Change Has Got Blog Writers in a Bear Hug

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Back in 2005, when blogging for business was a fairly newly new thing, The Businessweek cover story was titled “Blogs Will bears hugChange Your Business.” Now, just one week ago, the now Bloomberg Businessweek comments: “Go ahead and bellyache about blogs.  But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself.”

Of course, I was in on most of the story, having begun my Say It For You blog content writing business seven and a half years ago. It’s interesting to read what others have to say about how blogging has changed over the last decade.

  • What does Daniel Hannan of the UK mean by this strong statement:  “Blogs changed everything – if not in the way we expected”?  Far from the lack of quality control predicted for online media, he says, “the dialectic of blogging ensured a higher standard of accuracy than before” and “Blogs have improved veracity, quality, and diversity.”  While Hannan is referring primarily to news and opinion blogs, blog content meant to promote businesses and professional practices must stand the same rigorous test by well-informed consumers. “Sure, most blogs are painfully primitive,” comments Hannan. “That’s not the point.  They represent power”.
  • Unbounce.com talks about the way blogging changes the blogger. “The net result is not only a profound understanding of what you are doing, but a believe in its purpose.”
  • Google’s been changing the way it approaches blogs as well, points out Eric Enge of Search Engine Watch. “In short, Google is doing a brilliant job of pushing people away from tactical SEO behavior and toward a more strategic approach, Enge observes. In its Hummingbird algorithm, “Google has built a capability to9 understand conversational search queries much better than before.” How does this development represent major change? “The focus now is on understanding your target users, producing great content, establishing your authority and visibility, and providing a great experience for the users of your site.”

    Well, I guess in the business world, we’ve all been told about how important it is to embrace change. For us freelance blog content writers – change has got us in a bear hug!

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Becoming a Tidbit “Source Spot” for Indianapolis Blog Writers

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Doctor writing RX prescriptionDesk #95 at the back of the U.S. Senate Chamber is where you find the candy.

When George Murphy came to the U.S. Senate in 1965, he brought along his sweet tooth, and, even after he lost his seat five years later, the “Candy Desk” kept going, maintained today by Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Since I fancy myself something of a “source spot” for business blog content ideas, collecting tidbits of information like the Candy Desk story has become my stock in trade.  If we open our minds to it, I’m convinced, we Indianapolis content writers can make very good use of such on-the-surface-useless information. In fact, I have a name for the process of pinpointing these gems – tidbit mining. Two of my favorite tidbit “gold mines” are Mental Floss magazine and The Book of Totally Useless Information.

The whole idea, as I explain in corporate blogging training sessions, is to provide information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know. Tidbits help engage online readers’ interest.

A couple of really good tidbit examples from the September issue of Mental Floss magazine have to do with handwriting:

  • How does the post office decipher bad penmanship? When a machine finds an illegibly addressed letter, it sends a digital image to a special plant in Salt Lake City, where 700 specially trained clerks crack the code, usually in under 3 seconds. If the process fails, the letters are christened nixies and ultimately end up in the shredder.
  • The Institute of Medicine reports that 1.5 million injuries occur each year because pharmacists or hospital workers misread the handwriting on the prescription.

Who might incorporate this information into their marketing blog posts?  Well, corporate mailing handling and mail forwarding service companies, for starters. (I found no fewer than 50 million Google results by searching “mail handling services for business). Then what about someone blogging about teaching cursive in public school? Tutoring services might use this information to talk about preparing students for the world of work. And what about pharmacy schools and physicians’ assistant degree programs attempting to attract students?

Business blog content writers – never underestimate the power of a good tidbit!

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Using Business Blogs to Tell How and Why

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There are two types of big questions, remarks @jessanne, editor of Mental Floss magazine. There’s the really, really big kind, The ancient Greek philosopher Socratesthe philosophical questions Plato fretted over, and then the ones we’re driven to Google to find out.

These “how?” and “why?” questions are at the very heart of blogging for business. Online searchers arrive at your business blog needing to know how to find products and services, how to do something, how to solve very specific problems. Readers also want to know why: Why should they choose product A over product B?  Why is C a better course of action than D? And, as Jessanne so aptly points out, these may not be Aristotle-level existential questions, but they are the very sort of questions that bring magazine readers and online visitors to our pages.

Blogging for business has the potential to reach different groups:

  • New (recent transaction) customers
  • Repeat customers
  • Other companies’ customers
  • Potential customers
  • Strategic partners (vendors, colleagues, professional associates)

All of them are asking “how?” and “why?”. And, when you provide the answers, remember that they’re still thinking, “So what?  So what’s in it for me?”

In other words, people are online searching for answers to questions they have or for solutions for dilemmas they’re facing.  Or, they might need a particular kind of service and aren’t sure who offers that.  Or maybe they need a product to fill a need they have.  That’s when, if you’ve been consistently blogging, they find you, because your blog post gives them just the information they’re looking for.

Generally, online searchers want to:

  • Find out what they’ll get if they buy
  • Discover whether the product is a good match for their needs
  • Gain perspective about how the pricing and the quality stacks up against the competition

But, just because blogs deal with relatively simple “hows” and “whys”, I caution business owners and their blog content writers alike, don’t shy away from the really, really big, “philosophical” questions. One point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions is that you’ve gotta have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. Who are you? People are attracted to and want to understand the person behind the business.

Get at least a little ways into the big, big questions, inserting a little Plato along with the Google…The business owner’s or professional’s own “voice” is a real power source for blog content!

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Better Business Blog Posts Emphasize the Positive

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sticky tape dispensr“The tape guns are not for customer use!” was the headline on the poster my National Speakers Association colleague Todd Hunt saw in his local UPS store. There was more text on that sign, Hunt reports: “For liability reasons, it is prohibited for customers to use our industrial tape guns.  If you need something taped up, please either purchase a tape dispenser from our retail wall or just ask us to tape it up for you.  We’re always glad to help.”

In his e-newsletter,Todd (who’s been described as “funnier than a business speaker, more informative than a comedian’) uses this UPS sign to teach his readers a couple of lessons all of us business blog content writers can use:

  • “They (UPS) offer a great service, but they’ve buried it in the body text!”  Come right out with your message (I call this   the “pow’ opening line). “Need your package taped? Just ask!” is the starting statement Hunt would’ve put on that sign.

Be purposeful about your opening lines, leaving no doubt in searchers’ minds that they’ve come to the right place to find the information, products, and services they need.

  • Todd Hunt suggests deleting the sentence about the liability – too negative. Just stash the tape guns behind the counter out of sight, he recommends, if there have been so many problems with customers using them! Emphasize the positive.

In business blogging I advise taking the high road in marketing strategy. In other words, don’t put down your competition.  Instead, simply emphasize your own expertise, products and services. “Accentuate the positive and latch on to the affirmative,” as Bing Crosby used to croon.

  • Offer your customers different options, Hunt suggests. We’re happy to tape your package closed for you at no charge.  If you prefer to do it yourself, we have tape dispensers for sale on our retail wall.

Communicate the fact that you and your staff have the experience, the information, the products, and the latest technology to solve problems and meet needs, yet offer choices of action to help readers feel they are in control.

Better business blog posts accentuate the positive!

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The Problem With Hero Action Beginnings for Business Blog Posts

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Too organized for in medias res type business blog writing (that’s where you intrigue readers by going right to thehero conflict, then jump back to an earlier, quieter part of the story to deliver the information they need to understand the concepts)? Novelist Cheri Laser has at least three other suggestions for ways to begin a novel.  You might like to use what Laser calls a “hero action beginning” for your blog posts.

“In a hero action beginning, the hero is onstage, doing something active and interesting related to launching the core story,” explains Laser. For us Indianapolis freelance blog content writers, the equivalent would be a bold statement of what our business owner or professional client has to offer.

My friend and fellow blogger Thaddeus Rex lists “Four Ways STUFF has of Differentiating Itself”. A hero action beginning for a blog post might include one of those:

1. Features – your product or service can do something your competitors can’t (or yours does it better).
2. Location – your product/service is available someplace your competitors’ is not (or it’s more easily available)
3. Service – the buying experience you provide sets you apart
4. Cost – you’re the cheapest or the most expensive (exclusivity).

Of course, the secret, as Rex so rightly points out, is to really know your audience, so you know which of those things will be most likely to appeal.

When it comes to blogging (as compared to say, ads, billboards, or even brochures), the potential problem is that this sort of hero action beginning has a way of bordering on being a “boast session” of the things. Fine to let online readers know about what you have and about the things you do, but keep this in mind:  It has to be about them!

In one recent issue of Speaker Magazine, authors offer tips to professional speakers who want to launch books they’ve written. “Don’t tell your prospects how great you are; tell them how great they will feel when the ideas in your book relieve the pain they’re experiencing.”

Hero action beginnings can be great as “grabbers” in business blog posts, with one proviso – remember that the real hero of any blog post had better be – the reader!

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