Blogging the Lure and What They Say

 

At Say It For You, I’m always on the lookout for different “templates” for presenting information about any business or professional practice. The “nucleus” around which business blog posts are formed is their topic (issues, products, services and advice related to their field). Although the general topic remains the same over time, there is endless variety that can be used to make each blog post special, with one way being the use of different templates.

Browsing through a magazine called Where to Retire, I found an interesting template in a long article naming the 50 Best Master-Planned Communities in the United States. For each community, the report consisted of two longer sections: the Lure (special features of that community) and “What Residents Say” (testimonials), followed by facts and statistics (the name of the developer, the price, the monthly homeowner fee, and whether the community is age-restricted).

Whenever you have several pieces of information to impart, consider different “templates” that can unify them under one umbrella. The “template” is the glue that ties the different pieces of information together and makes the information more usable for readers.

Collating and curating are two ways blog content writers deliver value to readers:

In collating, we gather content from our own former blog posts, newsletters, or even emails, adding material from other people’s blogs and articles, and from magazine content or books. We then organize that material into categories, summarizing the main ideas we think our readers will find useful. The Where to Retire article is a perfect example of collation.

Curating goes one important step further, progressing from information-dispensing to offering the business owner’s (or the professional’s, or the organizational executive’s) unique perspective on issues related to the search topic. When curation is really successful, two things happen:

  1. Readers relate to the “curator” – you, the author of the blog post – as an involved person who is personally engaged with the subject.
  2. Readers realize there’s something here that’s important and useful for them.

Blogging “the lure” is a perfect example of collation combined with testimonials!

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