Icon-to-Person Business Blogging

"They join you for breakfast every morning – shouldn’t you get to know them better?" asks Mental Floss Magazine.  Iconic characters, including the Quaker Oats man, Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee, Tony the Tiger, and the Pillsbury Doughboy have become part of our culture, and there’s a reason for that.  Mental Floss titles its write-up “You Are What You Eat”, but as a corporate blogging trainer, I think the message here is that we buy where we see ourselves in the picture and where we relate to the person (at least to the creature) bringing us that message.  

Of course, part of the power of the Cheerios and Pillsbury commercials comes from the human voice (Billy West for Buzz or Paul Frees for the Doughboy), but blog content writers can use “voice” as well. In fact, one interesting perspective on the work we do as professional ghost bloggers is to translate clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms with which target audiences are most likely to relate. That’s exactly why I prefer first and second person writing in business blog posts over third person “reporting”, setting a tone of We’re here and we’re talking with you”.

“Authority” is an important term in SEO marketing blog writing. For one, Google’s algorithms are sensitive to authority when selecting which content to match with a reader’s search in any given category. Perhaps even more important, readers visit your blog for answers and for information they can trust. The success of your blog marketing efforts will be very closely aligned with your being perceived as an expert in your field.

But it’s not authority that draws buyers to Cheerios” Buzz or to Doughboy – it’s “personality”, and that’s what needs to jump off the screen for blog content readers. The content has to showcase the people behind the posts. Using first and second person pronouns gives a sense of revealing the personality and the beliefs of the business owner or of the team standing ready to be of serve.