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Saying What They Said in Blogging for Business

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“Quoting other people is a staple of many types of writing. Journalists use quotes in their stories, magazine writers interview experts to support their piece, and academics quote research papers. As a blogger, you too can borrow the wisdom of others to inspire and support your writing,” advises Ali Luke of dailyblogtips.com.

There are plenty of different ways to incorporate a quote into your post, and you don’t need to use the same method each time, Luke adds, naming some popular tactics:

  • at the start of your post
  • as the basis for your post
  • to support a point you’re making

As I’m fond of saying in corporate blogging training sessions, quoting others in a marketing blog can be good or bad.

On the positive side, when you link to someone else’s remarks on a subject you’re covering, that can:

  • Reinforce your point
  • Show you’re in touch with trends in your field
  • Add value for readers (by aggregating different sources of information in one business blog)

On the other hand, as is true of all tools and tactics, “re-gifting” content needs to be handled with some restraint and using proper protocol (attributing content to its source).

Professional speaking coach Andrew Dlugan agrees that there are good points to using quotes in your material. “A quotation is more powerful than simply repeating yourself in different words”, he says. Dlugan offers a caution I want to emphasize to business bloggers: Avoid closing your speech with a quote. “Your final words should be your own.”

Curating others’ work – bloggers, authors, speakers – is a wonderful technique for adding variety and reinforcement to your own content.  Remember, though, you’re trying to make your own cash register ring.  It’s your voice that has to be strong throughout the post, so readers will click through to your website or shopping cart.

Used with discretion, saying what they said can be good in blogging for business!

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Business Blogging Earns High Scores

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“There’s no doubt that blogs afford small businesses big payoffs. They humanize a business, position you as an expert in your field, and work hand-in-hand with your website and social media presence to improve your search engine rankings,” the SCORE website advises its members.  But, since finding the time or an eager author to write an original blog for every slot in your calendar isn’t always possible, Score offers tips for “staying afloat” in your blogging efforts, including:

  • freshening up old blogs
  • distilling white papers or webinars into quick tips or how-to’s
  • using “filler blogs that link to other sources
  • showcasing photos from an event that you recently held

“Think of your website as a garden. If it’s left unattended, weeds will grow and your plants are likely to shrivel up and die,” cautions crazyegg.com. “To get the most out of any garden, you must prune, trim, fertilize, aerate, plant, and remove pests in a strategic manner.” Interestingly, one piece of advice crazyegg offers is this: “If you don’t have a business blog, get one! It’s a great way to update your site—even if you only have time to do it once a month.”

If you’re lacking ideas for your blog, crazyegg offers suggestions:

  1. Review something – the newest business book or hit movie. In a way, I’ve often reflected, what we do when we write business blog content offering information and opinion is comparable to a book review. Online visitors are “test-reading” your company or practice through reading your blog posts. They want to see whether you understand their problems and can quickly and effectively help solve those. A review, though, is more than a mere summary. Whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve got to have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers.

2. Take a poll. Then, write content to address those things. Using blogs to perform a focus    group function could be a very feasible marketing strategy.  Blog readers would weigh in on their own time in the form of responding to surveys, offering ideas or ratings – all good techniques to stimulate interaction with target customers. 
  
3. Interview someone. You can do this via email or phone. As a blog-content-writer-for-hire by business owners and professional practitioners, I’ve found, there’s an interesting way to get the job done: the interview format. In a face-to-face (or Skype) interview with a business owner or executive (or professional practitioner), I am able to capture their ideas and some of their words, then add “framing” with my own questions and introductions, to create a blog post more compelling and “real” than the typical narrative text.

As SCORE advises its business owner members, business blogging earns high scores!

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Contagious Blog Marketing

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“Why do some products, ideas, and behaviors succeed when others fail?” Jonah Berger asks in his book Contagious. Berger first lists some traditional answers:

  • they are just plain better – easier to use and more effective
  • attractive pricing
  • advertising

None of these explains the whole story, Berger claims, without including social influence and work of mouth. “The things others tell us, e-mail us, and text us have a significant impact on what we think, read, buy, and do,” he says.

Why is word of mouth marketing so much more effective than advertising? Berger offers a couple of reasons:

  1. It’s more believable – we tend to believe our friends’ stories and recommendations
  2. It’s more targeted – we don’t share a news story or a recommendation with every we know, only with people who we think will find the information relevant

Berger’s marketing principles might serve as a perfect checklist for business blog content writers:

  • Social currency – give people ways to achieve visible symbols of “insider” status they can show off to others. (Nienke Vlutters of the University of Twente agrees: “With their consuming behavior, individuals symbolize with which groups they want to be associated.”)
  • Triggers – link your products and services to prevalent trends.  Keeping up with trends in your field helps earn you “expert power” with readers.
  • Emotion – contagious content evokes emotion.
  • Utility – craft content that is useful in saving time and money and improving health.

You may be convinced your products and services are “just plain better”, but to really connect with consumers through your business blog, you need to use contagious blog marketing!

 

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How-I-Did-It Blogging for Business

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“Starting and running a business is traveling a landscape filled with opportunity and hazards.  Knowing which is which can make the difference between growing your company and blowing it up,” begins the special issue of Inc. magazine in which twelve company founders describe how they rose to success.

‘How-we-did-it” stories make for very effective blog content for both business owners and professional practitioners, I’ve learned. In a post a couple of years ago, I quoted The Moth founder George Dawes Green, who teaches storytellers to share their own human failures and frailty. “It’s easier to connect with someone who is or has been where you are,” is the way Beccy Freebody of the Australian charity realisingeverydream puts it.

Sounds great, but how can sharing secrets and failures help when you’re trying to market a business or a practice?

  1. True stories about mistakes and struggles are very humanizing, adding to the trust readers place in the people behind the business or practice.
  2. Stories of struggles and failures can be used as a means to an end, using the special expertise and insights you’ve gained towards solving readers’ problems.
  3. Blogs also have a damage control function.  When customer complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with publicly (there’s nothing more public than the Internet!), that gives the “apology” – and the remediation – a lot more weight in the eyes of readers.

The interesting thing I’ve noticed is that many business owner and practitioner clients are so close to the subject matter of their own past and present business battles, they can’t see how valuable those “failures” can prove to be in terms of blog content. That’s where the outside eye of a professional blog writer becomes especially valuable.

In “how-I-did-it” blogging for business, failures can sometimes be the secret to success!

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If-We-Haven’t-Moved Blogging for Business

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Nine years ago I posted a Say It For You blog about an experiment concerning the way people’s attention is engaged. The subjects of the study were people who drove the same route every day to work and back, passing a giant billboard advertising new cars.  When questioned, almost none of those people remembered even seeing a billboard, but the moment any individual was in the market for a car, he’d notice the billboard immediately. The point was that if whatever a billboard is advertising is not relevant to our life just then, our brain brushes off the information and doesn’t make room for it in memory.

Anyway, I used that experiment to make the point that everybody’s blog posts are out there on the Internet “super-highway”, available for anyone to see, but that the only people likely to notice your blog at all are those searching for the kinds of information, products, or services you offer.

The other day I had an experience that showed me  an interesting twist on that whole theory. I took a different route than usual driving home from a meeting and, coming across E. 96th, happened to pass a billboard advertising a Chipotle’s restaurant.  Here’s what the sign said: “Chipotle – ½ mile ahead – if we haven’t moved!”

Now, I was returning from a lunch meeting; I’d had plenty to eat, believe me, and so wasn’t consciously or otherwise craving food. What caught my eye and aroused my curiosity was the “if we haven’t moved” thing. What was that about? Were they planning to move? Were they being forced out?  Why weren’t they saying what their new location might be?

I’ve reminded you about my theory on billboards and blogging. I also have a theory about human curiosity and how that tests out in corporate blogging.  This is it: our curiosity is at its most intense when it concerns testing our own limits, which is why I advise blog content writers to include quizzes and self-tests in business blog posts. Well, in those couple of seconds driving past that billboard, my brain went into high challenge gear – Where IS that restaurant?  Is it still there or will I see a “Moved” sign on the door?

The really curious thing is, even had I been in the mood for a meal, Mexican cuisine would never have been my first choice. It was the “IF we haven’t moved” that made that billboard serve as a come-on, making my brain make room for its message.

What curiosity factors can you add to your business blog so that online searchers will make room for your marketing messages?

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