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Accentuate the Negative?

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dog food

“Eliminate the negative an’ latch on to the affirmative” was Johnny Mercer’s musical advice back in 1945. Playing to one’s strengths has, in fact, been a popular fad in management development circles. As a blog content writer, though, sometimes I wonder.

The latest issue of Modern Dog magazine features eight article titles on its cover:

  1. How Not to Train Your Puppy
  2. Gift ideas galore
  3. Big Dogs and their Puppy Counterparts
  4. Winter Survival Tips
  5. Great Gear
  6. I’m Adoptable
  7. Find a New Best Friend
  8. “Why is My Dog Staring at Me?”

Guess which one attracted my attention the most? Yeah, gotta admit… it was the negative one telling me how NOT to train my puppy. And guess what? It’s not just me.  People are drawn to articles with negative titles, my friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball pointed out a year ago. Posts with negative titles stand out in a blog roll, on a Twitter feed or LinkedIn page, and the negative posts are more likely to be shared, retweeted and read.

What’s with us? Well, “Edgy language draws attention”, Lorraine explains. (Lorraine’s title “Why Your Blog Titles Suck” is one too edgy for me, but I get the idea. I do.) Fact is, I would’ve picked “Why is My Dog Staring at Me?” before “How to Train Your Puppy”.  It was that How-NOT-to that drew my attention.

But that doesn’t jibe at all with Rich Brook’s advice on socialmediaexaminer: “The how-to is the most powerful of all the blogging archetpyes.”  Your prospects and customers have a problem and you can help them solve it by creating a step-by-step post that walks them through a solution, he says. That may be true, counters Lorraine Ball, but fear of failure is core to who we are as people, and it’s hard to resist reading material about how to avoid it.

Could it be that first accentuating the negative, and only then latching on to the affirmative is the best advice for us business blog content writers?

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Being the Type They Can Count On

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In deciding whether to trust someone, we weigh two key characteristics, Adam Galinsky and Maurice Concept of reliability in businessSchweitzer explain in their book Friend and Foe – competence and warmth.

Basically, we ask ourselves two questions:

  • Does this person have the ability to follow through?
  • Do they have my best interest at heart?

Trust is a mightily important element in business blogging. Readers, after all, found your blog because what they needed corresponded with what you sell, what you know, and what you know how to do. They’ve clicked on the link, and now they’re “meeting” you for the first time.
How will you appear to readers in terms of competence? There are two elements at work here:

  • Credibility – It becomes evident, through the content of the blog, that you’re the subject matter expert they’re seeking.
  • Reliability – You’ve helped clients and customers “just like them” many times before; you’re familiar with your readers’ needs and concerns.

Even if you’ve come across as the most competent of providers, you still need to pass the “warmth” test. Does your blog present you as “real people”, with a passion for serving in your field?

The founder of Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling, believes the success of his organization comes from two elements:

  • There’s no “wall of artistry” or stage curtain between the storyteller and audience.
  • The storytellers share their own human failures and frailty.

As business owners or practitioners in today’s click-it-yourself, do-it-yourself world, our content writing needs to demonstrate to online searchers that, in our fields, we ARE smarter than Google Maps, or eHow, or Wikipedia. 

Even more important, we need to make clear, we’re a lot more caring for our customers – they can count on us!

 

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Blogging to One-Tank Destinations

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kind rijdt autoHave you visited the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Notre Dame, Indiana? How about the Five Points Fire Museum in Lafayette, IN? I haven’t been to either, but after learning through the Columbian magazine that those would be “one tank destinations” for me (I live in Indianapolis), I’m adding both locations to my vacation day fun possibilities list.

There’s a valuable nugget of wisdom in this for us blog content writers, I realize. Had that article in the Columbian been about two faraway, exotic destinations, I’d probably have simply turned the page. Instead, I cut the item out of the magazine, posting it on my kitchen bulletin board.

Thing is, in marketing, it’s all about accessibility and ease when it comes to triggering action on the part of readers, whether in print or online. Making a business’ or a practice’s products and services accessible and easy to acquire or use has to be at the top of our best practices list when it comes to writing content for business blogs.

What are some ways to make the information in blog posts “one-tank”, meaning easy to access and easy to put into action?

  • Offer answers in a few, short, well-thought-out words, with longer answers to follow if requested
  • Insert Calls to Action at various points throughout a business blog post
  • Remind readers of the annoyances and hassles they’re experiencing with their present providers and products.  Go on to describe the perfect, hassle-free solution to their problems.
  • Don’t just say “Contact us.” (What exactly do you want your reader to think, feel, or do?) Have people fill out a form where they tell you “where they want to go”.
  • Focus on one specific step readers can take. Choose a very specific problem or need, and offer a very clear and compelling solution.

    Are you taking your blog readers to one-tank destinations?
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Blogging Assumption-Free

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Follow the Guidelines sign isolated on white backgroundI’ve been doing some heavy thinking about assumptions, and it’s Daniel Herndon’s fault.

“Assumptions can be good or bad, but either way they inform our beliefs and opinions,” Herndon says. Assumptions inform the decisions we make, and often they can be productive, he admits. But what about when our assumptions are counterproductive? he asks. (That’s precisely the question I haven’t been able to stop turning over in my mind ever since his thought-provoking newsletter hit my inbox.)

What if our assumptions are keeping us from doing something great? (Read these examples from the Herndon post– you won’t be able to get them out of your mind, either!)

  • What if your parents are not always right?
  • What if you don’t have to change your oil every 3000 miles?
  • What if you don’t have to go to college to get a good job?
  • What if some things don’t ‘happen for a reason’?

I’ve been “translating” this assumption-challenging attitude into my own field of blog content writing.  “What if all those rules we were taught at all those webinars and seminars and ebooks and “15 things” lists are actually stopping us from writing truly great content?” is what I’ve been asking myself.

  • What if blog readers don’t have as short an attention span as we thought?
  • What if they don’t all read at a sixth grade level?
  • What if you don’t need to keep the content “above the fold”?
  • What if searching Google AdWords isn’t the best starting point for creating posts?
  • What if being almost obnoxiously opinionated on issues in your field is just fine?
  • What if you went ahead and gave away all your how-to “secrets” in your blog and your readers still wanted you to provide services for them?
  • What if keeping below 65 characters wasn’t the most important thing about writing a title for a blog post?

What if you had your ideal prospect sitting right in front of you, and you were going to take three minutes to teach him one thing he needs to know how to do? What if you were going to take three minutes to share with her a valuable insight, or express and explain your point of view on a controversy that’s in the news?  No blogging platform, no SEO, just talking.

Now sit down and do something great. Write your blog post directly to that one man or woman.  Assume they’re going to read it – every word.

Next time you’re getting ready to write copy for a blog post, ask yourself Daniel Herndon’s question: “What if what you believe and take for granted is actually a false assumption?”

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Strangest-Things Blogging for Business

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You wouldn’t believe some of the strange things that get sent in the mail, says David Moye, writing in the Huffington Post. In fact, Moye explains, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not runs an annual Strange Mail Contest.

The 2014 contest winner, for example, was a 19-pound tree trunk with a horseshoe embedded in it.  Ripley vice president of exhibits and archives Edward Meyer chose the entry not only for its size and weight, but also because of its uniqueness. Runners-up included a prosthetic arm, an animal skull, a mailbox, and a roll of toilet paper.

Mental Floss Magazine’s latest issue lists “14 Unusual Items You Can Get at Libraries”, including:

  • umbrellas (Cornell U. Library offers umbrellas than can be borrowed)
  • American Girl dolls (the Arlington Public Library has eight dolls available to borrowers)
  • Surfboards (Inverloch Library in Australia)
  • art for your office (Aurora Library in Illinois) has 30 sculptures available to borrow for up to 8 weeks)
  • knitting needles (Morse Institute Library in Natick, Mass.)
  • puppies (Yale Law Library)

While all these things are available for temporary use, for us blog content writers, the real and “permanent” takeaway, I believe, is that strange and unusual tidbits tend to engage readers’ curiosity and interest. If we open our minds to it, I’m convinced, we can make very good use of on-the-surface-useless information. The whole idea is to provide information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know, and then tie the tidbit to our own topic.

What are some of the strangest things you’ve encountered in your business or practice?

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