What Pictures Add to the Picture in Blogging for Business

Out of Debbie Hemley’s 26 tips for writing great blog posts, there are a few that I think will be particularly useful for the new freelance blog content writers I train, and I’m devoting this week’s Say It For You blog posts to elaborating on those.

Using photos in business blog posts, Hemley explains, is critical, so she sends readers to a great Judy Dunn article on the subject (great example, by the way, of how curating material from other writers helps us elaborate on points we want to make to our readers).

What is it that pictures add to the picture?

• Interest.  Words alone are boring, says Dunn. Plus, she adds, “Let’s face it, we’re all attention-disordered.”
• Aids learning.  “At least 60% of your readers are visual learners,” Dunn observes.
• Photos create analogies and metaphors.
• Photos evoke emotions. (Henley advises choosing a photo that conveys the overall feeling or emotion of your post.)

Since there have been almost 850 separate Say It For You blog posts published thus far, each with a photo or clip art component, I performed a “thumb-through” to find examples for each of Dunn’s list of advantages.

Capturing interest:  In my post “Business blogging – Royal Pronouns in the Post?” The photo of the royal trumpets draws interest and connects with the topic of discussion, which is the way the use of pronouns sets the point of view and tone of a blog post.

As a learning aid:   The entire post “Raise Your Hand if You Read Blogs” is a commentary on a poster I’d seen on an Ivy Tech bulletin board, using that poster as a tutorial for blog content writers to demonstrate the importance of headline content, targeting the audience, and including calls to action in their posts.

As a metaphor:  For my post “Expand Your Blog Content Writing With Adjacency”, I used the photo of two pairs of shoes set out on the floor with the toes facing to symbolize using topic “adjacency” to expand the range of content for a business blog.

To evoke emotion: In “Blog More What You Believe Than What You Are!” I emphasize that the giving online readers a feel for the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs about their industry.