Blog Posts Can Have Similar Settings, Yet Tell Different Stories

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settings for blog posts

 

Readers first meet both J.M. Barrie’s character Peter Pan and Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist in bedrooms, we’re reminded in Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts in One Big Fat Notebook. But of course these two texts tell very different stories, because each author wants to emphasize different things. Life is peaceful and private in Peter Darling’s home, while Oliver sleeps on a rough hard bed in a large orphanage.

It’s the same with blog posts, I teach at Say It For You. Today’s post can slant in one direction; tomorrow’s can take the same theme and deal with it in a different way, perhaps appealing to different segments of the business’ (or the practice’s) audience. Different posts can offer valuable information and advice relating to different aspects of your product or service offerings.

The Oliver Twist approach:
Using the Oliver Twist setting, content writers aim to demonstrate they understand the challenges the readers are facing. It must be clear that you (or the business owner or professional practitioner client you represent) understand online searchers’ concerns and needs.

The Peter Pan approach:
Using the Peter Pan setting model, in contrast, means helping readers visualize themselves “soaring”, picturing the end result – the relief, wealth, ease, pride, and comfort they stand to achieve through following the advice in the blog post. While the Peter Pan story is far from realistic, it’s important to describe realistic, achievable and easily identifiable signs that will tell clients that they are on a trajectory leading towards the desired outcomes.

Whichever approach you select for the “setting” of any one post, the authors of Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts in One Big Fat Notebook offer a “sound argument checklist” blog content writers will find useful:

  1. Everything must relate to the central idea.
  2. All the evidence must be relevant.
  3. Word choice is important, including analogies and allusions.

“Fiction is imaginary,” the authors conclude, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from it,” At Say It For You, our business blog content writers know that’s certainly the case!
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Sticky Words Stay With Blog Readers

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We business blog content writers, always on the prowl for novel ways to present information to online readers, often rely on memory hooks; I like to call them “sticky words”. About a year ago in my Say It For You blog, I had talked about weight loss company GOLO’s TV commercial (“GO LOse weight., GO Look great, GO Love life”), and about the financial planner who used catchy names for the spending habits of different age groups of retirees (Go-Go – ages 55-54, Slo-Go – ages 65-74, and No Go – ages 75 and up).

In just the past couple of weeks, I came across other examples of “sticky words, phrases that keep popping back into my mind again and again. Phrases don’t have to be slogan-like, I realized after the surgeon who’d performed surgery on my hip cautioned: “Motion is lotion”. (I think about that one every day, careful not to stay seated at my computer too long.) Then, at a recent networking meeting, the owner of a merchant services company used the phrase “Any pay. Any way. Anywhere”. (I like that one, because it made me curious to learn just what was meant.)

“Use simple and sticky phrases people can use to share your beyond-the horizon vision in their own way,” writes Will Mancini in the book God Dreams. “Like the postman,” Mancini continues, “you and your core team must deliver meaning daily in packages both big and small.”

But what, exactly, makes some phrases more “sticky” and memorable than others? Chip & Dan Heath authored an entire book addressing that question – Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The Heaths named 6 attributes memorable phrases have:

  • simple
  • unexpected
  • concrete
  • credible
  • emotional
  • story

For me, of course, the phrase “Motion is lotion” directly related to my own story (the recent surgery and my need to get back to normal as quickly as possible). Also important was the power of similar sounds. Alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) are both ways to add “stickiness” to a phrase, particularly in a blog post title.

At Say It For You, one of our core teachings is that blog posts are not slogans or ads. While a goal of blog marketing is to help readers think of us and remember us, to borrow a Brylcream phrase, a “little dab’ll do ya”!

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Choosing the Best Blog Marketing Evidence is Crucial

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In the Complete Middle School Study Guide, students are asked to read a story by Joshua Slocum called “Sailing Along Around the World”, and then to choose ONE piece of evidence, from the story which makes Samblich seem most generous:

Samblich was greatly interested in my voyage, and after giving me the
tacks he put on board bags of biscuits and a large quantity of smoked
venison. He declared that my bread, which was ordinary sea-biscuits and
easily broken, was not nutritious as his, which was so hard that I could
break it only with a stout blog from a maul. Then he gave me, from his own
sloop, a compass which was certainly better than mind, and offered to
unbend her mainsail for me if I would accept it. Last of all, this large-hearted
man brought out a bottle of Fuegian gold-dust from a placed where it had
been cashed and begged me to help myself from it, for use farther along
on the voyage.

The point of the lesson was for students to learn the difference between explicit evidence (things explicitly stated in the text) and implicit or implied evidence. “Most nonfiction texts are full of evidence, the author explains, but choosing the BEST evidence is crucial, selecting the details “that will get the point across quickly and convincingly.”

At Say it For You, we realize that’s precisely the rule blog content writers ought to follow. Having a focused topic is important in any blog post, but have a specific audience in mind and choosing the best evidence for that target audience is crucial. As I tell newbie blog content writers, everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

And since we are ghostwriters hired by clients to tell their story online to their target audiences, we need to do intensive research, as well as taking guidance from the client’s experience and expertise. But with millions of other blogs out there for searchers to find, it’s specific evidence that will resonate with the right audience. What kinds of evidence can transform your blog into a powerhouse?  Fellow blogger Michel Fortin believes that mamy blogs miss the mark due to lack of proof.

Fortin lists several kinds of proof that may be used in blog marketing:

  • Factual proof:  statistics about the problem your product or service helps solve
  • Reverse proof: comparing your product or service with others that are on the market
  • Credentializing proof: years of experience, degrees, newspaper articles written by or about the business owner or practitioner
  • Evidential proof: clinical trial results, testimonials

Choosing the best blog marketing evidence is crucial!

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Using Psychology in Blog Marketing

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At Say it For You, we’re keenly aware that positioning a client in the market is all about using words and images to carve out a spot for them, over time, in the competitive landscape.  Does continually providing fresh, new content in a company’s or a practice’s marketing blog accomplish differentiation in the mind of readers?  You bet. Blog content is ideal for further explanation, more details, updates, stories, and sharing owners’ core beliefs.

“One of the most important things marketers must do today is to move away from USP – unique selling propositions – to ESPs – emotional selling propositions,” Jeanette McMurtry cautions in Marketing for Dummies. Four emotions that drive the choice to buy your product or service include:

  1. feelings of glamour or beauty
  2. feelings of confidence and personal respect
  3. feelings of superiority to others
  4. anticipation of the ability to survive over others (this feeling is subconscious)

Marketing lessons from Freud:
Freud’s personality theory suggests that people each have three “voices” in their heads that compete with each other when making decisions:

  • the id: has to have what it wants when it wants it
  • the ego wants to have a plan to get what it wants in an appropriate manner
  • the superego or voice of reason decides appropriate actions to take based on social
    norms and past life experiences

“Think about which personality is most involved in make the decision to purchase your category,” advises McMurtry.

Marketing lessons from Jung:
People cycle through 4 archetypes, Jung suggested:

  • the shelf: the unbridled, carnal self
  • the self: the conscious and unconscious minds connect here
  • the animus: the true values a person has
  • the persona: the person people project to others

In blog content writing, ask yourself: Which psychological fulfillment does your brand support most?

Social Influencers
People we consider to be authorities powerfully influence our choices, McMurtry learned from Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram. In terms of marketing, determine which authorities have the most influence in your product category and how you can align with them. McMurtry advises.

When it comes to content, unlike video games or movies, a business blog should not be rated “E”, intended for everyone. While there is a growing demand for high authority, high quality content, the most important criterion is the need to know your customers, focusing on creating experiences that align with their values.

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In Holding Blog Readers’ Attention, Contrast is Critical

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contrast in blogs
Contrast is critical to holding an audience’s attention, Nancy Duarte advises professional speakers in her book Resonate. To demonstrate that point, Duarte points to California Institute of Technology physics professor Richard Feynman. In teaching, Duarte explains, Feynman moves back and forth between fact (mathematics) and context (history).

In blog content writing, with the goal being engaging online visitors’ interest, we can learn from Professor Feyman’s ability to create contrast between analytical content and emotional content.

Analytical content can include:

  • diagrams
  • case studies
  • facts
  • supporting documentation
  • statistics

Emotional content can include:

  • biographical stories
  • shocking or scary statements
  • evocative images
  • humor
  • surprises
  • props and dramatizations

Another way speakers can create contrast, Duarte notes, is varying the delivery method between traditional and less traditional methods. Speakers might vary among:

  • speaking from behind a podium to free ranging among the audience
  • alternating between a business tone and humor and enthusiasm
  • minimizing disruptions and planning disruptions
  • using a one-way delivery of information with discussions

I agree. One thing I’ve learned over the years of Say It For You blog content writing is that most business owners and even most professional practitioners have more than one target audience for their products and services. Different blog posts, therefore, might slant in different directions in terms of style and tone. Analytical content can be interspersed with emotional content; a “one-way” instructional tone can be interspersed with biographical stores, humor and “surprises”. In fact, in business blog posts, I teach, it’s a good idea to toggle back and forth among varieties over time, keeping repeat visitors engaged (and content writers from getting bored!).

One blog styling “menu” suggested by socialmediaexaminer.com includes:

  • reviews
  • lists of resources
  • interviews
  • stats
  • personal stories
  • tutorials

It’s true – in holding blog visitors’ attention over time, contrast is critical.

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