Blue Lobsters Prove Three Points for Blog Content Writers and Consultants

By blogging about blue lobsters’ failures, my productivity consultant friend Robby Slaughter bolstered the two premises behind the Say It For You blog tidbit challenge, while rather ingeniously proving the premise behind his own book, Failure: the Secret to Success.

The whole idea behind the Tidbit Challenge was that any unusual or little-known piece of information can be used by blog content writers to explain the company’s products, services, and special expertise.  Since, as a corporate blogging trainer, I find that the biggest fear business owners have when it comes to maintaining a company blog is the fear of running out of ideas. I was out to prove that ideas are all around us, ripe for the blogging.

As a ghost blogger offering business blogging assistance, I had a second premise behind the Tidbit Challenge.  Experience has taught me that business owners and professional practitioners are often too close to their own business to see things from their customers’ and clients’ point of view. “Teaching” the topic by relating it to an interesting, seemingly unrelated fact, actually helps owners gain new insights into their own business model and into their own clients’ needs. This “learning by teaching” effect happens whether it’s the owner doing the blog content writing him/herself, or whether it happens in the process of planning blog content with a professional writer being employed to provide content for an SEO marketing blog.

In “Blue Lobster Fail”, Robby Slaughter offers a fine example of both my premises, using the little-known fact that one in every four million lobsters is born with a rare genetic disease which turns  it blue, making it easier for predators to spot. That tidbit became the “trigger” for a blog post based on the premise behind Slaughter’s own productivity consulting work, namely that failure often turns out to be the secret of success.

Slaughter writes from the point of view of his readers (a tip everyone providing blog writing services should heed). “It may seem like a tough break to be totally different than everyone else,” Robby writes in emphathetic vein. “Your uniqueness may make it harder to hide from your enemies.” But since fisherman sell rarities like blue lobsters to aquariums, he concludes, it’s actually likely that a blue lobster will have a longer life than its more “normal” friends. 

Your corporate blogging for business will have a longer life if you’re constantly looking for tidbits of information to explain what you have to offer in new and different ways!