Turn Bloopers Into Benefits In Your Blog

Nothing like a good blooper in your blog to keep you humble, I must say.  A week or so ago, intent on making a point about using business blogging to provide information rather than to sell products and services, I inadvertently provided some misinformation in my own Say It For You blog post!

In my post, I was holding up as an example of good writing a wonderful "advertorial" I’d found in the Indianapolis Star, provided by the Wild Birds Unlimited company. The article was all about goldfinches, and I liked the fact that it stayed true to feature/benefit format, a lesson I think business bloggers should take to heart.  To emphasize my point, I said I’d found no "Buy our goldfinches" in the message, only lots of information that might make me want to buy goldfinches. 

My comeuppance came in a no-uncertain-terms comment from Sarah of Wild Birds Unlimited, letting me know Wild Birds doesn’t sell goldfinches. Apparently, according to Sarah, I was one of the "lots of people who still don’t understand what Wild Birds Unlimited offers".  (Not to be defensive, therein might lie a lesson for Wild Birds, too!)

In "They Never Said That", Reader’s Digest talks about a different sort of common blooper – attributing a famous quote to the wrong speaker (not to mention "doctoring" the quote itself!). ReadersDigest.com calls the Internet "that most powerful engine of misinformation".

The most popular quote of modern times, according to the Digest, is "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".  President Kennedy credited Edmund Burke for that, and Presidents Ford and Reagan repeated his error, but the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations has found no evidence whatsoever linking that quote to Burke.  Actual changes to quotes turned Leo Durocher’s "The nice guys are all over there – in seventh place." into the pithier "Nice guys finish last", and "Beam us up, Mr. Scott" into "Beam me up, Scotty!".

If you don’t blog frequently, you won’t attract negative comments, but neither will you attract the attention of search engines who in turn deliver readers to your blog site.  The real lesson here is not to avoid bloopers at all costs, but to encourage comments and reply to them, even if humble pie is the menu of the day for you. 

Business blogs are about conversation.  Sure as my name is Rhoda Israelov, one of these days you’ll put your foot right in your …blog.  And sure as Say It For You, someone will comment on your mistake!