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Tidbit Blogging – a Trend that Never Goes Out of Style

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Slices of watermelonIn blog marketing, is it worth the effort of digging up curious and little-known facts related to your business or industry?  Make that a big “Oh, yes”!  Readers’ interest is piqued, you’re positioned as an expert in your field, and you’re rewarded with precious extra moments of precious attention. (Just learned that my favorite source for ripe tidbits is Mental Floss Magazine has just published its last paper issue;  from now on it will be digital all the way!)

Here’s just one juicy tidbit from Mental Floss to illustrate my point: In 2007, editors inform readers, the House of Representatives in the state of Oklahoma voted 78 to 19 to make watermelon their state vegetable. State Senator Don Barrington justified the vote by saying watermelon is a member of the cucumber family (Botanically speaking, Mental Floss reminds us, cucumbers are fruits.)  Meanwhile, in Arkansas, the Vine Ripe Pink Tomato is both the state’s official fruit and its official veggie!

Sure, that info is funny and unusual, but why do I think bloggers could use those tidbits to advantage? For one thing, this tidbit explodes some commonly held myths (cucumbers and tomatoes are vegetables and belong in salads, never desserts). More importantly, those true tales engage readers’ interest, and we can use them to lead into some little-known facts about our own (or our clients’) products and services. Think cukes and tomatoes in:

  • Catering
  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Restaurants
  • Beauty products

How does the process work?  Well, 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. 

I could see business bloggers using a second funny tidbit I pinpointed in this latest Mental Floss issue as a lead-in to a serious discussion about educational policy and parenting:

Wooden paddle spankings are still legal in 19 American states.

This little gem deals head-on with the touchy issue of corporal punishment both at home and at school. Think about your own business, I ask owners in the course of providing them with business blogging assistance: Is there anything that might be considered unsafe, cruel, or environmentally non-friendly about your industry or your business? Rather than avoiding the topic, what about using the blog to explain what you as a business owner are you doing to mitigate those factors?

Funny or serious, tidbit blogging is a trend that I can’t see ever going out of style!

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Blogging in Basic English

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flight-attendant“Basic English” simply means using words that people will understand,” says business humorist Todd Hunt. On recent flights, Hunt appreciated the fact that both Delta Airlines and American Airlines warned passengers of the possibility of “rough air” or “unexpected bumps” rather than talking about “turbulence”.

Hunt was used to hearing the request: “Please discontinue the use of portable electronics”, but thinks United Airlines takes the prize for making things clear:  “Please turn off your cell phones, laptops, and anything else that has an on-off switch”.

When Todd Hunt talks about “basic English”, he simply means using words understandable to the majority of readers, but there is an actual language called Basic English, which was created by linguist Charles Ogden in 1930 as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a second language. What survives today of Ogden’s Basic English is the basic 850-word list used as the beginner’s vocabulary of the English language taught worldwide.

When it comes to blogging for business, keeping it basic means using understandable, clear language. “Unless you provide a very specialized service aimed only at professionals, avoid industry jargon and use easily understandable, clear language in your blog,” advises the Chamber of Commerce’s Personal Branding Blog. “Never use a long, complex word when a short, simple one will do, and never say in 15 words what could be said in five.”

“People in different companies and industries often don’t speak the same language,” observes one of my favorite wordsmiths, Milo O. Frank (How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less).

My own observation, based on working with different industries doing corporate blogging training, is that lack of clarity between writer and reader is worse with business-to-consumer corporate blog writing.  But even among suppliers, consultants, and retailers within a single industry, there’s no question that the clearer the words are to all the parties, the easier it becomes for transactions (obviously one of the end goals of marketing blogs) to happen.
Business blogs are all about getting found, then getting the point across.

When it comes to choosing language for flight attendant greetings or for business blogs, it’s best to keep the English basic!

 

 

 

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Know the Value of Your Pieces

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PPCWinning in life involves improving your game. My favorite magazine, Mental Floss, devoted an entire issue earlier this year to advice on winning games. When it comes to the game of chess, Mental Floss presents two pieces of advice from Chessacademy:

  1. The most common beginner mistake is simply not being aware of what’s happening on the board. Being distracted leads to preventable mistakes.
  2. Know the value of your pieces. “Each piece has a respective value, and if you have fewer pieces than your opponent, you’re playing with less material.”

I think about that pieces thing often when discussing online marketing strategies with new Say it For You clients as we begin a blog marketing initiative. Often it’s a small business owner a retail or services field competing with giant national chains. With fewer dollars available, the little guy cannot hope to compete in purchasing adwords and needs to rely on organic search to attract eyeballs.  In other words, my clients are wondering, what are their chances for success when they find themselves playing with fewer game pieces than their larger, better funded, competitors?

NewMediaCampaigns.com asks the same question: “SEO (search engine optimization) vs.PPC (pay per click) – Which Provides You the Better Value?” NewMedia cites research from Jupiter Research showing that 81% of users find their desired destination through a search engine. However, New Media points out, “There’s still a big decision to make – whether to use SEO (naturally ranking high in the organic results) or PPC (purchased ads on a Google search) to get in front of your target.

Jupiter’s findings:

  • Paid search results are 1.5x more likely to convert.
  • Organic results are 8.5X  more likely to be clicked on than paid search results

“It can be concluded that the opportunity from organic search is 5.66x that of paid search,” NewMedia sums up. “You won’t rank #1 overnight, but SEO is more affordable and the longterm benefits have been proven.”

Without the means to use a combination of paid search and organic content marketing through blogging and SEO, my clients may have fewer pieces than their opponents, but with consistency and commitment, they have every chance of winning the customer acquisition game!

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Bloggership – the Art of Getting Them to Want To

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Products And Services Keys Show Selling And Buying Online

Dwight D. Eisenhower had a great definition for leadership: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Is it simply a matter of selling your product or service to prospective customers? After all, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “Everyone lives by selling something.” Sort of, say  co-authors Steve Chandler and Scott Richardson in 100 Ways to Motivate Others.  “Leadership means asking for what you want, being very direct with your request, and having your communication centered on requests and promises.”

“Bloggership” might well be defined the same way as leadership, I think – getting readers to want to. “Briefly,” says Jim Connolly of Jim’s Marketing Blog, “here’s how content marketing works: You build and market a website and stock it with free information that has real value to your prospective clients.”

Damon Rouse of problogger.net advises business bloggers looking to sell stuff on their blog is to be careful not to be purely sales oriented. “While blogs can be used as a tool for selling, they are at their best when they are relational, conversational, and offer readers something useful that will enhance their lives in some way…Most people will not react overly positively to a blog that is just sales spin,” Rouse adds.

“If you show how individual bits of information are related in ways readers hadn’t considered, says Jim Connolly, that establishes your expertise and keeps readers’ attention long enough to you to your “ask”.

Even if “they want to”, readers may be fearful of making the wrong choice. Don’t underestimate those fears, cautions Whale Hunters’ sales trainer Barbara Weaver Smith.  You may be totally focused on the great advantages that you provide with your products and services, and forget that potential buyers are fearful of making the wrong decision. Searchers may lack experiences with the latest proce4sses or technology in your field of expertise, but they know what their own needs are.  Give them a “feel” for desired outcomes of a commitment to buy.

Bloggership – the art of getting online searchers to want to!

 

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Shakespeare Misused Words – Should Bloggers?

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William Shakespeare - 16th centuryHenneke Duistermaat, self-described as an irreverent copywriter and business writing coach, reminds blog content writers that Shakespeare misused words – on purpose.  He used nouns as verbs, and adjectives as verbs, she says. Why? To surprise and “wake up” the brain. Using an unexpected word instead of a familiar word in a common phrase, Duistermaat adds, has the same effect: (“Clothes don’t maketh the woman” is a play on the expression “Clothes make the man”.)

“Boring opening lines aren’t something an author can afford. And yet they’re harder to avoid than you might think,” writes K.M. Weiland, who “helps writers become authors”. We have to make setting, character, and stakes clear to readers, she admits. But the second paragraph will give you plenty of time for all that, she assures students. “Your first concern in writing an opening line is hooking readers. And the only way to hook them is to make them curious.”
“It was a bright and sunny day.” Is just a boring opening line, and Weiland suggests an alternative: “It was a bright and sunny day, just the kind of day I was supposed to die in.”

Readers expect us to supply them with enough info to help them imagine, but they never want us to over-explain, Weiland says. Complex prose can create distance between your readers and your words – or worse, just leave them confused. Ask yourself, she advises writers, whether what you’ve written is really the best way to get the thought across to readers?

“Readers will not care about the backstory until you’ve given them a reason to do so.” True, but humanizing your blog by bringing readers behind the scenes can help keep your company or professional practice relatable.  Even writing about past mistakes and struggles helps readers connect to someone who “has been where they are.” The important hint that Weiland has for us blog content writers is that readers won’t care about the background material until they feel reassured that they’ve come to the right place (your website) to get the products, services, and information they need.

Going back to the Shakespearean ploy of misusing words to add interest, we want our blog posts to stand out and be unusually interesting.  We want readers to want to stay awhile.   And when we put two things together that don’t seem to match, that can have the effect of startling and engaging readers.

Shakespeare knew boredom is a killer of engagement, and – on purpose – shook his text up by misusing words or using them in unusual contexts.  Shouldn’t we?

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