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Business Blogging Using Not-So-Trivial Trivia – Part B

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This week I’m devoting my Say It For You blog posts to sharing some of the gems I discoverwoman pinching her nylon stockings on her leged, in J.K. Kelly’s Book of Incredible Information.

There seems to be an ongoing debate in the world of fashion about pantyhose. “The look will never be quite the same as it would be with a nude leg, but there’s nothing you can do about that,” says Charles Manning of Cosmopolitan. Sheer and “leg-colored” pantyhose are no longer worn for fashion, but rather for function or professionalism, according to the budgetfashionista.com.

Whether nude pantyhose are a “thing” again or not, J.K. Kelly reassures us that pantyhose are not just for legs. What ARE they for, then?

  • Lost something? Slide a length of pantyhose over your vacuum cleaner hose, secure it with rubber bands, and vacuum where you think the lost item might be. The hose will keep the item from being sucked up into the bag.
  • Cut a piece of pantyhose slightly larger than your new hairbrush.  Push the bristles through the hose.  When it’s time to clean the brush, pull the pantyhose off – with all the hair – and put on a new piece.
  • Line houseplant pots with pantyhose to prevent soil loss from the bottom of the pot.
  • Insert a bar of soap into a pantyhose length, tie a knot at both ends, and use as a back-scrubber.

So how might you use this pantyhose trivia for business blogging? (Remember, tidbits serve as jumping off points for explaining what problems can be solved using the company’s’ products and services.)

These pantyhose hints would add humor and interest to a fashion blog or a dress or shoe company’s blog. Blogging for a garden shop? A hair salon? An appliance store? Any one of these could use the Kelly’s helpful hints to add new interest to the ongoing marketing message in their blog.

Using blogs to perform a focus group function can be a very feasible marketing strategy, with blog readers invited to offer their own ideas about how fashionable or gauche pantyhose are, and create ways to use the ones for household tasks. “Polling” in  your blog can be a great technique to stimulate interaction with target customers.

Make those not-so-trivial trivia count in blogging for business!

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Business Blogging Using Not-So-Trivial Trivia – Part A

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mothsWriting blog posts on any one topic over long periods of time can get old, as any business owner or professional practitioner can tell you.  And, yes, even we seasoned professional blog content creators have a need to infuse new energy into the process from time to time. That’s precisely where the weird and wonderful tidbits in J.K. Kelly’s Book of Incredible Information can help.

I’ve had so much fun exploring the pages of this incredible collection of not-so-trivial trivia, I’m going to devote this week’s Say It For You blog posts to sharing some of the gems I discovered, along with ideas about how you might incorporate some of these into your own blog content writing….

About one in three movies features at least once scene containing an insect, Kelly reminds us.
There’s actually a name for the professional “bug men” or “bug wranglers” who facilitate the process, I learned. No joke, either.  These are trained entomologists responsible for providing the insects and for manipulating them onscreen.

So, how to you train an insect?  You don’t.  They cannot be trained, only manipulated to fit the needs of the movie script. Spiders refuse to walk on Lemon Pledge furniture wax, for example, so you spray the stuff where you don’t want them going. To make an insect fly toward a window, wranglers place a light out of shot behind the window.

What about make-up for insects? You bet, Kelly explains.  For “Silence of the Lambs”, the wrangler couldn’t obtain specimens of the rare moth needed, so he anesthetized moths and painted on the distinctive markings of the death’s-head hawk moth onto their bodies. Needless to say, the wrangler used water-based, non-toxic paint that would wash off later without any harm to the insect.

So how might you use this insect-training knowledge in business blogging? The tidbit becomes the jumping off point for explaining what problems can be solved using that business’ products or that practice’s services, for defining basic terminology, and for putting modern day statistics into perspective.

On a very simple level, this trivia could add humor and interest to a blog by a pest control company or a makeup studio.

On a deeper level, there’s a lot here about training.  How do you train employees? Can – and should – employees be manipulated? How do you go about inspiring children in the classroom? I can see the bit about the insect wranglers being used in blogging for an employee placement firm, an instructional design firm, or by a college training corporate managers.

For freelance blog content writers, incredible information tidbits can turn into incredible treasure,
adding new interest to the ongoing marketing message in the blog.

 

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Blogger Writing Basics

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The ideas highlighted in this week’s Say It For You blog posts were sparked by Tony Rossiter’s Effective Business Writing in Easy Steps.  “Whether you’re drafting a lengthy company report or sending a short email to colleagues, it’s vital to get it right,” cautions Rossiter, defining “right” as meaning clear and concise prose, in a style that’s acceptable to your readers.

Different layouts fulfill different purposes, Tony Rossiter explains, such as:The word Write on a cork notice board

  • Attracting attention
  • Saving space
  • Selling something
  • Summarizing a topic
  • Raising questions

Good, clear layout is essential, the author cautions.  “Remember that every line on every page is the result of someone’s conscious layout decision.”

Layout applies to business blogs in different ways, with one of those being the Calls to Action.

  • There should be more than one CTA, so as to appeal to different readers who might be at different. Stages in the sales cycle. Those ready to buy can do that right away. Those who need more information before making a decision can choose to pick up the phone.  There should be something for those not quite ready for even a phone conversation – they might be guided to watch a video or read an article, for example.
  • The CTAs themselves can be in different formats, with some in the text, some in separate “boxes”, and with different CTA’s linking to different landing pages or sign-up pages.

If the purpose of the blog post is to attract attention at first glance, you may wish to use special formatting:

  • Put the opening sentence in bold or in italics
  • Use the first sentence as the entire first paragraph
  • Center the first sentence (rather than justifying it to the left with the rest of the text)

The content of the opening sentence, in addition to the formatting, can be designed to grab readers’ attention:

  • Begin with the conclusion, using the remainder of the blog post to “prove” the validity of that bold assertion
  • Raise a challenging question in the opening sentence, then use the post to propose an answer.

Every line on every page should in fact be the result of YOUR conscious content and layout decisions!

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A Blog Content Writer’s Basic Tools

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Word Toolbox Teaching Tools Resources Spelling Reading Lesson Ai

 

“Whether you’re drafting a lengthy company report or sending a short email to colleagues, it’s vital to get it right,” cautions Tony Rossiter in Effective Business Writing in Easy Steps. What is Rossiter’s definition of “getting it right”?

  • Being clear and concise
  • Writing in a style that’s acceptable to your readers.

A business writer’s basic tools include, Rossiter says:

  • Plain English
  • Vocabulary
  • Spelling
  • Punctuation
  • Grammar
  • Preparing and checking the presentation

In this week’s Say It For You blog posts, I’ll share some important tips from Rossiter’s book that blog content writers might find especially useful.

  • Reading aloud: “If you’re not quite sure whether or not a sentence of a longer piece of writing works – whether it’s clear, concise, and readily understandable – read it aloud.” Some of your phrases and sentences might not be as clear as you thought they were when you first wrote them, Rossiter explains.
  • “Look for the overall purpose – have you done what you set out to do?” Conveying that overall purpose can be especially challenging when a business owner or practitioner is using a business blogging service provider.  On the other hand, the very exercise of thinking through the themes and the ideas for the blog helps train the business owner or practitioner to articulate those same things when they’re talking to their customers!
  • “Put it away for a day or two, then look at it again.” My years as a developmental editor, plus my work tutoring in the Ivy Tech Community College language lab have taught me how hard it is for us to catch our own errors.  After all, I teach blog writers, we’re focused on the ideas we’re trying to convey.Using writers’ basic tools to convey a unique marketing message – that’s the supreme challenge for us business blog content writers!

 

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Wouldn’t You Do It Every Single Blog?

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“If you knew something as easy as adding images to your blog posts would increase your readers, Orange Megaphonesubscribers, followers, and leads, wouldn’t you do it every single time?” asks Neil Patel of HubSpot.com.

We live in an age of visual culture, observes Jeff Bullas.  In fact, Bullas points out, 10% of photos taken by humankind took place in the last 12 months, and photos are becoming “the universal language”!

Bullas lists a number of rather startling statistics to demonstrate the reason images and photos need to be part of any business’ marketing tactics:

  • Articles with images get 94% more total views.
  • 60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results.
  • In an online store, customers think the quality of a product’s image is more important than product-specific information and even more important than ratings and reviews.

Images need to have a purpose, though, as Neil Patel observes, and not be there merely as decoration or “filler”.  Purposes include:

  • Emphasizing a point
  • Explaining a concept
  • Showing personality

I teach content writers that, even though the words you use to tell the story are the most important part of blogging for business, visuals add interest and evoke emotion.  Personally, I like “clip art”. Why? These commercial images aren’t original to my client’s business or practice and they don’t depict the actual products or the customers or colleagues of that business or practice. But what clip art does accomplish, I find, is capturing a concept, helping express the main idea that is articulated in the post.

When it comes to writing headlines, Neil Patel advises, focus on the 4 U’s: unique, ultra-specific, useful, or urgent. At Say It For You, we try to use images the same way, selecting one for each post that gives readers an idea of what to expect in the post. Wouldn’t you do that every single time?  You bet!

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