Things-You-Didn’t-Know-About Blog Content – Don’t Forget the “Why”

I like tidbits as well as the next gal.  In fact, I find, online readers have a natural curiosity, particularly when you offer information related to a query they’ve already typed into a search bar.  That’s why little-known facts and statistics make for good business blog fodder. Generous sharing of tidbits can help a business owner or professionals come across as keeping up with the latest trends and discoveries in her field.

It’s all good, this tidbit thing, but with a caveat.  It’s not good enough to keep serving up facts, even interesting ones. I thought about that as a worked my way through the latest issue of one of my favorite publications, Discover Magazine, coming across the article “20 Things You Didn’t Know About Animal Senses”. Molly Loomis has all sorts of interesting things to tell.  I learned, for example, that:

• Alligator skin is extraordinarily sensitive to minute changes in vibration, which helps the creature locate prey.
• Elephants use seismic activity generated by their trunks and feet to communicate dangers and mating preferences.
• Four-eyed fish” really have just two partitioned eyes, with the top half of each keeping watch for above-surface predators, and the bottom half watching for underwater enemies.
• Up to 40% of a shark’s brain is devoted to the sense of smell. 

  Mind you, every one of the twenty tidbits covering that 8 ½ x 11” magazine page was interesting, and, no, I hadn’t known any of those facts about animal senses before. Yet, after I’d finished working my way through the material, I was still left with a “So what?” feeling.

In business blog content writing, tidbits can be valuable tools, but the big “IF” is whether the blog writer puts those tidbits into perspective and relates them to the central topic of the blog. A “triggering tidbit” is tied to explanations of the blogger’s own company’s products, services, and culture.

Indianapolis blog content writers – in fact any freelance blog writers –  need never run out of ideas if they keep a collection of interesting tidbits of general information on hand. But then, I advise, use each tidbit as a jumping-off point to explain some unique aspect of your own products or service!