Eating the Blog Frog

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A saying attributed to Mark Twain is a good rule for blog content writers:

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

Productivity coaches Stefano & Sabine of Noisli.com explain the Twain saying as follows: “The frog is that one thing you have on your to-do list that you have absolutely no motivation to do and that you’re most likely to procrastinate on. Eating the frog means to just do it, otherwise the frog will eat you meaning that you’ll end up procrastinating it the whole day.”

Since the success of business blogging is so very dependent on the sheer discipline of continually posting new content, I was especially interested in some advice for writers I found in The Autobiographer’s Handbook. Author Anthony Swofford tells writers:  “Wake up.  Drink coffee. Write.  Ignore phone, ignore email, ignore world. Write.”

One of my own favorite marketing gurus, Seth Godin explains that “writing long-form content on popular topics in your niche will put your thinking on display and give your readers an opportunity to evaluate your expertise.”

The problem with that very good advice from both Swofford and Godin – maintaining a business blog requires what I call “drill-sergeant discipline.” From the very early years of Say It For You, it became clear that the key to business blogging success was going to be simply staying on task.

Psychology professor K. Anders Ericsson, who has spent twenty-five years analyzing high-flying professionals,says that elite performers in any field, he says, engage in deliberate practice, an “effortful activity designed to improve performance”. Momentum in the online rankings race comes from frequency of posting blogs and from building up longevity by consistently posting relevant content over long periods of time.

Content writers soon learn – successful blog marketing requires “eating the frog”!

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How-To Blog Content is Harder to Write Than First Appears

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giving directions

 

Giving directions is a lot harder than first appears. That point was brought home to us at a recent tutor training I attended at Ivy Tech Community College. An instructor may believe he’s given clear instructions to his class for completing a particular assignment, but different students interpret those directions… well, differently. Working together in informal study groups, students can help each other arrive at the correct interpretation, was the point.

We tutors were divided into small groups (3-4 people each) and given the following set of directions:

  1. Draw a circle about an inch in diameter.
  2. Draw a square so that each side of the square touches the circumference of the circle.
  3. Draw an equilateral triangle, making sure that one of the triangle’s sides is touching one half of one of the sides of the square.

Sounds fairly simple, doesn’t it? (After all, every one of us in that room has several college degrees!) Well, it wasn’t – it took much discussion and interpretation to comply with those “clear” directions.

There is no end to the technical information available to consumers on the internet. Therefore, as business blog content writers, our job is to help readers understand, absorb, buy into, and use that information. At Say it For You, I’m fond of saying that in blogging for business, teaching is the new selling. One way to empower customers to make a decision is to help them understand the differences between various industry terms, as well as the differences between the products and services of one business compared to those offered by another.

As bloggers, we’re giving readers the raw materials to think about, and even the how-to instructions. We need to go one step further, demonstrating ways different customers and clients have “figured out” how to interpret and use the “instructions” and “directions” we’ve offered for their own benefit.

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Is Your Business Blog Content TNAS?

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directions in blogs

 

As part of my work in the tutoring lab at Ivy Tech Community College, it often falls to me to help students revise essay papers. Students may have submitted first drafts, then received their papers back from their instructor with notations and corrections. The student then has the opportunity to “fix” things and re-submit the assignment.

At first, I didn’t understand the meaning of the notation “TNAS” that frequently appeared on these papers. I was soon informed that those initials stand for “That’s Not a Sentence”.

In fact, sentence fragments seem to be a common mistake among blog content writers. Often the problem is clauses. A sentence can have any number of clauses, but needs at least one main or independent clause, with a subject and a verb, as englishgrammar.org explains, and any dependent clauses need to be attached to an independent clause.

In business blog content writing, there’s another common problem related to sentences – run-ons. Run-ons have more than one independent clause. The effect, I tell students and content writers, is comparable to squeezing two bodies into one seat!

But, isn’t it OK to be more relaxed about grammar rules when writing for blogs? Yes….blogs are supposed to be less formal and more conversational than a company’s (or a practice’s) main website. As spotcolormarketing.com puts it, there are times when it is more effective to sound like a relatable human and not your sixth grade English teacher who never seemed to be able to connect with her audience.”

Along with several other grammar rules that Spot Marketing says are OK to break in blogs (such as ending a sentence with a preposition, using slang and contractions, or beginning a sentence with “and” or “but”) it might even be OK to use sentence fragments!

As a corporate blogging trainer, my favorite recommendation (to both business owners and the freelance blog content writers they hire to bring their message to customers) has been this: Prevent blog content writing “wardrobe malfunctions”, including grammar errors, run-on sentences, and spelling errors.

At the same time, the real question writers need to ask themselves about any one blog post is this: Have I done what I set out to do? Is the marketing message clear?

After all, readers who “get the idea” you were trying to convey are unlikely to reject your content on the grounds that it’s TNAS!

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Acing Your Next Blog “Interview”

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blog posts as interviews
“Want to ace your next interview and land that open job you’ve been seeking? experisjobsus asks job seekers. Go in prepared with five key selling points, along with examples of how you used those skills in real world situations.

At Say It For You, I’ve often remarked that business blogs are nothing more than extended interviews. Searchers are evaluating your content to judge whether your know-how, products, and services are a good fit for their needs.

The overriding message a successful interviewee wants to convey to a prospective employer has three elements:

  1. I understand the challenges of the job.
  2. I have the experience and expertise to take those on.
  3. I would like to start doing this important work.

While all the “data” about the candidate is to be found on the resume, what interviewers are trying do is understand what makes that person “tick” and decide if he or she will “fit in’ with the company culture. Often interviewers will ask candidates to “describe themselves”. Behavioral interviewers don’t focus on facts about the candidates at all. Instead, the purpose is to reveal the person behind the resume.

For that very reason, we encourage Say It For You clients to include “Who’s Who in our business/our office/our industry” blog posts. Apart from the typical “Our Team” landing page on your website, which introduces people by name with a brief bio, the blog might offer close-up views of the functions each person serves. And, if you’ve kept in touch with your “alumni”, I advise content writers, it would be a great thing to let your readers know you’ve kept in touch with them and their doings.

One important thing to remember is that, while a website presents the company’s or the practice’s “big picture”, in business blogging, each post is like one question at an interview. With many blog readers tending to be scanners, they need to find very targeted content showing they’re come to the right place to get precisely the information, products, and services they were seeking.

“Acing” your next blog interview can depend on showing you’re ready, willing, and able to start doing “this important work!”

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You May Not Have Breaking News, but You Can Use Breaking News for Your Blog

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using news in blogs

 

The word “news”, when it comes to blog marketing, can mean several different things.

Your “own” news:
One type of news is centered around you and your business or practice. Perhaps you’re introducing a new employee or partner. You may be introducing a new service you’re beginning to offer, or a new product line. The purpose is not to brag, but to present the “news” in such a way that readers will consider it important and relevant to their needs.

Community news:
A second type of news piece might relate to your community, your city, your country, even worldwide events, with you providing an update on “what’s-going-on-and-how-do-we-fit-in”. (In fact, as I teach at Say It For You, reading daily newspapers is just one of many strategies for blog content development. The idea is not to regurgitate what’s already been said by a magazine or news source writer, but to demonstrate that you’re staying on top of the latest happenings. Ideally, you’re offering a different “slant” on those current happenings.

News from your industry or profession:
Showing that you are keeping abreast of the latest thinking in your field is the key to earning “expert power”, showing readers that you are in a good position to spot both threats and opportunities, which you will, of course, be sharing with them.

Trending topics:
Even though today’s most searched-for topic may not be what is most often talked about tomorrow, you can benefit readers by tying your blog content to popular topics. While the focus of your business blog will be on the business owners and the services, advice, and products they offer, the content can reflect current happenings and concerns.

The distinguishing feature of “news” (as opposed to information in general) is that it is recently updated information. And one of the realities of the digital age is that it’s only recently updated information that is likely to have an impact on our marketing results. “Building equity” through repeated use of keyword phrases – and evergreen content – is part of blog marketing, but “news” plays a key role in keeping content “fresh”.

You may not have “breaking news”, but you can use breaking news for your blog!

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