Tidbit Blogging – a Trend that Never Goes Out of Style

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Slices of watermelonIn blog marketing, is it worth the effort of digging up curious and little-known facts related to your business or industry?  Make that a big “Oh, yes”!  Readers’ interest is piqued, you’re positioned as an expert in your field, and you’re rewarded with precious extra moments of precious attention. (Just learned that my favorite source for ripe tidbits is Mental Floss Magazine has just published its last paper issue;  from now on it will be digital all the way!)

Here’s just one juicy tidbit from Mental Floss to illustrate my point: In 2007, editors inform readers, the House of Representatives in the state of Oklahoma voted 78 to 19 to make watermelon their state vegetable. State Senator Don Barrington justified the vote by saying watermelon is a member of the cucumber family (Botanically speaking, Mental Floss reminds us, cucumbers are fruits.)  Meanwhile, in Arkansas, the Vine Ripe Pink Tomato is both the state’s official fruit and its official veggie!

Sure, that info is funny and unusual, but why do I think bloggers could use those tidbits to advantage? For one thing, this tidbit explodes some commonly held myths (cucumbers and tomatoes are vegetables and belong in salads, never desserts). More importantly, those true tales engage readers’ interest, and we can use them to lead into some little-known facts about our own (or our clients’) products and services. Think cukes and tomatoes in:

  • Catering
  • Cooking
  • Gardening
  • Restaurants
  • Beauty products

How does the process work?  Well, the tidbit becomes the jumping off point for explaining what problems can be solved using that business’ products or that practice’s services, for defining basic terminology, and for putting modern day statistics into perspective. 

I could see business bloggers using a second funny tidbit I pinpointed in this latest Mental Floss issue as a lead-in to a serious discussion about educational policy and parenting:

Wooden paddle spankings are still legal in 19 American states.

This little gem deals head-on with the touchy issue of corporal punishment both at home and at school. Think about your own business, I ask owners in the course of providing them with business blogging assistance: Is there anything that might be considered unsafe, cruel, or environmentally non-friendly about your industry or your business? Rather than avoiding the topic, what about using the blog to explain what you as a business owner are you doing to mitigate those factors?

Funny or serious, tidbit blogging is a trend that I can’t see ever going out of style!

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Blogging in Basic English

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flight-attendant“Basic English” simply means using words that people will understand,” says business humorist Todd Hunt. On recent flights, Hunt appreciated the fact that both Delta Airlines and American Airlines warned passengers of the possibility of “rough air” or “unexpected bumps” rather than talking about “turbulence”.

Hunt was used to hearing the request: “Please discontinue the use of portable electronics”, but thinks United Airlines takes the prize for making things clear:  “Please turn off your cell phones, laptops, and anything else that has an on-off switch”.

When Todd Hunt talks about “basic English”, he simply means using words understandable to the majority of readers, but there is an actual language called Basic English, which was created by linguist Charles Ogden in 1930 as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching English as a second language. What survives today of Ogden’s Basic English is the basic 850-word list used as the beginner’s vocabulary of the English language taught worldwide.

When it comes to blogging for business, keeping it basic means using understandable, clear language. “Unless you provide a very specialized service aimed only at professionals, avoid industry jargon and use easily understandable, clear language in your blog,” advises the Chamber of Commerce’s Personal Branding Blog. “Never use a long, complex word when a short, simple one will do, and never say in 15 words what could be said in five.”

“People in different companies and industries often don’t speak the same language,” observes one of my favorite wordsmiths, Milo O. Frank (How to Get Your Point Across in 30 Seconds or Less).

My own observation, based on working with different industries doing corporate blogging training, is that lack of clarity between writer and reader is worse with business-to-consumer corporate blog writing.  But even among suppliers, consultants, and retailers within a single industry, there’s no question that the clearer the words are to all the parties, the easier it becomes for transactions (obviously one of the end goals of marketing blogs) to happen.
Business blogs are all about getting found, then getting the point across.

When it comes to choosing language for flight attendant greetings or for business blogs, it’s best to keep the English basic!

 

 

 

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Scoring Goals for the Little Guy

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Businessman drawing PPC - Pay Per Click concept

Without the financial means to use a combination of paid search and organic content marketing through blogging and SEO, my clients may be playing the customer acquisition game with fewer pieces than their opponents.  In fact, not being able to afford significant adword purchases (PPC or Pay per Click advertising), my Say It For You local business owner clients have to rely on organic search to attract eyeballs.

“Organic listings are essentially free,” notes RankExecutives.com. “With a little bit of effort (and some money upfront to pay for SEO costs) you can watch your website get consistent traffic.”

How does organic marketing work? People trust that the first listings in Google are reputable companies, RankExecutives explains. “A hit from Google is much more valuable over a hit from an ad.” Most importantly, the authors add, the effects of SEO are permanent.  They don’t suddenly stop if you stop paying for them.

“Sustainable success rarely comes overnight, regardless of your marketing technique of choice,” the ContentMarketing Institute cautions. “More likely, any gains will be the result of a slow, steady climb in the influence, visibility, credibility, and desirability of your business.”

Big or little, every business owner and manager needs to keep an eye on the correct “game board”.  “Retweets, ‘likes’, and comments don’t matter to business objectives.  Sales, revenues, and costs do,” Content Marketing Institute’s Jason Falls reminds marketers.

Scoring goals means staying in the game, and “content marketing success requires consistency and predictability,” ContentMarketing Institute insists. “The purpose of content marketing is to attract qualified prospects who might one day become customers”, writtent.com reminds business owners.

With thought leadership fast becoming a measure of content marketing success, says writtent.com, effective content creation is a combination of quality, originality, and using keyword research right.

Blog content marketing – a way to score goals for the little guy!

 

 

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Know the Value of Your Pieces

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PPCWinning in life involves improving your game. My favorite magazine, Mental Floss, devoted an entire issue earlier this year to advice on winning games. When it comes to the game of chess, Mental Floss presents two pieces of advice from Chessacademy:

  1. The most common beginner mistake is simply not being aware of what’s happening on the board. Being distracted leads to preventable mistakes.
  2. Know the value of your pieces. “Each piece has a respective value, and if you have fewer pieces than your opponent, you’re playing with less material.”

I think about that pieces thing often when discussing online marketing strategies with new Say it For You clients as we begin a blog marketing initiative. Often it’s a small business owner a retail or services field competing with giant national chains. With fewer dollars available, the little guy cannot hope to compete in purchasing adwords and needs to rely on organic search to attract eyeballs.  In other words, my clients are wondering, what are their chances for success when they find themselves playing with fewer game pieces than their larger, better funded, competitors?

NewMediaCampaigns.com asks the same question: “SEO (search engine optimization) vs.PPC (pay per click) – Which Provides You the Better Value?” NewMedia cites research from Jupiter Research showing that 81% of users find their desired destination through a search engine. However, New Media points out, “There’s still a big decision to make – whether to use SEO (naturally ranking high in the organic results) or PPC (purchased ads on a Google search) to get in front of your target.

Jupiter’s findings:

  • Paid search results are 1.5x more likely to convert.
  • Organic results are 8.5X  more likely to be clicked on than paid search results

“It can be concluded that the opportunity from organic search is 5.66x that of paid search,” NewMedia sums up. “You won’t rank #1 overnight, but SEO is more affordable and the longterm benefits have been proven.”

Without the means to use a combination of paid search and organic content marketing through blogging and SEO, my clients may have fewer pieces than their opponents, but with consistency and commitment, they have every chance of winning the customer acquisition game!

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Blogging With the Fear Factor and the “Like Switch” in Mind

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Scared Afraid Man Wrapped in Red Fear Tape

The fear of losing something motivates people more than the prospect of gaining something of equal value, observes Rolf Dobelli in The Art of Thinking Clearly. “We can’t fight it: Evil is more powerful and more plentiful than good, Dobelli concludes.

As an example, suppose your business is home insulation. Dobelli suggests that the most effective way to encourage customers to purchase your product is to tell them how much money they are losing (as opposed to how much money they would save if they had insulation, even though the amount is the same!)

People are drawn to articles with negative titles, my friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball pointed out a year ago. Posts with negative titles stand out in a blog roll, on a Twitter feed or LinkedIn page, and the negative posts are more likely to be shared, retweeted and read.

The two dominant buying motives are desire for gain and fear of loss, Salesforce teaches, and most salespeople use the wrong one when trying to motivate a prospect to buy.

1. (Positive): “This backup unit will store all your important data in case of a crash.”
2. (Negative): “A backup unit could keep you from losing tons of data and days of lost productivity.”

Shift the emphasis from the desire for gain to the fear of loss, Salesforce advises.

Coming out firmly on the other side of the fear spectrum is Jack Schafer, who writes in Psychology Today that “The Hope of Winning Trumps the Fear of Losing”. Hope, Schafer says, motivates and energizes, while the fear of losing becomes an obstacle to success. As an ex-FBI agent, Schafer specializes in behavior analysis and teaches how to influence people and turn on the “like switch”.

“The easiest way to build a brand is to sell fear,” says Seth Godin.  “The best way, though, may be to deliver on hope while aiming for love…”.

 

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