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Blogging Unwelcome News

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“Breaking bad news to customers is not an easy task,” Susan Berkley admits in zenbusiness.com. To do this in a compassionate and professional manner, she advises, “Give as much as you can about the who, what, when, where, and why,” Take charge, outlining a specific plan of action that you and your company will take, and what actions you recommend customers take.

While agilelaw.com advises never delivering bad news via either a voice mail or email (clients may not be able to reach you right away to ask questions or obtain additional information), a blog post may in fact be the best way to keep all readers informed of general developments which may apply to them. (Customers may also be informed via letter; individual issues should be dealt with off-line.)

Acknowledge the facts rather than sugarcoating the unknown and unknowable, focusing on options for the future, says Jennifer Kahnweiler, Ph.D. “Small people shun responsibility. However, strong peoples shoulder it.” Her five-part grid for organizing a bad-news message:

  1. Start on either a positive or neutral note.
  2. Elaborate on the current situation or your criteria/reasoning for making the negative decision.
  3. State the bad news (as positively as possible).
  4. Offer an alternative to meet the person’s goals, when possible.
  5. End with a goodwill statement focused on the future.

As is true of newspapers, business blog content writing can balance feature stories with news. In general, the word “news”, when it comes to blog marketing, can mean two entirely different things.  The first type centers around you and your company or practice, with the second type of news relating to your community, your city, your country, even worldwide events. If, as blog writers, we can go right to the heart of any possible customer fears or concerns by addressing negative assumption questions (before they’ve been asked!)  we have the potential to breed understanding and trust.

There’s no question that negative news can have a huge impact on consumers’ opinions of your business, but truth is that the more your business grows, the more difficult it is to escape negative publicity, statuslabs.com admits. The best way to combat the larger potential impacts of negative news coverage is to have a strong online presence. Then,
addressing negative news early on before it grows into a larger story is good advice.

But, it’s when your “bad news” consists, not of a bad review or an accusation, but of an unpalatable fact (you’re discontinuing a favorite product; you’re raising your hourly rates; you’re changing a long-standing policy, etc.), that breaking the news in your blog is going to require digging into your content writing reserves with honesty and skill..

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The More We Blog, The More We Learn

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The secret of good writing, according to Richard Harding Davis, is to say an old thing in a new way or a new thing in an old way. For us blog content writers, “saying old things in a new way” means that each time we’re preparing to compose content for a blog, rather than asking ourselves whether we’ve already covered that material and how long ago, we ought to plan content around key themes. That way, we can be using the same theme while filling in new details and illustrations. This precise thing is a concern, I’ve found over the year, of many business owners and professional practitioners. Even if they understand the marketing value of the blog, their concern is that, sooner or later, they (or their writer) will run out of things to say. I need to explain that it’s more than OK to repeat themes already covered in former posts. The trick is adding a layer of new information or a new insight each time.

When saying new things in an old way, conversely, introducing new information or suggesting a new attitude towards an issue, behavioral science tells us to create a perspective of “frame”, presenting new data in a way that relates to the familiar. Perhaps some information you’d put in a blog post months or even years ago isn’t true any longer (or at least isn’t the best information now available in your industry or profession). Maybe the rules have changed, or perhaps there’s now a solution that didn’t even exist at the time the original content was written.

“Links – you need ‘em,” writes Amy Lupold Bair in Blogging for Dummies. On a blog, the author explains, links are part of the resource you are providing for readers.  Collecting links around a topic or theme helps to inform or entertain your blog’s readers. If you’re not only providing good content yourself, but also expanding on that content by using links, she adds, “you’re doing your readers a service they won’t forget.”

Thing is, as long as I keep learning, I stay excited and readers can sense that in my blog. Being – and staying – a lifelomg learner means “reading around” – reading other people’s blogs and articles, plus “listening around” paying attention to everything from broadcasts to casual conversations,

The more we keep learning, the better we blog, and the more we blog, the more we learn.

 

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The More We Blog, the More We Influence

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Of all thirteen “prospect attraction influencers” mentioned in Mike Michalowicz’s book Get Different, the two most usable for blog content writers, I concluded were these:

1. Expansion – We like to expand the things we already like, own, and believe, Michalowicz says. People who value their nice care will be attracted to a nicer car, people who value their health want even more advice on becoming healthier.

Years ago, at a meeting of the National Speakers Association of Indiana, I remember the speaking coach saying, “If they’re in your session, they’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid”.  He might well have been coaching content writers. Just as conference attendees who choose to attend a particular breakout session already have an interest in the topic, if readers have arrived at your business blog, it’s because they already have an interest in your topic. No long intro is needed – they are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer. It’s now up to you to assure those visitors, through the words and pictures in your business blog content, that they’ve come to precisely the right place to get more, to expand their information and their assets.

2. Repetition – The more we hear a recurring message, the more it attracts, the author explains. When we notice the same thought that we had repeated in marketing, we are drawn to it.

At Say It For You, after fifteen years of being involved in all aspects of corporate blog writing and blogging training, one irony I’ve found is that business owners who use this repetition principle are rare. There’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Pity, because blogs are startlingly less costly than business print ads, “winning” with content, not cost, and with frequency, not size. Consistent content publishing is not only reassuring to customers, Google rewards websites that publish regular, high-quality content that provides real value to users. If you create successful blog posts with the ideal frequency, you’re more likely to succeed in pleasing Google, Ballantine.com says.

It’s hardly easy, but it is simple – the more we blog, the more we influence.

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Being Heard, Not Only Seen, in Your Blog

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In this week’s Say It For You blog posts, I’m sharing insights from the October issue of Poets&Writers magazine. An insightful profile of CelesteNG’s new book, Our Missing Hearts offers valuable concepts for business blog content writers. Poet Maggie Smith believes NG’s book should be required reading for all, “grappling with big questions such as art, freedom, and ethics”, but there is one particular line in the book that resonated with me as a content writer: “We talk a lot about being seen, but I think we also want to be heard. Everybody has stories inside them but not always someone to tell them to.”

Social media maven Neil Patel agrees, One sure way to sabotage your own brand on social media, he says, is talking without listening. “Users want something real. They want real people, real interactions, and real, unbridled human connection…The real human essence of the brand is what users want to see come through loud and clear.”

“Who doesn’t want a personal fortuneteller?” Tom Searcy writes in Inc.com. Customers are looking for people who “hear” their concerns about upcoming regulations, technology trends, mergers and acquisitions, and modern day issues. “Remember,” Searcy says,”When you talk to the buyer about the buyer, you increase his or her engagement.” Potential customers want great products, outstanding service, and a competitive price. But, according to According to research from HubSpot, there’s something else they want even more: listening.

Over these years creating Say It For You blog content for different business owners and professional practitioners, I’ve come to realize that, in addition to wanting to be heard, blog readers actually want to “hear”. Unfortunately, I came to realize, most blog writing was being devoted to describing “what we do”, describing all the services and products the company or organization offers. Too little space seemed to be devoted to “what we believe” and to “who we are” as citizens of the community. For that very reason, when I’m offering business blogging assistance, I emphasize that the best website content – and the best corporate blogs – give online readers a feel for the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs about their industry and the way they want to serve their customers.   Those “we believe” statements can turn out to be the business’ most powerful calls to action.

A provider’s blog may not, at least not on a level similar to CelesteNG’s book.”grapple with big questions such as art, freedom, and ethics”, but the content must clearly demonstrate that the owners “hear” their customers’ concerns, and that, in return, their prospects and customers are able to “hear them!

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Writing is Creative. Publishing Blogs is Creative Business

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“Writing is creative. Publishing is business,” Aaron Gilbreath says in the October issue of Poets & Writers magazine. There are many ways to write for money, Gilbreath says, including content marketing, copywriting, journalism and technical writing. Reality is, he tells “creative” writers of fiction and poetry, there may be good reasons to write free of charge in order to build a reputation…Gilbreath quotes poet Robert Graves’ quip: “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”

While content marketing is on Gilbreath’s list of ways to make money (but excluded from his list of creative writing categories), at Say It For You, we consider creativity an absolute building block for success. But is business blog writing supposed to be creative? Yes, indeed. As writerstrasure.com points out, any nonfiction writing can be creative if the purpose is to express something, whether it be feelings, thoughts, or emotions. And, while the purpose of technical writing may be to inform and sometimes to trigger the person reading into making an action beneficial to the one of the writer, Idrees Patel admits, concise and magnetic writing is what will draw the reader in.

The question author Malcolm Gladwell gets asked most often just happens to be the same I’m most often asked when offering corporate blogging training sessions: “Where do you get your ideas?” the trick, Gladwell explains, is to “convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell.”

Marketing seems to go in cycles, remarks Morgan Stewart in a Media Post Publications article. “We bounce back and forth between…left-brain marketing focused on analytics and segmentation, and right-brain marketing focused on the creative.”  Both types of marketing are needed, concludes Steward. “Left-brain marketing narrows target audiences. Creative pulls people into your message.  Creative gets people talking.

In offering business blogging help, I emphasize that in business blog writing, it’s crucial to avoid the urge to directly sell a product or service. Instead, the creative challenge, is continually coming up with fresh content to inform, educate, and entertain readers.

 

 

 

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