The inside back cover of a magazine I read caught my attention - a plain white page with four large-type words in the middle:

   THIS SPACE FOR RENT
 
Small print on the page's bottom corner explains the magazine is looking for an advertiser.  What if you saw pages and pages of space, with these four words:

THIS SPACE FOR FREE

You do see that.  Every single day.   On the Internet. No fooling.

According to Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware, "Consumer spending might be slowing, but Internet search is alive and well".  Pay-per-click advertising "rents" marketing space to businesses for advertising.  But there's far, far more room online sporting "Space For Free" signs available for posting corporate blogs.  In the time it's taken you to read this far into my blog, hundreds of thousands of new blog posts have been introduced into the blogosphere, some of them by your competitors..

Comprehensive research developed by Universal McCann shows 73% of online users read blogs; 39% request a subscription, or RSS feed to blogs.

It's never too late, but it's definitely time -  for you to get a blog started to grow your business.  The blogosphere is very big, and the space itself is free.  The people you want to reach are there.  Statistics from the Pew Internet Project tell us that search for information on the Internet is outstripping search for news and weather information and even surpassing email. 

Everybody's there on the Internet, it appears.  Is your company's blog there, ready to be found by all your customers and clients-to-be?

Got space?

Whenever my grandmother was dealing with a situation she thought was ambiguous, she'd remark, "I don't know whether to use a fork or a spoon for that one!" Sometimes business owners embarking on a blogging strategy for marketing feel that same way. Their ambiguity about their blog seems especially keen when the business involves professional expertise and not just a tangible product. 

First, some business owners are afraid that, if they share too much information about their field, clients won't need to pay them to provide expertise!  Web designer Mark Carillion, quoted in Employee Benefit Advisor Magazine, has something valuable to say about that concern.  "Many advisers won't share information with potential clients until they've been hired"  "But", he points out, ".…the guy who gives out the most information freely is the guy who ends up winning the traffic war."

The opposite concern business owners often express to me is that they don't want to come off boastful and self-serving in their blog, or be perceived as using hard-sell tactics to promote themselves. That concern is addressed by Steve Wamsley in his book "Stop Selling And Do Something Valuable", which was reviewed in the Financial Planning Association website. Here's what Wamsley has to say: "We have to sell ourselves to potential clients so that they choose to work with us rather than the competition…in our role as advocates (he's speaking to financial planners), we need to persuade people to act."

Talking with new business owner clients about the ambiguities they sense when planning their blogs (for which I'm to be their "voice") is undoubtedly the most important part of our work together. As I explained in The Don't Do It Yourself Trend Hits Clothing And Blogging, I'm part of that business' marketing team, and we need to find the exact right approach for their blog, their business, their target readers.  Yes, through their blog, they will be giving away valuable information, and it will be "for free"!  Yet their blog will become their way of selling themselves and their services to online searchers.

Once the business owners and I have agreed on the tone and look for the blogs, it won't matter whether online searchers show up with a fork or a spoon - they'll know they've come to the right place!

Say It For You can't compete with Wham-O, the maker of Hula Hoops and Frisbees I blogged about earlier this week.  In its first year of.business (fifty years ago), Wham-O sold more than one Hula Hoop for every two Americans alive at the time.  I'm hardly crushed, though.  For 2008, my first full year of professional ghost blogging, I've earned boasting rights of my own. Hard to believe, but I posted the equivalent of one and three quarters blogs for each day in the past calendar year. Most of these blogs, of course, were posted on behalf of my clients' businesses and professional practices.  Now, with the help of some contracted writers, Say It For You's on track to triple those results for 2009.

2008 marked the death of a fellow blogger whom I never got to meet in person.  Olive Riley, promoted as the world's oldest blogger, passed away at age 108 in her native Australia, after posting 74 blogs over a year and a half. 

While the blogs I write are what marketing guru Seth Godin calls "viral blogs", meant to attract traffic to business websites, Olive's were personal blogs, which Seth calls "cat blogs".  Olive used blogging to stay in touch with friends, to share thoughts and experiences, and to discuss ideas.  Her online obituary says "she will be mourned by thousands of Internet friends."

Whether blogs aim to attract customers or correspondence among like-minded people, all blogs must begin with a core philosophy, explains Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware.  "The content needs to be human, passionate, and authentic," he says, adding that "Anything less is a waste of time."

"Hula Hoop was the granddaddy of all fads," says the V.P. of marketing for Wham-O, the company that in 1958, its first year in business, sold more than one Hula Hoop for every two Americans alive at the time.  Fad's the right description  for that early rush of success, because sales of Hula Hoops plummeted so rapidly from there, Wham-O took them completely off the market until 1965.

Chapter Two, The Comeback, began in 1965 and is still happening, and this is the chapter of Hula Hoop's history most interesting to me as a professional blogger.  Wham-O's co-founders came up with a new twist, inserting ball bearings into Hoola Hoop cylinders to make a "swoosh" sound.  Interest in the toy revived, and the toy was back in production.  This week, as we ring in the New Year, it will be Hula Hoop's 51st anniversary.

Blogging for business is enjoying its own heyday just now.  Blogging maven Terry Philpott comments that blogs have evolved into low-cost advertising and marketing platforms that no business can afford to ignore.  Millions of blog posts enter the blogosphere day in, day out, begging the question of whether, one day, blogging will be relegated to the ranks of marketing "fad-dom".

That's not likely to happen any time soon, is my take.  But, just as with Hula Hoop, inserting new "ball bearings" will be what keeps business blogging in the "now".  Search engine rankings reward recency, a.k.a. new content.  That, by the way, is the key reason traditional websites just can't compete with corporate blogging, according to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware.  New information, new commentary, new insights, new stories - those are all ball bearings for blogs.

Happy 51st, Hula Hoop!  We bloggers plan to be around quite awhile ourselves!

Weekly music showcases are becoming quite the rage around Indianapolis.  For funk and hip-hop, it’s Wednesdays at the Jazz Kichen. Thursdays, it’s folk music at the Big Roots Show at Locals Only.  At Melody Inn, you can find Hillbilly Happy Hour on Fridays or punk rock on Saturdays.  As a professional ghost blogger, I can’t help thinking of these showcases as living blogs.  That’s because, as David Lindquist puts it in the Indianapolis Star, “they help musicians and their fans find each other.”

As I explained in one of my earliest Say It For You blog posts (see Won’t You Please Come In To My Blog?), business owners are always looking for ways to introduce what they offer to new customers of the right kind.  Those three words are the key, right there – “of the right kind”.  Cliff Snyder, co-founder of the Big Roots Show, says “The showcases are letting people know what the thing is.  If you’re into this thing, then come support the series.” 

Isn’t that exactly what a corporate blog is designed to do?  Through the search engine optimization process, potential customers, the ones who are searching for your type of product or service, get to your blog.  When they read the relevant information you’ve provided, they are led to your website and might just decide to do business with you.  By definition, these are customers of the right kind.

It makes sense. If you’re into folk music, you won’t be attracting Wednesday night hip-hop and funk seekers – it’s the folk music lovers that show up. As Steve Hayes, bass player at Punk Rock Nights puts it – “These audiences are willing to give you a chance. Then it’s sort of up to you to keep their attention.”

Online searchers have found your blog precisely because they’re looking for information on your subject, or a product or service you sell.  There’s your chance!  From there, it’s up to your blog and your website to keep searchers' attention and convert them into customers.

In an earlier blog post (see Buildings, Like Blogs, Can Be Interactive)  I  explained that one of the special things about blogs is that they're available not only for reading, but for acting and interacting.  Good blogs invite readers to post comments and make it easy for them to subscribe to the blog.

As a professional ghost blogger, I'm a member of each client’s marketing team.  One of the things we discuss is comments that we hope will be posted on their blogs.  However, the topic of comments is one that elicits different responses from clients, largely because of fear those comments might be negative or critical . It’s interesting that a recent Indianapolis Business Journal article called "Critic Cutback Panned" addressed the same concern when it comes to local arts organizations; the reporter offered what I thought is the perfect answer: "As much as people in the arts wince at a critic's stinging words, there is one thing they dread more than an unfavorable review:  no attention at all!"

I heard from humorist and author Dick Wolfsie that it takes two to make a joke funny.  The listener or reader needs to figure out the punch line of the joke in order to find it humorous. If a reader posts a comment to your blog, even if that comment disagrees with what you've said or is critical of your product or service, the fact is, now there are two in the game, and you're getting bang for your blog with the search engines.   
 
As theater and concert producers would apparently agree, even bad reviews help ticket sales!

Likewise, even critical comments help blog rankings!

If you've ever attended a sales meeting, you've been reminded to "ask for the sale".  Sales trainers vouch for the fact that novice salespeople often go on and on about the features and benefits of their product or service, and then literally forget to ask for the order!

Enter the Internet, standing that advice on its ear... With blogging for business, guess what? Don't ask! As blogging expert Ted Demopoulis explains in his book "What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Poscasting":, in creating buzz through blogs you "cultivate an audience of people who ask you to sell them something!"

Posting blogs is how businesses take advantage of the main reason people use the Web - to find content.  Instead of running traditional ads for your brand of hats, or vitamins, or travel, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, and about exciting places to go on safari.  Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name come to see you as a trusted resource, possibly as a business to do business with!

As a professional ghost blogger, when I'm working with a new business client, we select just the right "tone" and direction for the series of blogs. As I explained in Ask Not What Your Business Blog Can Do For You, I need to pick up on their unique corporate culture and style, so I can "speak" in their voice to their type of customer. At the same time, though, I need to make it very clear that this effort is different from all the other marketing and sales that company's doing. 

We're not asking for the sale, remember.  It's a "Don't Ask, But DO Tell" arrangement. "Watch out, world!", I want to say.  "We're coming in - but through the back door!"

The Indianapolis Star "Careers" section posed an interesting question for job seekers: "Would you hire you?" Writer Michael Goss advised that seeing ourselves as others see us is a good way to prepare for interviews. Goss added a caution: Making a good impression with an interviewer might be the least of your worries if no one grants you an interview in the first place! The real question, he admits, is "How can I get someone to look at me?"

When I thought about it, I realized that's precisely the challenge I help my business owner clients face in the world of online marketing. While there are different sorts of blogs for different purposes (see Cat Blogs And Boss Blogs Are Fine, But Viral Blogs Mean Business), the overriding purpose of the business blogs I help my clients write is to attract consumer traffic to that business' website.

Businessowners who are not yet on board with blogging have heard all the buzz about blogs, but may be wondering whether they need a new marketing initiative.  And that's exactly when I pop the question "Would you find you?" I challenge business owners to imagine someone seated at a home computer, or perhaps navigating the Web on a laptop at the corner WiFi coffee shop, searching for information about the kinds of information, the kinds of products or services their business has to offer.  Except, I add, you have to remember - that customer has never heard of your business name!

"Go ahead", I say, "assuming you don't know the name of your business, type into Google (or Yahoo, or MSN) what you as a customer need. Does your website come up?  On what page of the search engine?"  (Are you a mortgage broker? Search under "mortgage rates in Indianapolis" or "qualifying for a mortgage in Morgan County" .)  (Are you a home health care provider?  Type in "home healthcare for mom in Indiana" or "nurses at home for parents".) Try many different combinations - how easily would you find you?

Posting content on the Web is the best form of marketing there is, says David Scott in his book "Cashing In With Content". With blogging, Scott explains, content is not forced on people - they access it because they want to.  Search engines organize the content, and direct people to it.

A business blog targets organic search. Simply put, that means people who don't know your name.  They don't know that you have exactly the information, the products, and the services they're looking for, and they won't know that until they're "introduced" to you by the search engine through your blog.  So, if you were in those customers' seats right now, the question is, Would You Find You??

Monday following Thanksgiving, a radio talk show host offered listeners a prize if they could name the #1 product purchased in the stores on Black Friday.  The correct answer (alas, not from me!) was Blu-ray high definition disc players.

Later that week, USA Today helped demystify that answer in an article called "10 top discs and questions". Blu-ray got its name, I learned, from the fact that it uses a blue laser beam to read data from discs, rather than the older-style red lasers used by DVDs.  What's more, Blu-ray discs hold up to 50 gigabytes, compared to the 10 gigabytes a DVD can hold.

Aside from my own holiday shopping needs for electronics, I found the information in USA Today interesting from my point of view as a business marketer.  (In my work as a professional ghost blogger, I become part of a business' marketing team, and I'm always on the lookout for ideas that can bring "higher definition" to blog posts.) 

Truth be told, including more "bytes" of information on any one blog post is not a good idea; blogs, by definition, should be concise and focus on one aspect of the business only (see Enuf Is Enuf In Blogs).  But one technical detail about Blu-ray explained in the article is that its video resolution is called 1080p.  The "p" stands for "progressively", and signifies that the Blu-ray technology constantly (progressively) redraws 1,080 lines across the screen. 

Here's how that's highly relevant for blogs: many company blogs include information that could be covered on a traditional website.  What lends blogs their "laser focus", though, is frequency of posting new content.  In other words, in executing a successful blog strategy, lines of information are "progressively being redrawn" - across searchers' computer screens!

USA Today remarks that Blu-ray "faces strapped consumers worried about investing in still-pricey players".  A blog strategy, by contrast, can be started with very little money and lots of "sweat equity".  That allows a business to begin to attract some of those search engine "blue laser beams"!

Plagiarism's a big, bad word on college campuses.  As an Executive Career Mentor at Butler University College of Business and an English Tutor at Ivy Tech Community College, I hear a lot of talk about preventing - or punishing - plagiarism. Then, last week the Indianapolis Star carried a fascinating story about "plagiarism" of a different sort.  The St. Louis Art Museum acquired a 3,200 year old mummy mask.  Now Egypt's antiquities authority is claiming the mask was stolen and transferred illegally to the U.S.. Our Department of Homeland Security is looking into the case. While academia and the arts wrestle with plagiarism issues, in business, protecting "intellectual property" has become a concern of monumental proportions.

Since, as a professional ghost blogger, my arena is the World Wide Web, I can't help but be awed by the fact that the Internet has become the largest repository of information in human history.  Trillions of words are added to it daily, and literally anyone with access to a computer or cell phone can add content to the mix at any time. Blogging activity has become a rapidly growing part of this oceanic information swell.

Remember the old "Telephone" game we played as children?  Kids would be seated in a row.  The first child would be given a phrase or sentence to whisper in his neighbor's ear.  That child, in turn, would whisper what she heard to the next child, and so on down the line.  The object of the game was to faithfully pass on the message so that the last child could repeat it exactly as the first had whispered it.  Never happened that way, did it?  By the time that message had traveled down a line of ten or twelve kids, it was unrecognizably distorted.

Blogs, as I stress in Blogs - Between Crafted and Cranked Out, are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  The fact is, though, people read blogs to get information.  My college students are taught to use citations and reference pages to show where they got their information.  That way, they avoid plagiarism by properly attributing statements to their proper authors.  In your blogs, you can give credit to the sources of your information as well.  The blogging equivalent of citations is links.  So even if you're putting your own unique twist on the topic, link to websites from which you got some of your original information or news.

On the Internet, the rewards for honesty are both psychic and practical.  Electronic links actually enhance search engine rankings for your blog by creating back-and-forth online "traffic". And, of course, doing the right thing is always its own reward. 

Since word tidbits tend to make my professional ghost blogger's heart proud, I can't resist mentioning a seed commercial I heard on the radio the other day.  The announcer was urging farmers to order their seeds now for next spring's planting, explaining there'd be more time for the seed company's agronomists to custom-design exactly the right seed mix for each farmer's needs. The tag line went like this:  "Right time.  Right seeds.  Two rights make a right!"

Now, I concede that, of the thousands of radio listeners who heard that tag line, I'm probably the only one to make a mental leap from seeds to search engine optimization.  Seriously, though, I sense a metaphor here.  More often than I'd like, when I'm enthusiastically explaining how the blogs I write for my clients help them "win search" and get to Page One of Google, Yahoo, or MSN, the response I hear is "Oh, so you're fooling Google?" (NOT!) 

Adam Sandler warns that "You Don't Mess With The Zohan", and I'm sure the same is true of Google.  Aside from that reality, however, I'm tempted at that moment in the conversation to offer a review lesson in Economics 101:  When two parties each possess something the other wants, and they make a fair exchange, that's called commerce, not "fooling". Search engines, I hasten to explain, are in the business of providing content.  The reason so many online searchers return to a particular search engine to find products, services, and information, is that they've found what they were looking for on that site before. Because Google provides the content people want, it is able to draw visitors, and thus sell more ads. 

Bloggers provide Google with what it needs - content.  Google rewards content providers by indexing their blogs and moving them higher on the search list towards the top of Page One.  Bloggers (or in my case, my business owner clients who've hired me to post business blogs) who provide relevant content frequently and over sustained periods of time are rewarded with the highest rankings.  Meanwhile, online searchers are the real winners, finding exactly the information, products, and services they need.  Everybody wins.  Two rights may make a right in seeds, but three rights make one very big right in blogs!

An avid reader of James Patterson's novels for as long as I can remember, I find every one of his mysteries a page-turner.  Now that I've made a career out of professional ghost blogging, I'm interested in James Patterson for another reason as well.  Back in 2005, the New York Times carried a feature story highlighting the fact that Patterson has created an entire studio of co-authors and ghost authors.  Patterson offers a very matter-of-fact explanation for his "ghosts": He's more proficient, he says, at creating the story line than at executing it. "I found that it is rare that you get a craftsman and an idea person in the same body", Mr. Patterson was quoted in the article, adding that he wants the final say before any book goes to press.

When, last year, Sarah Weinman wrote in the Los Angeles Times (April 15, 2007), "Commercial fiction has always had its share of ghostwriters toiling in the shadows", she used James Patterson as a prime example, "Just look at the writers who have worked with James Patterson, brand name extraordinaire," she gushes, adding "One need only check the copyright page for confirmation that he is the author of his novels," (I was paying particular attention to this part), "no matter who may have written the actual words."

Weinman sums up her own view of the Patterson system for mass-producing novels as follows: "His modus operandi may be mocked by the literati, but his ability to think like a packager brings in millions of dollars a year."

In my earlier blog  Who Really Writes The Songs That Make The Young Girls Cry, I quoted writer Elaine Glusac: "Writing is generally acknowledged to be an individual sport.  But in Nashville's culture, they work as a team."  That is an exact parallel, I pointed out, to the way a business uses a ghost blogger to bring its message and tell its story to as many customers and clients as possible, using the power of the Internet.  Whether it's country music song, novels, or blogs, marketing a business or practice involves spreading the word.  Since so many professionals and business owners lack the time or the inclination to compose blogs, that's where a professional ghost blogger handles what Patterson calls the "execution phase". No mystery, higher search engine rankings.

There's a new book out about home designer Darryl Carter's "New Traditional" style of home decorating. Since professional ghost blogging's my third professional career (teaching and then financial planning occupied a number of decades) Carter's story is one that resonates with me - he started out a lawyer, then found himself in demand as a designer (after his D.C. apartment landed on the cover of Metropolitan Home magazine).
Indianapolis Star reviewer Claire Whitcomb describes Darryl Carter as "an accidental - and successful decorator, who has risen to the top of his profession."

A number of the things written about Carter's style are especially apropos for business blogging.  "In his hands, a little does a lot, partly because the furniture that he chooses does double duty." In my earlier blog, Get Tammy Dancing With Elvis In Your Blog, I advised including unusual combinations of things in your blog posts, offering readers a new, fresh perspective on your topic. At the same time, offering readers a taste of the history behind your field or behind your own business helps personalize the message (Carter likes to include worn vintage rugs when furnishing a room).

Carter "has no patience" for elaborate crown moldings, preferring simple moldings that "enhance ceiling heights without overwhelming a room." Keep in mind that your blog is not either your brochure or your website.  The purpose in each blog post is to highlight just one aspect of your company's products and services, inviting the visitor to click on to your website to learn more. 

Like a subtly designed room, a well written blog will be easy on the eye, with information that is relevant yet easy to understand.  As Claire Whitcomb writes of Carter, "In his hands, less is not just more.  It's comfortable and livable."  One of the reasons that's so, she explains, is that the designer uses colors that progress imperceptibly from room to room.

The maximum marketing effect from blogs, (almost by definition minimalist in both size and style), stems from the flow of consistent, regular posting of relevant information.  When potential customers come to your blog and find just what they've been looking for, that could prove as pleasing as the flow of colors in a Darryl Carter room!

I love making presentations, and am always reading the latest tips in the field of professional speaking.  But even if public speaking is last on your list of favorite things to do, Speaker Magazine's November issue has some very valuable advice for business owners. Mike Rayburn warns speakers to stop being so busy and to start achieving, explaining that the secret of super-productivity is not doing more; it is doing less!

Here's the crux of what Rayburn tells business owners to do: "Identify what you are good at and what energizes you the most, and then do more of those tasks."  By focusing your time, attention, and energy on your strengths, he teaches, you will see your business take off.

The topic of which tasks must be done by the business owner him/herself, and which can be delegated, comes up quite often when I'm discussing blogging for business. As I brought out in one of my very first Say It For You blogs (see Ghost Blogging Gets The Girl), many celebrities and public figures used, in fact still do use, professional ghost writers for one simple reason: Despite having subject matter knowledge and valuable opinions to share with fans, readers, clients, customers, or colleagues, these VIPs are not confident in their own writing abilities.

When it comes to business owners, it's often true that, even if they are competent writers, and even if they understand the value of business blogging for "winning search" and attracting online traffic to their business website, blogging is not what energizes them.

For many business owners, blogging's a "minor thing" and they simply don't want to major in it! The thing is, though, blogging has come very far from being a minor thing.  Piper Jaffray reports that the Internet has surpassed print yellow pages and newspapers combined as the primary local resource for consumers looking for services!

Blogging's simply become too important an aspect of business marketing to ignore.  Enter the ghost blogger, devoting time and energy to the "minor" things that can have such a major impact on business.