More Business Blogging Truths in Comic Strips

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Zits, as I shared a couple of days ago, is a great example of a comic strip with lessons toZits 2 teach us Indianapolis blog content writers.

“Jeremy?  What are you doing up?” asks Mom at 6AM, amazed.  “I’m going for a walk and then helping shovel the sidewalk in front of the nursing home,” Jeremy informs his mother. “I can’t even get him to pick up his dirty socks,” marvels Mom to Dad, totally puzzled by Jeremy’s newfound enthusiasm for doing good.

As a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I found myself wondering the same thing about online readers – how can freelance blog writers get them engaged and call them to action?

Israeli researchers Fox and Amichai-Hamburger tell us it’s all in “the power of emotional appeals”. Writing about promoting organizational change, the authors urge emphasizing “not rational arguments, but the emotional elements of persuasion.”

It’s simply not enough, I remind Indianapolis blog writers, to offer statistics in your SEO marketing blog, or to list reasons why what you have, what you sell, and what you know is better than what your competitors offer.

Instead, effective business blog writing involves turning those statistics into emotionally compelling stories. That’s because anyone providing business blogging services needs to find ways to offer readers the chance to become part of something important and worthwhile.

I think the Jeremy clip is particularly apropos when it comes to blogging on behalf of not-for-profit organizations and for employee recruitment efforts.  Picking up dirty socks doesn’t bring a sense of mission – shoveling the sidewalk in front of the nursing home does!

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Business Blogging Truths in a Comic Strip

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Comic strips have truths to tell, offering ideas I find usable in corporate bloggingJeremy of Zits training.  A particular Zits piece from a couple of weeks ago is a good example.  Mom asks teenage son Jeremy how he’s progressing with his English assignment of composing daily reflections.

Jeremy’s answer reminds me of those I hear from business owners who’ve tackled the task of corporate blog writing on their own: “I had a couple of good thoughts in September,” Jeremy begins, “then sort of fudged it through October, and went straight stream-of-consciousness for November, December, and January…”

Successful blog content writing is about “getting your frequency on”, observes fellow blogger Pat Flynn. If you throw in the towel before success has a chance to develop for your SEO marketing blog, Flynn warns, you’ll have fallen prey to the biggest single reason most people fail at blog marketing.

Jeremy-like “fudging through” or stream-of-consciousness, while certainly not the path I’d recommend to either business owners or to the freelance blog writers they employ to help them with blog content, that would be better than blog abandonment. That’s why the first job of Say It For You professional ghost bloggers is to help clients “get their frequency on.”

“I hope your teacher appreciates the ‘honest’ effort,” says Mom with a touch of tongue-in-cheek.  All sarcasm aside, though, Indianapolis bloggers will find that one thing online readers appreciate is honesty.  Blogger Irene of SoftVoiceofaFreeSpirit agrees: “One thing that draws me to a blogger is authenticity,” she states, listing elements that demonstrate honesty in a blog:

  • Being one’s true self with no pretensions
  • Showing appreciation for readers
  • Responding and comments on others’ blogs
  • Promoting causes you believe in

If you’re not yet a fan, take a look at Zits – it contains valuable business blogging help in a comic strip!

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May-I-Help-You Business Blogging

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help butlerProfessor Robert Krull of Texas Tech University studies the way online help systems are designed. Overall, Krull found, the largest problem participants had in using the help systems wasn’t in the information itself, but rather in finding the correct help topic. In other words, the people needing the help and the people providing the help were using different terminology.

Since the work I do as a freelance blog writer and corporate blogging trainer has everything to do with enabling people to search for and easily find the information, products, and services they need, I liked what Krull had to say about the importance of a common vocabulary.

First, Krull pointed out, online users “became lost in the unclear structure of the system”. Because they hadn’t framed their questions in the same terms used in the help programs, those readers became frustrated as they tried to navigate the system to get answers.

Ease of navigation (as I stress when offering business blogging help) is absolutely crucial to the success of any SEO marketing blog. From the manner in which the corporate blog page is set up to the corporate blog content writing, the process must be smooth.  Frustrating potential clients is to be avoided like the plague.

Krull goes on to discuss the way users “frame the search question”. Help system users are unfamiliar with the specific vocabulary used by a computer product.  They may frame their question by using one name for a category, when the program has it under a different label. Or, users may type in an entire sentence or question.

Since search engines “match” the words and phrases typed into the search bar with web pages that continually use those same words and phrases, business blog writing has a significant advantage over static web page content. Freelance content writers must be vigilant – just how is their content getting found?

The goal, of course, is to get the people needing the help (the online searchers who are the potential clients and customers) and those providing the help (the business owners and professionals using the blog writing services) on the same page, and most important, speaking the same language!

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What Stories Will You Tell in Your Blog Content Writing?

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“I don’t do companies that don’t have a story,” states brand consultant Lynda Resnick. “Ifstoryteller they don’t have a story, they don’t have a business.” Executive consultant Bill Jeffries agrees.  “Leaders,” he observes, are effective storytellers.”

In corporate blogging training, I’ve found, a big, big part of providing business blogging assistance is helping business owners formulate stories.  Every story, Bill Jeffries explains, contains certain elements:

Central characters: The history of the company and the value of its leaders are story elements that create ties between corporate leaders and blog readers.

Corporate blog writing must tell the story of the central characters in that business or professional practice. 

Plot: What do we do? How? Why? What does “success” look like to us?

Online visitors to your blog want to feel you understand them and their needs, but they want to understand you as well. The stories content writers in Indianapolis tell in their SEO marketing blog have the power to forge that emotional connection between company and potential customer.

Setting:  Each business story takes place in a physical setting (Where is the plant, the distribution area, the practice located?) The setting also includes the backdrop of the markets in which that business operates and the complex of problems for which they offer solutions.

Internet organic search is all about settings. Consumers are looking for places where they can feel comfortable and be assured of locating the products, the services, and information they need. The keyword phrases blog content writers use help draw visitors to the site, but the stories they find when they arrive provides the setting for the birth of a relationship of trust..

Learning to tell one’s business story carries special benefits for business owners. That’s true, I’ve learned, whether owners are doing their own blog content writing or working with a freelance blog writer like me.

I’ve called that the training benefit, because in the process of verbalizing positive aspects of a business or practice in a way that people can understand, leaders are constantly providing themselves with training about how to tell their story!

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Roughly Right in Business Blogging

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cash register“It’s better to be roughly right than precisely wrong,” observed English economist John Maynard Keynes almost a hundred years ago.  I think that saying holds true when it comes to measuring the effects of SEO marketing blogs.

As a corporate blogging trainer and ghost blogger, I find business owners’ overriding concern is realizing a Return on Investment from their blog content writing efforts. Just the other day I attended a workshop presented by business development consultant Charlie Larson, who explored this very topic (measuring marketing ROI) with our American Marketing Association group.

Since “finance is the international language of business,” (was the message of the meeting), “business owners must understand the financial ramifications of all their marketing initiatives.”

As I look back upon my experiences with the different Say It For You corporations, small businesses, and professional practices, I tell Indianapolis blog writers that ROI is more than “analytics” and charts.

It’s not always possible, for example, to associate a specific ROI measurement to blogging for business without regard to all the other initiatives the client is using to find and relate to customers.  All the parts have to mesh – social media, traditional advertising, events, word of mouth marketing, and sales.  Every effort that “makes the cash register ring” contributes to “marketing ROI”.

Blogging for business carries benefits in addition to helping increase sales, I’ve found. Continuously producing and making available quality content, I teach business owners, helps demonstrate that you care about quality in all dimensions of your business. As they blog, they are constantly providing themselves with training about how to effectively express to customers and colleagues their unique “slant” on their industry.

From an ROI standpoint, getting it “roughly right” when it comes to corporate blogging for business means checking with everyone involved in providing the service or product – those who work in sales, advertising, accounting, production, and distribution.

And, while total precision in isolating blogging ROI may not be possible, the blog’s general bottom line must be clearly in the benefit column.


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