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Use Allusions, But Don’t Blog Squirrels in a Tire

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tires“Why can’t we innovate as quickly as our competition?’ asks the pointy-haired boss in the comic strip “Dilbert®”.  “Maybe it’s because our management is like a family of squirrels that lives inside an old tire,” suggests Dilbert.  Asked to be more specific, Dilbert says “It’s a Goodyear tire with five grey squirrels.”

Talk about a failed allusion! What do I mean? An allusion is a figure of speech that blog content writers can use with several results in mind:

  • getting readers to think about your subject in a new way
  • cementing a bond between the writer and the readers based on shared experience and knowledge
  • getting a point across without going into a lengthy explanation

Dilbert obviously failed on all three of those counts, because the connection of the metaphor (squirrels in a tire) and the issue of innovation to stay ahead of the competition was not made clear and then not explained.

When you want to liven up your blog content using allusions, be reasonably certain that the reference is obvious and that your target readers are likely to be familiar with the concept you’re trying to convey. Among other things, that means we, as content writers, need to gauge our readers’ level of education.  If we mis-calculate their ability to recognize the allusion, the danger is that readers will find our content frustrating rather than illuminating.

Widely known allusions include:

  • Achilles’ heel _ weakness a person or a company may have  (the Greek god Achilles was invulnerable except for his heel).  A blog on nutrition might refer to chocolate being one’s Achilles’ heel.
  • Stonewalling – hindering or obstructing with delaying tactics (the reference is to Civil War military leader Stonewall Jackson, noted for being strong and stubborn in the face of the enemy). A blog on teamwork might refer to how non-productive it is when a team member “stonewalls”, rather than confronting the problem and communicating.
  • Scrooge – a stingy character who hates to spend money (refers to a character from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). A blog on financial planning might suggest that rather than acting like a Scrooge, you can plan your charitable giving as part of your monthly budget.

As a blogger, you’re not right there with the ability to make eye contact and judge your audience’s reactions, and you can’t know for sure whether your allusion has puzzled them or hit the mark. It might be best to do just enough explaining to make the point clear. Dilbert left the pointy-haired boss wondering why on God’s earth innovation is like squirrels in a Goodyear tire.

Don’t leave your readers wondering just what it was you were trying to convey! 

 

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The Logic and Logistics of Blogging for Business

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Logic on Multicolor Puzzle.
“Writing is very much about the order of ideas presented and the emphasis given to them,” Brandon Royal explains in The Little Red Writing Book. There are two general things readers expect:

  1. to see ideas unfold logically
  2. to have writers give the most important ideas the most coverage

There are different “floor plans” for pieces of writing, including a chronological structure, where you discuss the earliest events first, then move forward in time, and an evaluative structure, in which you discuss the pros and cons of a concept. Different blog posts might use different “floor plans.” But no matter which approach, readers will expect to see those two things – logical presentation, and emphasis on the most important ideas.

“If your presentation is clear and structured, it will be useful and entertaining; if it is disorganized, your work will be confusing and of little value,” is the caution Lanterna Education offers its International Baccalaureate students. Laterna recommends the following sequence for students giving oral presentations:

  • Introduce the overall theme
  • Explain how each key idea will relate back to that overall theme
  • Explain what your audience should know by the end of the class
  • Review each idea, explaining how it taught something new to the class

In answer to the question “How long do users stay on Web pages?” Jakob Nielson of the Nielsen Norman Group says the following:  Users often leave Web pages in 10-20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer.

“As users rush through Web pages, they have time to read only a quarter of the text on the pages they actually visit (let alone all those they don’t). So, unless your writing is extraordinarily clear and focused, little of what you say on your website will get through to customers,” Nielson warns, offering sobering stats that bear out the importance of the two items on Brandon Royal’s reader expectation list.

Is it all about logic and logistics! What about emotional appeal? Isn’t that what makes readers take action? Certainly, but first fulfill reader expectations of order and emphasis, then give heart to the writing with anecdotes, metaphors, stories, and humor!

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Blogging From End to Beginning

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the little red writing book

 

“Strategically, the summary or conclusion should come at the beginning of an expository piece, not at the end,” explains Brandon Royal in The Little Red Writing Book. Royal is referring to a top-down approach, where readers understand from the beginning what the main idea of the piece is, then are given the supporting facts or details.

The author compares two kinds of writing:

  • Expository writing (the primary purpose is to explain and inform)
  • Creative writing (the primary purpose is to persuade or entertain)

Blog content writing, I suppose, is a blend of both expository and creative. Certainly one motive for business owners or professional practitioners in maintaining their blog is to persuade readers to use their products or engage their services. Yet informing readers and answering questions is a primary goal as well.

A well-conceived blog post will proactively interpret information in ways that are not only understandable, but usable by readers, “unwrapping” and drilling down to the core of the message. But, how are searchers to know they’ve come to the right place? Once readers have actually landed on your blog, it takes a “grabber” to hold interest and keep them moving through the information (That’s where the concept of putting the summary at the beginning instead of at the end comes in.)

Unlike novelists, we blog content writer simply cannot afford to focus on arousing curiosity by being enigmatic in our titles and in our opening lines. If we fail to assure readers that they’ve come to the right place to find the information that satisfies the needs that brought them online to find answers, they’ll bounce away from our site before we get to share our thoughts!

The way Brandon Royal sees it, “We should think about giving the reader a destination first before giving him or her the directions on how to get there!”  Blog post opening lines set the tone and arouse curiosity, but in business blogs, it’s best not to sustain a sense of mystery for very long!

 

 

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Spend Time Adding Blog Value, Not Subtracting Typos

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book Get Noticed in a Noisy World

 

“Don’t hire a proofreader for your blog,” is Michael Hyatt’s advice in the book Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World. Why not?

1. It will delay “shipping” – Perfection is the mother of procrastination.
2. Blogs are not books – you can make corrections later and then immediately republish.
3. Even proofreaders don’t catch every typo.

Wait a minute! Not two weeks ago in the very Say It For You blog, didn’t I repeat my rant about “spinach-in-the-teeth” bloopers in blog content, warning content writers how important it is for us to pay attention to grammar and spelling in our blog posts?

As part of that very post, I bolstered my argument in favor of being finicky about grammar and spelling by quoting Christina Wang of Shutterstock.com, who writes “No matter where you work or what you do, everyone needs to know how to write effectively for business these days.”

Like Tevya (of Fiddler on the Roof), who was fond of saying, “On the other hand,” I concede  there are valid points on both sides of most arguments, including the grammar-Nazi/ frequency of posting content dilemma.

On the one hand, “Stay focused on your writing and your output,” Hyatt advises. “Churn out the posts. The more your write, the better you will get.” Does correct spelling and proper grammar really matter?  After all, your blog is supposed to reveal the real you!

On the other hand, as Copyblogger’s Brian Clark explains, there are certain mistakes that detract from your credibility. And truth be told, the “real me” has a very real opinion in favor of fastidiousness about proper writing.

I do approve of Michael Hyatt’s three-step precautionary advice to blog content writers:

  • Read through each post twice.
  • Read it out loud.
  • Publish it as a draft and read it fully formatted on the blog site itself.

I even, at least generally speaking, approve of Hyatt’s summation: “Spend time writing content that adds value rather than obsessing over every typo, misspelling, and grammatical error.”

True, but….We blog content writers do want to get noticed in this “noisy” online world, but not for all the wrong reasons!

 

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In Blogging for Business, Get Rid of Worthless Words

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“Let’s be honest: Nobody likes flab, especially when it comes to content,” says Julia McCoy of the Content Marketing Institute.”Icky, flabby, worthless words” are distracting and alienating to readers, McCoy adds.

Since, as business blog content writers, the last thing we want to do is alienate readers, I thought McCoy’s  worthless word list was worth a careful look.

In order to. Simply deleting this phrase makes any statement clearer.

Really.  If something is “really” big, just how big is it? Readers respond better to text that gets more granular in its measurements.

Believe (or think). People are more interested in the facts and hard information than in vague thoughts, McCoy opines. Actually, I don’t fully agree.. A point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions – whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, you’ve need to express an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. (You may not need to use the words “believe” or “think”.)

A lot.  Too vague. Use percentages, pounds, solid units of measurement.

Always (or never). Neither extreme is likely to be true, McCoy points out. Opt for “few” or “rare” on the low end, “most” or “many” on the high end.

Stuff. Not descriptive or specific, McCoy points out.

Just. Unless you mean “fair”, remove the word “just”, which adds nothing to the meaning of your sentence.

Literally. Whether used correctly (to mean “exactly) or incorrectly, the word is superfluous.

So. This little word doesn’t do much. Delete it without affecting the sentence’s meaning.

Often. Replace this flabby word with a descriptive term such as “five times a week”, McCoy advises.

Get rid of the blog flab by getting rid of useless words!

 

 

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