Say It For You Magazine Challenge Revived

May 5, 2015/0 Comments/in idea sources for blogs/by Rhoda Israelov

The magazine challenge concept was born in the Minneapolis airport back in 2008. To pass the time during an unexpected two-hour layover between flights, I challenged myself to find at least a week’s worth of ideas for the Say It For You blog in a single magazine issue.

Out of that experience came a challenge to all SIFY readers to come up with blog post ideas out of a single magazine of their choice, selecting articles that trigger ideas about their business or practice – what they sell, what they know, what they believe, and what they know how to do.

Now, eight years later, I’m issuing the challenge again. If you do corporate blogging for business, send me a link to at least one blog post you wrote triggered by a magazine article. Or, if you’re not blogging, go ahead and email me a paragraph or two about your business as relates to a magazine article and I’ll publish it here.

The magazine I’m going to use this week is Mental Floss. (If you’ve never been exposed to this bi-monthly publication, you ought to try it – one of the most fun, interesting reads around!). The May 2015 issue has a great two page spread on “The Secret Origin of 7 Extremely Important Actions”.

One of those actions is the “selfie”, which of course we think of as being part of our own era of cell phones. Julie Winterbottom explains that the practice of taking one’s own picture actually goes back more than 150 years. Just months after Louis Daguerre, one of the fathers of photography, had announced his invention, he pointed the lens of the newfangled camera at himself. Of course, as Winterbottom points out, he needed to hold really, really still – exposures for early cameras took up to 15 minutes!

As a business blogging trainer, I think this insight into the history of the selfie could be used for just about any type of business or practice. That’s because, in every industry and every profession, things are not the same as they used to be. Write about those changes. Help readers understand how to get the maximum benefit out of today’s version of the products and services you offer. Share thoughts you have about your work, thoughts triggered by looking at the past, but about things that are relevant today.

What is there about your business, like the selfie, is much, much better today than it used to be?

Inductive and Deductive Blogging for Business

April 30, 2015/0 Comments/in Business writing tips/by Rhoda Israelov

“The most common forms of mathematical reasoning are inductive and deductive reasoning,” explain the authors of Studying for Mathematics. “You use inductive reasoning any time you come up with a general rule from a pattern. Deductive reasoning is when you apply a general rule to a specific case.”

As business blog content writers, we’re engaged in helping readers reason their way to doing business with the business owners and professional practitioners who’ve hired us to tell their story. It’s not that there’s a lack of information sources; if anything, there’s an absolute glut of data available to online searcher! What readers need from us, then, is not more information, but help in reasoning through all that information so that problem-solving choices can be made.

OK, so let’s go back to the mathematics tutorial book and the two sorts of reasoning.

Deductive:
You are reasoning deductively when you show that a rule isn’t true for all cases, which is called “proof by counter example”. As a blog writer, start with a commonly held assumption relating to your industry or profession, and come up with a counter example.

Inductive:
With inductive reasoning, you arrive at a formula that demonstrates a general pattern between different tactics and different aspects of an idea.

Paul Lawrence in earlytorise.com suggests using Triggering Deductive Reasoning to persuade clients to buy your products, get employees to take on unpleasant projects, or get your children to do their chores. You do that, explains Lawrence, by making statements that lead the other person to reach, on his own, the conclusion you want him to come to, then reinforcing that conclusion..
All advertisements aim at persuasion, points out Stan Mack of Demand Media. If an ad uses inductive reason, the implied conclusion isn’t necessarily true (think of an ad featuring a sweaty athlete chugging a thirst-quenching beverage). As blog writers, we would make as strong an argument as possibly through visual demonstrations, word descriptions, and customer testimonials to create the illusion that the product or service you’re promoting is the best option. We can inject urgency through one-time sales, or use fear (of getting old, having one’s credit stolen, etc.).

Alternately, we can use statistics to prove logically that we can satisfy the reader’s needs. With deductive reasoning, if our assumptions are true, the conclusions we draw must be true as well.

Help your blog readers reason their way to saying “Yes!”

Wish-List-With-Walls Blogging for Business

April 28, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing/by Rhoda Israelov

“Basically, we’re a wish list with walls” is Silver in the City jewelry boutique’s self-description in its Nuvo ad.

Great line! For the few seconds it takes for the reader to figure out the meaning of that statement, it forces engagement. As a business blogging trainer, one of the points I often stress is one I learned from my speaker friend Dick Wolfsie.

In order for a joke to be funny, explains Wolfsie, 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.

Blogs are like that, too. As a content writer, you post new, relevant material online, offering valuable information about your field of expertise. But for the blog to generate engagement, it takes two. In fact, that’s precisely how business blogging works. People go online and use search engines to find information. That individual, just like the person who gets a joke, rewards himself with the information you’ve provided. The reader “gets it” and moves on to your website for more, or posts a comment. Either way, two are now in the game.

That “wish-list-with-walls” line would be perfect as a “pow” closing line for a business blog post. Work on crafting a closing line that forces readers to “put it all together”.

Glass-Breaking and Myth-Busting in Business Blogs

April 23, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, idea sources for blogs/by Rhoda Israelov

So you’ve found some interesting material in a funky magazine called Mental Floss. Question is, as a freelance blog content writer, what do you with it? After all, how could a brief history of people who worried that they were made of glass help in blog marketing for your – or your client’s – business or practice? Gather round….

By way of background, awhile back I came up with a remedy for blog content writers when they get stuck thinking up new ideas to keep their business blog posts engaging. I advised leafing through popular magazines to spark ideas that can help business owners and practitioners explain what they do and how and why they do it. OK, so how about those people who thought they were made of glass?

In the 1400s, King Charles VI of France, convinced he was made of glass, wore special clothes to avoid breaking into pieces.
In the 1600s. a play (Thomas Tomkis’ Lingua) and a novel ( Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Doctor Glass-Case) featured characters who were afraid to move or to be near people for fear they would break into pieces.
The History of Psychiatry chronicles a 1600’s man who wore a cushion on his derriere to prevent breakage.

One very important function of blog writing for business is to debunk common myths. Business owners can use their blog not only as a way to dispense information, but to address misinformation. All those now funny misapprehensions about glass were understandable when the technology was new. After glass had become cheap enough for ordinary people to use it for windowpanes, the delusions, Mental Floss editors explain, began to “slide into obscurity”.

In the natural course of doing business, misunderstandings about a product or a serve may surface, especially if the technology behind the product or service is new.

Dentistry:
Do amalgams used for fillings cause mercury poisoning?

Beauty:
Does makeup cause acne?

Internet security:
If you don’t open an infected file, can you get infected?

Jewelry:
Have diamonds have always been the symbol for marriage?

Life expectancy:
In the past, didn’t 9 out of 10 people die before age 40?

Home décor:
Should small rooms be painted in pale neutral colors?

I explain to newbie content writers in Indianapolis that citing statistics to disprove popular myths gives business owners the chance to showcase their own knowledge and expertise. Myth-busting comes with a caveat, however. The trick is to engage interest, but not in “Gotcha!” style. Business owners and professional practitioners blogging for business can showcase their own expertise without putting readers “in the wrong”.

What myths need busting in your business or practice?

Spoon-feeding the Why’s to Business Blog Readers

April 16, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, idea sources for blogs/by Rhoda Israelov

“Because the baby slept all night….” “Because he emptied the litter box…” “You don’t need a big excuse to give a great gift,” read the sign at the end of the cafeteria checkout line.

Even though I’m constantly stressing to business blog content writers that blog posts are NOT ads, there’s a lot we can learn from advertisers. After all, we have stuff to sell – whether it’s products, services, or ideas, and whether it’s for our own or our clients’ businesses or practices. And, that MCL sign notwithstanding, we have to make sure our prospects, the ones reading the blog content, see that they have good “excuses” to buy.

Fellow blogger Michel Fortin names five types of “why” you can tell buyers. (Fortin’s alluding to ad copy, but his list is a good outline for using proof in your business blog posts to build belief in your – or your client’s – services and products.)

Why YOU:
Why did you target this particular market (the one represented by this potential buyer)?

Why ME:
The “me” is the business or the professional practitioner (or the ghost blogger as his or her voice). What is our expertise and experience? Why do we care?

Why THIS:
What are the specific solutions you provide? Why is your product or service designed in the particular and unique way you describe?

Why NOW:
What reasons can you offer the reader to act now – (missing out on something important, preventing further damage, expected scarcity of the product, etc.)?

Why THIS PRICE:
Your blog can make clear where you fall price-wise in your market and why your business has chosen that pricing niche.

You may not need a big excuse to give someone an MCL gift card, but only blog believers become buyers!

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