Too Humorous or Too Informal – Some People May Mind

/0 Comments/in /by


Sometimes in business email, Tony Rossiter advises in “Effective Business Writing”, a degree of informality and humor may be appropriate, but this should not be overdone. If you are too formal, the author observes, most people won’t mind. If you are too informal, on the other hand, some people may, in fact, mind.

What about humor in business blog content writing? Everyone likes to be entertained, Joshua Nite admits in toprankblog.com, but our content needs to serve a business purpose. There are ways humor can be valuable in blogs, Nite suggests, including showing you understand your audience and teaching lessons.

A conversational tone in your blog has the effect of making you seem approachable, Ali Luke writes in Problgger.com. Some hallmarks of that tone include

  • contractions such as “you’ll”
  • active voice
  • chatty phrases
  • short sentences and paragraphs
  • starting some sentences with “and”

    I often explain to clients and to newbie writers that that blogs (compared to, say, brochures, white papers, and newsletters) are casual and conversational. Humor, on the other hand, is a riskier proposition, and it’s best to focus it on your own weaknesses (that you’ve overcome) and on problems your company or practice can solve.

    Also, being personal in blog writing doesn’t necessarily mean being offensively over-casual, we teach at Say It For You. For us blog content writers, getting the tone exactly right for a new client is the big challenge. Then, as the blog writing continues over weeks, months, and eventually years, consistency is important.

    When it comes to blog content writing, I believe, there’s a very special purpose to be served by using first person pronouns and keeping it conversational in tone – even for very serious topics.  The blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice. Using first and second person pronouns helps keep the blog conversational rather than either academic-sounding or “sales-ey”.

    Tony Rossiter has it right, I have to conclude – when it comes to informality and especially humor – it’s best not to overdo.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Never Use 2 Words Where 1 Will Do

/0 Comments/in /by


“However good a sentence is, you can often find a word or two, or a phrase, that can be deleted without any loss of meaning,” Tony Rossiter advises in “Effective Business Writing”. There are two specific ways to avoid this sort of duplication, he adds:

Dump qualifiers.
Qualifying adjectives and adverbs (like the first in each of these two-word expressions) should be dumped:

  • important essentials
  • past history
  • quite impossible
  • advance warning
  • usual habit
  • future prospects

Insert full stops.
By way of making content easier to read, use short sentences without extra subordinate clauses, Rossiter continues. In this case the arithmetic is reversed – better to use two direct, easy to understand, sentences rather than one that is overly complex and difficult to follow.

“Don’t get lost in long sentences,” warns business writing expert Lynn Gaertner-Johnston. “In business writing, readers want a short, clear path to understanding.” In place of the long sentence “I hope you will be able to attend, and if you need more information, please call or email me, and I will be glad to help you”, Gaertner-Johnston suggests using three short sentences. Don’t forget to “take a breath,” she advises bloggers, and give your reader one, too.

For any document to be easily understood, the writing style has to be clear, simple, and direct, we teach at Say It For You. Lyricist Sean Hartley says the same thing about song lyrics – they need to be original, yet succinct in a way that appears effortless. For blog content writers, simplicity involves sticking to the point, using largely familiar word combinations and sentence structure.

Ironically, Tony Rossiter ignores his own advice, summing up the matter of effective sentence writing by using a qualifier – Don’t write in impenetrable gobbledygook!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Achieving Eudaimonia in Business Blog Writing

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Stoics realized that there are things we control, and things we don’t. To get to the good life, we should focus on things we control, accepting the rest as it happens. When it comes to the things we can control, Stoics believe it’s not an external situation that makes us happy or miserable, but our interpretation of that situation. The idea is to achieve a supremely happy life, which Stoics call eudaimonia.

That ancient philosophy can help business entrepreneurs today, theconversation.com comments. As I read this article, it occurred to me that three business concepts based on Stoicism can serve as great guidelines for those of us involved in blog marketing:

  1.  “Before we try to control events, we have to control ourselves.”

Twelve years ago, in the process of explaining the way my company Say It For You came about, I talked about the “drill sergeant discipline” needed by blog content writers. What I meant was that, while all my business owner clients knew that writing blogs in their area of expertise was going to be a great idea for them, not very many of them felt they could take the time to compose and post content on a regular basis.  I also knew that the main key to business blogging success was going to be simply keeping on task. Meanwhile, our business owner clients can’t throw in the towel before success has been given the chance to develop. We can’t control the market or our customers – first we have to control our own activities.

2. “Stoicism means leveraging your uniqueness.” (Don’t let emulation turn into imitation.)

To have any hope of moving higher in search rankings and engage readers’ interest, blogs must provide fresh, relevant content. But, with the sheer volume of information on the Web on every topic under the sun, how do we keep providing new material in our blog posts week after week, month after month, even year after year? Two strategies include bringing in less well-known facts about familiar things and processes, and suggesting new ways of thinking about things readers already know.
But, besides offering unique tidbits of information, we must incorporate one important ingredient – opinion. Taking a stance, using blog content writing to express a firm opinion on issues, is how companies and practices can leverage their uniqueness.

   3.  “Stoicism turns problems into opportunities.”

I teach freelance blog writers in Indianapolis to include stories of their clients’ past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes! When customers’ complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (in blog posts), it gives the “apology” or the “remediation measure” more weight. In fact, in corporate blogging training sessions, I remind Indianapolis blog writers to “hunt” for stories of struggle and mistakes made in the early years of a business or practice!

Studying the Stoics gives us a chance at achieving blogging eudaimonia!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Bringing Fred Into Business Blog Writing

/0 Comments/in , /by

The most important job skill of the twenty-first century, Mark Sanborn posits in The Fred Factor, is the ability to create value for customers without spending more money to do it. “Freds” are people who either create new value or add value to the work they already do, the author explains.

In creating blog content, needless to say, the goal is demonstrating that this product provider or practitioner has better ideas, better products, and better service than the competitors. But rising above the noise in a crowded field is much easier said than done. “Do you think you have an utterly unique product? Here’s the truth; you probably don’t,” digital consultant John Boitnott says bluntly. But human beings like to buy from other human beings, not faceless companies, so you need to be as human as possible, Boitnott says, focusing on authenticity, trust, and passion.

“Freds” pay attention to appearances, not because they are more important than substance, but because they count, Sanborn warns. We increase the value of things when we make them aesthetically pleasing. Potential consumers should have a positive experience from minute #1 of encountering your brand through your blog, and the posts need to help readers put themselves into the scene, envisioning the savings, the satisfaction, the pride, the increased health and improved appearance they’ll enjoy after using your product or service.

Just ten years ago in this Say it For You blog, I described the two aspects involved in winning medals in a horse show – equitation and pleasure. “Pleasure” refers to the horse itself – its posture, its control, and its looks, while “equitation” refers to the skill and the posture of the rider. To be blog writing “Freds”, we need to be sure it’s a “pleasure” to come to our site.

Is your site colorful and appropriate in style for the brand? Organized rather than cluttered? Easy to navigate, with everything from images to typeface in modest proportion and in good taste?

Bring Fred into your business blog writing!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Turning Annoyance Into Advantage in Business Blog Writing

/0 Comments/in /by

 

Earlier this week, my Say It For You blog focused on how-not-to tips when it comes to annoying blog readers. While as Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman point out in National Geographic, few scientists have explained the mild anger we call annoyance, we content writers know annoyance is not the reaction we’re seeking from our readers.

That very annoyance, though, can be turned to our advantage in business blog content writing. One way to form a bond with customers is by commiserating about their daily pain, identifying something that customers hate, empathizing with readers’ unhappy plight, and then offering solutions.

To be sure, our content itself has the potential of rubbing readers the wrong way. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they came to a website seeking information on a particular subject. That’s because part of us resents being told that something we’d taken for granted is in fact a lie. Empathizing with prospects’ annoyance without putting them “in the wrong” is the sweet spot for which writers need to aim.

Searchers on the web may be frustrated by poor results they’ve experienced in the past or by a series of searches which turned out to be non-productive for them. Still they may not be ready to make a commitment.  If, in your business blog, you can convey the idea that there are different levels of involvement possible, and that “ultimate decisions” need not be made the moment a potential client or customer “steps into” your website, visitors can overcome any initial annoyance.

For a salesperson, an objection from a prospect means there is enough interest to engage with you (and share their annoyance), says Steli Efti in blog.close.com, meanwhile giving you the opportunity to demonstrate that you understand their concerns.

Certainly, on the content creation end, we’re aiming for annoyance minimization. On the other hand, readers’ frustration, dissatisfaction, and annoyance is precisely what drives them to seek the very solutions our blogging clients stand ready to provide.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail