Posts

For Kazoos and Blog Marketing, Don’t Blow – Hum!

/0 Comments/in , /by

childs red gazzooWant to pick up the kazoo?  Start with Rule No. 1, advises Barbara Stewart, a classical musician who took the humble instrument all the way to Carnegie Hall. What is Rule #1? Hum, don’t blow.

Always on the hunt for interesting trivia to use as business blog content writing fodder, I was fascinated to learn that the first documented invention of the kazoo was in 1883, but it was not until 1902 that the version we know today was patented by George D. Smith.  One of the original kazoo factories is still in business today in Eden, New York.

Barbara Stewart was an anomaly among serious musicians; the kazoo had lost popularity among professionals, who recognized its serious limitations (although the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix each used it in certain of their songs).

Point is, there’s a lot of similarity – and symbolism – in the kazoo for us business blog content creators.

1. Blogs are not “serious literature”.
“It’s important to distinguish between creating multimedia content and writing in a pure literary sense,” Timothy Bowers tells authors who use blogs to promote their books. “A writer’s blog should deliver the text, and as little else as possible,” is his advice. Strategies and techniques used by other bloggers (hyperlinks, images, embedded videos) do not fall under the category of writing in a pure literary sense, he adds.

2. Like Kazoos, whose musical range is limited, blog posts are, by definition, short pieces, which limits the quality of character and theme development possible in longer works.
While the Internet marketing mantra proposed by digitalmarker.com, “Every piece of content should be as long as it takes to convey the message, and no longer” may be applied to writing of every ilk, blog posts, unlike, say novels, are best when focused on a single message or theme. Novels in contrast may effectively and purposefully meander into character development and even philosophical musing. What each blog post does is focus on just one aspect of your business, so that online searchers can feel at ease and not be distracted with all the other information you have to offer.

3. Blogs, like kazoos, should be hummed, not blown.
The secret of successful business blogging, I found, lies in not “blowing your own horn”, in other words coming on too strong.  A blog is not an advertisement; you might say it’s an advertorial,. staying in “softly, softly” mode. As a content writer for a business or practice, you’re answering readers’ questions and “humming” solutions, not blowing them in readers’ faces!

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Never Can Say Goodbye? Your Online Visitors Will!

/0 Comments/in /by

My trade show maven friend Jane Thompson writes about people who don’t know how to say goodbye. “When you are prepping your booth staff for a show,” she warns, “don’t forget to trade showprepare them for the eventuality of having to extract themselves from a conversation with an attendee who is ‘going on too long’”.

It’s not unusual to find business blog content writers who, like those attendees, go on much too long in a single post. Thompson suggests some closing phrases and actions for trade show booth personnel:

…It was great meeting you
…I hope we’ll run into each other again
…I don’t want to keep you from seeing the rest of the show
….I’ve been monopolizing you…

After that remark, suggests Thompson, shake  long-winded visitors’ hands and give them something to do, such as entering a drawing or filling out a form for an email list. Of course, with business blogs, the shoe’s on the other foot, so to speak. It’s not the visitors who are long-winded, but the creators of the blog!

When it comes to defining “short” or “long”, the blogging community is often divided on the issue, John Rampton, writing in Forbes, points out. Some believe that the shorter, the better, he says, while others stand by the thought that blog posts should be long. The reason why such a divide exists is because both lengths have worked for various bloggers.

What no business owner or professional practitioner wants, obviously, is for readers to feel compelled to “extract themselves” from the conversation. My own advice to content writers has been to stick to one core “thesis” point per post with some short subtopic explanations.

Never can say goodbye?  Your readers will do it for you if you lack focus in your business blog posts!

 

 

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Good-and-Good Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in /by

The six-student presentation at the Hasten Hebrew Academy the other evening was definitely “good and good”. Principal Miriamprofessional speaker Gettinger explained why that expression could be used to describe an effective sermon (her husband’s a rabbi).  In fact, I couldn’t help thinking, “good and good” should be the standard of excellence in any communication, perhaps particularly in blogging for business.

A sermon with good content that is nice and short? That’s good and good. A sermon with good content that drags on interminably? That’s good and bad. Any sermon with poor content but that is mercifully short – well that might be described as bad and good.  Worst of all is a sermon with poor content that is too long – that’s bad and bad, Gettinger pointed out.

“How long?” is one question I hear a lot at corporate blogging training sessions. Typically the business owner or freelance blog content writer is referring to the recommended length of blog posts, or, sometimes, the question refers to the blog post title.

As a longtime professional ghost blogger, working to create marketing blog content for a variety of Say It For You clients, I think the “good-and-good” standard applies. Of course, the most effective length for any one blog post is whatever it takes to hit the main points of the one topic that is the focus for that post.

When it comes to effective blogging for business, we need to “know our size”, exercising “portion control” in the length of paragraphs, of blog titles and of entire blog posts. Blogs need to be conversational rather than billboard-style, and be sprinkled with enough keyword phrase use to attract targeted online traffic.

First and foremost, (the first “good”), the content, needs to be helpful to target readers. Then, make each blog post as short as possible, but no shorter.

You might call that a recipe for “good-and-good” in blogging for business!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail