Better Know Who they Are, Says Business Blogging Trainer

All the best jokes have something to teach.  For the freelance blog content writers I train, the following anecdote (shared by humor speaker Ron Culberson at a recent National Speakers Association meeting) holds some important lessons related to corporate blogging for business:

A woman attending a conference turns to her neighbor and says,

“This is the most boring conference ever.  I’m going to skip the keynote address that’s coming up next and go to the beach.”

Man: Do you know who I am?

Woman: No.

Man: I’m the division president and I’M the keynote speaker!

Woman: And do you know who I am?

Man: No.

Woman gets up and leaves….

One of the very first principles of SEO marketing blogs is targeting.  Not only must the content you include in your business blog (or, in the case of Say It For You clients, the business blog content created by your freelance blog writer) offer valuable and up-to-date information, you must make clear to readers that the information has been assembled here specifically for them.

Corporate blog writing (your “keynote address”) will succeed only if:

• It’s clear you understand online searchers’ concerns and needs
   
• You and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the services to solve exactly those problems and meet precisely  those needs.

If readers find themselves asking “Don’t you know who we are?” those searchers are going to do what that woman conference attendee did – get up and leave. 

I think that joke about the conference joke serves as as excellent caution to all of us who are content writers in Indianapolis.  We’re using business blogging to “win search” and now, well, we’ve won – we’ve been found.  They’ve seen us. And here’s the lesson: 

It’s at this point that the real work of a professional ghost blogger begins, not where it ends.

We have to demonstrate to those potential customers and clients that we’ve seen THEM!