Best Days Blogging for Business

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Want to know the best day in 2019 to begin a diet? Straighten hair? Lay shingles? The Old Farmer’s Almanac can tell you, based on the moon’s astrological signs. There’s a “best day”, according to astrologist Celeste Longacre, to:

  • buy a home
  • pick fruit
  • pour concrete
  • wean an animal
  • wash the floor
  • paint
  • lay shingles
  • get a perm
  • make jelly and jam
  • go camping
  • get married

Since chicks born under a waxing moon in Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces are healthier and mature faster, eggs should be “set” (placed in an incubator or under a hen) 21 days before the desired hatching time, we learn.

Fascinating stuff. In fact, I thought, naming a “best time” for certain activities can be an effective “template” for serving up information to business blog readers. From the list above, for example, I can see:

  • a real estate company’s blog post about the best time to buy a home or paint
  • a home repair company’s blog about pouring concrete and laying shingles
  • a beauty products seller’s blog about perms
  • a caterer’s blog about the best time to plan a wedding

Is there a best time to publish blog posts?

Garrett Moon of CoSchedule.com reviews the results of a study by Kissmetrics:
The highest percentage of users read blogs in the morning.
The average blog gets the most traffic around 11AM on Mondays.

Blogtyrant.com came to a different conclusion: The most traffic is around on a Wednesday, between 9:30 and 11 USA East Coast time, he says.

Managing Editor Erin Balsa has a practical piece of advice: if the majority of your traffic lives in Los Angeles, distribute your content on weekday mornings at Pacific time; if they’re in New York or Boston, the mornings on Eastern time.

As a blog content writing trainer, my second favorite piece of advice comes from Karen Evans, founder of Start Blogging Online! Karen reveals “the surprising truth” – there IS NO universal best time to publish. What works for one blog might not work for yours.

My very favorite advice comes from Rob Steffens of blueadz.com. Ron tells bloggers: “Remember, riming isn’t everything; consistency is key.”

You may not need an astrologer to pinpoint your own best days for blogging for business!

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The Pros and Cons in Backyard Business Blogging

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“The Pros and Cons of Backyard Livestock”, by Jack Savage (the piece appears in the 2019 Old Farmer’s Almanac) illustrates how serious stuff can be presented in a wickedly funny way. And, while not every business blog content writer could pull off the humor, that “Pros and Cons” format is very workable as a template for informational blog posts. Savage offers his advice in five sections: chickens, horses, goats, pigs, and cows. For each, the author gives some background information:

Chickens – the world has 3x as many of them as humans.
Pros: eggs
Cons: keeping them safe from foxes, coyotes, and weasels
.
Horses – you’ll be feeding your horse, but your horse will not be feeding you, and the horse will have final say over who rides whom.
Pros: You can ride a horse
Cons: Writing checks to the hay guy, the vet, the tack shop, the truck-and-trailer dealership.

Goats are highly social, curious, interactive, and smart ruminants (chew their cud).
Pros: Hilarious
Cons: Feet and horns have to be trimmed, you’ll need to keep milking.

Pigs are cute when they’re young, not as filthy as their reputation suggests, and put on weight fast.
Pros: Bacon, ham, sausage, port roast (and did we mention bacon?)
Cons: Destructive, sunburn easily, butchering is serious business

Cows (also ruminants) make you feel like a real farmer and are a lot easier to handle than elephants.
Pros: Unadulterated milk and cheese
Cons: Find a large animal vet, and give him all your money.

In training business blog content writers, I call the technique Savage is using here “templating”. When you have several pieces of information to impart, I explain, consider ways to “unify” them under one umbrella or list category. In fact, at Say It For You, I’m always on the lookout for different “templates”, not in the sense of platform graphics, but in terms of formats for presenting information about any business or professional practice. The format lends variety to the different posts, and also helps readers organize their own thoughts on the subject. Brandon Royal, author of The Little Red Writing Book, calls them “floor plans”. In a chronological structure, the writer discusses the earliest events first, then moves forward in time. In an evaluative structure (which is what Jack Savage used), you discuss the pros and cons of a concept. If a presentation is structured, it will be useful to the reader; otherwise, it will be confusing and of little value.

What if your products and services are nothing to joke about? Jack Savage obviously isn’t enamored of the idea of becoming a backyard livestock farmer – his hilariously amusing remarks are hardly designed to “sell” readers on embracing that kind of new enterprise. But just because your company is serious, doesn’t mean all marketing has to be,” Jason Miller of Social Media Examiner counters. Humor is a hook, grabbing the audience’s attention, as well as an icebreaker, but it’s important to focus the humor around a problem your company can solve.

If Jack Savage were a blog content writer for an animal feed company, could he have fairly presented the drawbacks and challenges, while still encouraging readers to explore animal farming?

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Serving Up Myths, Signs, Tips, and Facts in Business Blog Posts

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To get started with what Neil Patel calls a “documented blogging strategy”, he says, you need to plan topic ideas. When he’s feeling light on those, Patel admits, he simply fires up Hubspot’s Blog Idea Generator.  When Patel wanted to write about link-building, for example the Generator suggested building blog posts around:

  • 20 Myths About Link Building
  • 10 Signs Your Should Invest in Link Building
  • 10 Quick Tips About Link Building
  • The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Link Building
  • The History of Link Building

In training business blog content writers, I call this kind of tactic “templating”. When you have several pieces of information to impart, consider ways to “unify” them under one umbrella or list category. In fact, at Say It For You, I’m always on the lookout for different “templates”, not in the sense of platform graphics, but in terms of formats for presenting information about any business or professional practice. The format lends variety to the different posts, and also helps readers organize their own thoughts on the subject.

Let’s take a closer look at each of those Generator templates:

Myths…Blog posts are the perfect medium for “mythbusting” to dispel counterproductive thinking about your industry or profession.

Signs you should….I like the subtlety of this implied Call to Action. It doesn’t order readers to take action, just creates an awareness of a possible reason to act.

Tips… When I’m helping new clients who are business owners or professional practitioners, I often find they feel some ambiguity about planning their blog post content.  In the beginning, many feel uneasy about giving away valuable information “for free”. But offering tips is a great way to selling yourself and your services to online searchers.

Worst advice…The fear of losing something, psychologists tell us, motivates people more than the prospect of gain something.  This template about “worst advice’ plays on that fear of losing out because of bad advice.

History of….History has an important place in blog content writing. History-of-our-company background stories have a humanizing effect, creating feeling of empathy and admiration for business owners or practitioners who overcame adversity to build successful careers and corporations.

A recent Reader’s Digest article sparked yet another “template” idea: 50 Health Facts Your Doctor Wants You to Know:

In a “stall” on your “documented blog strategy”? Try using templates to serve up myths, signs, tips, and facts.

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Learning from Leonardo in Blogging for Business

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“Learning from Leonardo”, Walter Isaacson’s article in Time: The Science of Creativity, could serve as a checklist for blog content writers.  DaVinci’s work holds lessons for all of us, the author says; even if we can’t match DaVinci’s talents, we can try to be more like him. How can that apply to creating innovative and captivating blog content?

Be curious, relentlessly curious about everything around you.
I have a theory about human curiosity that I think tests out in corporate blogging:  Our curiosity is at its most intense when it concerns testing our own limits. Yes, readers like juicy gossip tidbits about sports and movie stars. Yes, readers have interest in how stuff works in the world and how things came to be. And, yes, (as I always stress in corporate blogging training sessions), by definition of their having found your blog, readers have an interest in your field. But (or so my theory goes, anyway), readers are most curious about themselves, how they “work” and the limits of their own knowledge and their own physical capabilities. I believe that’s why readers find arcane pieces of information and “quizzes” so hard to resist .

Observe, starting with the details.
Examples and details are the very things people remember long after reading a piece. Corporate websites provide basic information about a company’s products or a professional’s services, but the business blog content is there to attach a “face” and lend a “voice” to that information by filling in the finer details. Ask yourself what you want readers to know about your topic for that post and think of three details for each idea, Quick Study advises students.

Go down rabbit holes. (Leonardo “drilled down for the pure joy of geeking out,” Isaacon says.)
I find seeming “useless” tidbits of information highly useful when it comes to blog content writing. It’s interesting when business owners or practitioners present little-known facts about their own business or profession. History tidbits, for example, engage readers’ curiosity, evoking an “I didn’t know that!” response.

Respect facts.  “Be fearless about changing your mind based on new information.”
Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers. People are looking for more than information – they need perspective. On the other hand, nothing is more compelling than honesty. If the business owner or practitioner’s perspective has evolved, that change of mind should be powerfully clarified in the blog content.

Avoid silos.  At presentations, Isaacson relates, Steve Job would use one slide depicting the intersection between two roads: Liberal Arts and Technology, Isaacson notes. Besides coming across as more credible, when business owners or professional practitioners stay up to date in their own fields, they are in a better position to spot threats and opportunities early on. If readers can see evidence in your content of, not only your expertise, but your openness to insights gained from experts in other fields, that broadens their own understanding along with their trust in you!

In striving for authenticity and creativity, we blog content writers have a lot to learn from Leonardo DaVinci!

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Who-Else-Is-Doing-It Blogging for Business

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The mini-article “Hosts with the Most” in the Perspective section of the AARP magazine suggests an interesting way blog content writers can use statistics to sell. “Maybe more of us want to run bed-and-breakfasts when we retire than we thought…Americans over 60 are the fastest-growing group to become Airbnb hosts.”  In fact, we learn, there’s been an astounding 102% one-year growth in Airbnb hosts age 60 and up, with senior hosts capturing 13% of the total market.

If this little magazine were a blog post written to persuade retirees to become Airbnb hosts, it would tie back to the theory of social proof, meaning that, as humans, we are simply more willing to do something if we see that other people are doing it. In other words, people reference the behavior of others to guide their own behavior. When using statistics in business blog posts, we teach at Say It For You, it’s important to include the source, providing the answer to readers’ unspoken question: “Why should I accept these statistics as proof?”

To be persuasive, statistics must be combined with other kinds of evidence, Stephen Boyd cautions public speakers. You might state a statistic and then give an example reinforcing the number he says, or show what the statistic might mean by comparing it to something with which the audience is already familiar. In offering a dollar figure, for example, say “That amount would be like supporting your child through four years of college.”

The “Hosts with the Most” article does something even better – it paints a picture of results:  “Older Americans get more five-star ratings than any other demographic.” When you’re composing business blog content, I tell writers, imagine readers asking themselves – “How will I use the product (or service)?” “How will it work?” “How will I feel?”  In other word, the focus of a bog post written to persuade readers to buy must be on the end result from the recipient’s point of view.

To be sure, opening your post with a startling statistic can be a way to grab visitors’ attention, and statistics can often serve as myth-busters. (If there’s some false impression people seem to have relating to your industry, or to a product or service you provide, you can bring in statistics to show how things really are). Statistics can also serve to demonstrate the extent of a problem.  Once readers realize the problem, the door is open for you to show how you help solve that very type of problem for your customers!

But my experience has shown me that statistics, even the startling sort, aren’t enough to create positive results for any marketing blog. Why not? The fact that a serious problem exists (even if the searcher suffers from that very problem) is not enough to make most readers take action. And in the final analysis, of course, the success of any blog marketing effort depends on that action. What blogging does best is deliver to corporate blog sites customers who are already interested in the product or service you’re providing! And while statistics may not galvanize prospects into action, they can be used to assure readers they are hardly “alone” in their need for solutions to their medical, financial, or personal challenges

Assuring readers that not only have they come to the right place for help, but that lots of other people have found your solution helpful, will bring who-else-is-doing-it, social proof business blogging success. 

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