More of the Say It For You Magazine Challenge

The magazine challenge exercise is one answer to “bloggers’ block” (you know, that condition when, inevitably, blog content writers get stuck thinking up new ideas to keep their posts engaging). The idea is to use a magazine of your choice, combing its pages to find new ideas for business owners and professionals to explain what they do and how and why they do it.

This week, I’m using the People Magazine Style and Beauty Extra as my jumping-off point, because in it I found a number articles that suggest new ways of presenting familiar information. Of course, with business blogging demanding consistency and frequency, finding new ways of presenting familiar information is what our task is all about.

One useful article, I thought, was “Beauty Myth vs. Reality”. Style and beauty experts were asked to weigh in on which treatments used by actresses from Hollywood’s Golden Age stand the test of time. The article was organized by the purpose of the treatment. For platinum hair, for example, celebrity Jean Harlow used to apply a mixture of peroxide, ammonia, Clorox, and Lux laundry soap flakes.  She did that weekly.  The magazine then quotes modern hair expert Frederic Fekkai, who says that bleaching hair too often makes it turn coarse and dull.  The article continued in similar format, discussing treatments for shiny hair, to fight wrinkles, for glowing skin, for soft skin, and to close pores.

Organizing information in new ways is one important way in which business blog content can bring value to readers. Even using content from former blog posts, newsletters, or even emails, from other people’s blogs and articles, from magazine content, or from books, collating those into new categories and summarizing the main ideas you found useful can prove of great use and interest to readers.

What myth-vs.-reality items relating to your own business or professional practice can help organize information and advice?