Business Bloggers’ Friday Mythbusting Tip: Proving Readers Right

You can now sample Discovery Channel’s science-fact series through a book.  Mythbusters authors Keith and Kent Zimmerman “blow up things”, both literally and in the form of debunking common myths. 

Myth-busting is a tactic blog content writers can use to grab online visitors’ attention.  In corporate blogging training sessions, I explain to newbie content writers in Indianapolis that citing statistics to disprove popular myths gives business owners the chance to showcase their own knowledge and expertise.

Most of us, for example, in answer to the question “If you get caught in the rain, 
will you stay drier if you walk or run?” would say running makes the most sense.  
The Zimmermans created controlled conditions, including a sprinkler system in a tall
building to measure the velocity of rain, to bust that “common sense” conclusion.

Even experts from the National Oceanographic Atmosphere Administrsation thought running would keep you drier than walking, but the actual results of the Mythbusters experiment demonstrated you’d stay drier by walking!

This experiment is an example of mythbusting at its most compelling.  There is real proof offered, not just an “I’m-the-expert-and-you’re-not” material offered.

Since one of the purposes of any SEO marketing blog is to attract potential customers to the business’ website, it would be a tactical mistake for freelance blog writers to imply they’re out to prove those online visitors wrong.  The Mythbusters authors acknowledge that their readers’ conclusions are intuitive and natural. Anyone might reasonably have come to the conclusion that running to get out of the rain will keep you drier; itt just happens to be that reality is counterintuitive.

In corporate blog writing, then, the trick is to engage interest, but not in “Gotcha!” style. Business owners and professional practitioners blogging for business can showcase their own expertise without “showing up” their readers’ lack of it!