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Back Matter Blogging

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“Writing the end of a story isn’t always the end of the book,” explains Whitney Hill in Writer’s Digest. “Even if there’s no sequel, there’s more to say, and it goes in the back matter.” The “back matter” offers additional value to those readers who enjoyed and engaged with your work enough to read through to the end. That section  adds content and helps readers look ahead to the next book.

Hill lists some standard things found in back matter:

  • acknowledgement of people who helped in the writing and editing
  • personal information about the author
  • praise – awards won
  • a pitch for the next book
  • commenting on a specific change the narrator undergoes as a result of the experience described in the book

But, in addition to these, the editor suggests, authors might like to “call out” situations or new events that are affecting them and their readers.

The Author Learning Center refers to back matter as epilogues, afterwords, or author’s notes.

Can blog content writers use “back matter”? Definitely.

  1. While, in blogging for business, it’s important to offer enough information in each post to convincingly cover the key theme, in order to cover a topic more comprehensively, the material can be divided into several different blog posts relating to that one issue or problem. The “back matter” would explain that a discussion of other aspect of the issue will be covered in future posts
  2. Certainly personal information about the business owner or practitioner might be included in the back matter as well. In addition, suggestions as to where to find more in-depth information on the topic (perhaps linked to landing pages) represent a perfect use for back matter.
  3. Using the back matter to explain how learning the information conveyed in the post actually changed your own (or your blogging client’s) thinking and how that will be reflected in a change in business procedures or in customer service changes.
  4.  At Say It For You, we particularly like the concept of using the back matter to make “a pitch for the next book”. In the age of the Internet, there’s no end, it seems, to the technical information available to consumers. But it falls to us business blog content writers to break all that information down into chewable tablet form! Serving as a “tour guide” or “librarian” for your readers, giving them the benefit of your own searches and information “sorting” is a valuable use for the back matter of blog posts.

The end of a blog post isn’t always the end of the blog!

 

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Food For Thought and For Blog Posts

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As part of positioning your business or practice as a go-to source of information, you want your blog content to arouse curiosity and interest, all the while amplifying awareness of what you have to offer that is unique in the marketplace. Not only do you want your own brand to be perceived as innovative, you want to actually become more innovative in serving your customers and clients. And, while you may not be involved in a food-related industry, this article in Mental Floss Magazine, in which Michele Debczak traces the history of inventions that changed food history, might well trigger some content ideas for your blog….

1874 –
American doctor Samuel W. Francis received a patent for his spoon-fork-knife hybrid. The new utensil didn’t take off until the 1950s, when Hyde Ballard trademarked the name spork and the plastic revolution made it easy to manufacture.  What devices – or what processes – help make your product or service more convenient for users?

1905 –
Robert J. Barkley of Kansas had created an egg carton, obviating the necessity of counting and of the danger of breaking the eggs by frequent handling. The Bartender’s Guide to Batching describes an efficient way to make sure that in busier times, every customer receives a quality and consistent drink. Streamlining your delivery service can increase your website’s sales, SellerExpress advises. What steps does your business or practice take to make things convenient for users?

1928 –
In 1928, Iowa inventor Otto Rohwedder filed a patent for a machine that sliced entire loaves of bread at once. Kleen Maid Sliced Bread debuted on July 7, 1928. The day before, the Constitution-Tribune published a glowing endorsement calling the product “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped”. (That copy is believed to be the origin of the phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread”.) Consumers prioritize saving time, effort and money. A “tutorial” in your blog can suggest ways for readers to accomplish a task in less time and at a lower cost.

1933 –
As Dow Chemical lab worker Ralph Wiley was cleaning equipment, he noticed a thin plastic film had formed inside a vial. The material naturally adhered to surfaces and blocked water and oxygen molecules. Originally used to protect military fighter planes and car upholstery, the product was renamed Saran Wrap after Wiley’s boss’ wife Sarah and daughter Ann. An “innovative blog” describes trends in your industry, handy statistics, and useful advice to readers, as well as highlighting innovations your own business or practice is introducing.

1945 –
Raytheon Company engineer Percy LeBaron Spencer was visiting a lab testing microwave-producing magnetrons when he noticed that the candy bar in his pocket had melted. His dry-cleaning bill ended up being a small price to pay for the flash of inspiration he had that day. As the story goes, Spencer sent out for some uncooked popcorn, and when it popped in front of the active magnetron, Spencer realized that microwave radiation could be used as a quick and convenient heat source for cooking. Later that year, he filed a patent for the microwave oven. By introducing readers to the people behind your brand, you “humanize” your blog content, helping readers feel a connection to your company or practice.

Your business or practice may not be directly related to food, but these tidbits about inventions that changed the food industry might well trigger some blogging “food for thought”!

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Your First Job is to Communicate a Beautiful Idea

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“Caught up in the difficulty of mystifying, magicians often forget that the first job of any artist is to communicate a beautiful idea,” is a quote from Raymond Joseph Teller in Joshua Jay’s book How Magicians Think. One idea that audiences find irresistibly beautiful is that they are being given access to “secret”, or at least little-known, information. That is precisely the tactic Penn & Teller used in demonstrating the age-old cups and balls trick, but using clear plastic cups, demonstrating that it is the magician’s skill rather than the props that create illusions.

“The idiom ‘inside scoop’ particularly refers to information that is only known to people who are among a select group”, grammarist.com explains. In the book Craved, author Kel Hammond notes that people love behind-the-scenes video footage, which makes people feel like they’re in the know. Showing people a more personal side of who is behind the brand is a powerful marketing tool. In other words, it’s the idea of being empowered with “inside info”, rather than the information itself, the accomplishes the marketing goal.

Researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

  1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
  2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

    At Say It For You, our business is blog marketing, which means connecting professional practitioners and business owners with prospective clients and customers. And, while I continually preach and teach that blog posts are not ads, but more like advertorials, establishing connections is the name of the game for both advertisers and content marketers. The first job of content marketing is, in fact, to communicate ideas that online visitors will find “beautiful”, making them feel as if they are part of a well-informed “inside group”.

    Sometimes, the “beauty” of the blog content is that it simplifies and unifies diverse details into central concepts.. Other times the “beauty” lies in linking “conversation-piece” tidbits of information to concepts that help readers better understand complex processes. Caught up in the difficulty of online marketing, let’s remember that the first job of any blog content writer is communicating beautiful ideas.

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Blog to Help Them Feel Smart

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“What will I tell my friends?” “Why will I tell them?”

It’s never the case that people will tell their friends about you and the products and services you offer just because you want them to, or because you asked them to, Seth Godin points out in This is Marketing. Please-give-me-a-favorable-review-on-Yelp isn’t how it really works now, Godin cautions. Give them a reason for sharing, he advises.

During my 25 years’ writing a financial advice column (long before Say It For You was born), I learned that people like to sound smart when they’re in conversation with others at their tennis club, on the golf course, or while out with friends at an eatery. In addition to offering valuable advice, I came to realize, a second function of content writing was “arming” readers with tidbits of information they would enjoy sharing with others.

Half a dozen years ago, the Business Insider published a semi-humorous piece titled “14 Meaningless Phrases that Will Make You Sound Like a Stock-Market Wizard”. The authors listed market phrases that “sound intelligent but don’t mean anything”, such as “The easy money has been made.” “It’s not a stock market. It’s a market of stocks.” “Stock are down on profit-taking.”

That sort of smart-sounding but meaningless information is not at all what I mean when I talk about using blog marketing to “arm” your readers with shareable nuggets. Nor is it what Seth Godin is alluding to when he describes the “people like us do things like this” phenomenon. For most of us, Godin says, our decisions are primarily driven by one question, “Do people like me do things like this?”

In blog marketing, accentuate the practical, we teach content writers at Say It For You. Go ahead and teach readers “secrets” of how to do what they want to do – better, faster, and more economically. Since people like helping one another, your practical, useful (not merely useful-sounding) “secrets” are likely to be shared at the dinner table, across the tennis net, or on the green.

“What will I tell my friends?” By providing ongoing, relevant, and useful information in your blog, you will have provided the answer to that question. “Armed” readers will want to share, because, after all, that’s what “people like me” do!

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Blogging Your Pull Quote

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In graphic design, a key phrase or sentence is sometimes “pulled” from an article and placed in a larger print in a box on the page. The “pull quote” is used to draw interest, but also gives readers a a “preview” of the thesis to be proven or at least discussed in the article.

In a recent issue of Health Magazine, the article “The Digital-Era Brain” (a discussion of whether the Internet is eroding our memory) features the following pull-quote, printed in bold: “In one study, a group of students said they spent 20 percent of class time texting, playing games, and checking social media”. A second article discussing the USA Memory Championship, titled “Battle of the Big Brains”, features the following pull quote: “Though the brain accounts for only 2 percent of the body’s mass, it uses up a fifth of all the oxygen we breathe and burns a quarter of our glucose.”

In blog posts, both titles and images can serve as “pull quotes”.

“Pull quote” titles

When it comes to blogging for business, titles matter, and for two basic reasons: a) Keywords and phrases help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer. b) Exactly like the pull quote on the magazine page, the idea is to “pull” in readers by engaging their interest.

If the title is phrased as a question, asking readers if they’re grappling with an issue or a need that you not only know about, but which you’re accustomed to helping solve – that’s perfect as a pull quote tactic.

“Pull quote” images

Adding images to blog posts has been shown to increase readership. In fact, consumers have been shown to be more likely to consider or contact a business when an image appears in search results. What we’ve found at Say It For You, interestingly, is that commercial images, or “clip art”, which don’t depict the actual products, customers, or colleagues of that business or practice, work particularly well as interest “pullers”, capturing the main concept that will be articulated in the post.

In a very basic sense, blog posts themselves function as “pull quotes”. In fact, one of the most important reasons blogs have a distinct advantage over the more static website copy is that each post draws visitors’ focus to just one story, one aspect of the business, practice, or product, precisely in the manner that a pull quote draws attention to just one main concept embodied in the full article.

Use blogging as a set of pull quotes for your website offerings!

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