“Tis the Season at Say It For You – Part One

“Tis the season for looking back and looking ahead.  Since this Say It For You blog was born during the spring of 2008, it was interesting to look back and see what online content writing topics I had thought most important to bring to readers that first year.

“Local Theme Nights are Like Living Blogs,” was the title of my Christmas Eve 2008 post.  True to a practice I’d begun and that I was recommending to blog content writers in Indianapolis, I’d drawn inspiration from a newspaper feature story.  I’d chosen an article about the weekly musical showcases that were becoming, according to the reporter, “quite the rage” around our city.  There was funk and hip hop on Wednesdays at the Jazz Kitchen, folk music Thursdays at Locals Only, hillbilly on Fridays at the Melody Inn.
 

In my blog post, I’d repeated the paper’s quote from Cliff Snyder, co-founder of the Big Roots Show: “The showcases are letting people know what the thing is.  If you’re into this thing, then come support the series.”

That very remark is where I saw an important connection and a point I would later stress in corporate blogging training sessions:  The online search process brings potential customers to your blog precisely because they’re “into the thing”, meaning what you do, what you sell, and what you know about.  As a business owner or professional practitioner, I explain to new Say It For You clients (or to their employees or the freelance blog content marketers they have helping them), it’s now up to you to keep your readers interested and convert some of them into buyers.

“Make no mistake. A good blog requires a lot of planning, hard work, and research,” cautions Russell Powell in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The key is to make blog posts interesting and timely – not as easy as it sounds,” he adds.  Still, he concludes (very much in keeping with the Local Theme Nights idea), “A blog is a dynamic tool for circulating your institution’s message among the people you want to see them.”

Friend and fellow blogger Phil Steele makes the point that social media, including blogging, have the greatest reach and the highest level of buyer intent. Year round, ‘tis the season to use for blog writing – or blog writing services – to reach out to readers who are “into your thing”!