“Learning Around” For Your Blog – Part 1

One quality that make for a great ghost blogger is a "third ear", I always say.  That’s because a ghost uses that extra "ear" to hear not only what the business owner client wants to say, but to pick up on that owner’s unique style and business beliefs (the things that often aren’t expressed in words).

When I think more about it, though, all bloggers need to do more of that third-ear type listening.  Time to write is scarce for business owners.  We know that.  Many lack the discipline to keep up the blogging frequency needed to win search.  There’s something else, though, that I hear from many business owners and managers – they’ve run out of ideas!  A month or two into blogging for their business, the glaring question is, "So, what else is there to blog about?" 

Read around, learn around, is my advice as a blogging trainer.  Ideas are all over the place, all of the time, in fact, but you’ve got to "hear" and make the connection. This week, I’m going to devote my Say It For You blog posts to "signals" you can pick up of Other People’s Wisdom (O.P.W.).  You can share OPW to help visitors to your blog understand what it is that you do, what you sell, and what your business is really all about.

Take feature stories, for example.  You know, those interesting spots you hear on radio or TV or read about in magazines. Ask yourself: "Could I use that story to explain…..?":

Back in 2008, I read in Newsweek about a New York City building that was being turned into an interactive keyboard by wiring an antique organ to various spots around the place. Rock singer/artist David Byrne said he was tired of people going to concerts as passive consumers "waiting to be filled with music" emanating from a stage.  "Playing the Building", by contrast, he explained, would come to life only when the public participated.

I "heard" that story with my "third ear", and realized I could use it to demonstrate the interactive nature of blogs, which are available for acting and interacting between businesses and their customers. 

Could this story make a point about the way YOU do business?