content writing, and that, for the blog to cause real communication, it must produce that Aha! effect. People go online and use search engines to find information.  They need to know more about something, and that something has to do with what you have, what you know about, or what you know how to do.
Needless to say, your blog content needs to be on topic and understandable. But, just as is true of Professor Murphy’s riddles, when people do part of the “work”, they’re more engaged and the information is more likely to “stick”!

 

 

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