“We are what we write,” professional speaker and handwriting expert Theresa Ortega shared with me almost three years ago, explaining that “all writing is brain writing”. I learned, to my amazement, that amputees who hold a pen their mouths or even between their toes form their letters precisely the same way they used to before their accident!

Of course as an Indianapolis blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I use the word “writing” in a context broader than just penmanship.  Still, as Ortega and I concluded about personal branding by business owners as expressed through business blog writing, we are also what we blog.

Just this month, as I shared with my Say It For You freelance blog writers, Theresa Ortega was featured in the Indiana State University Magazine. As part of a study, the school’s recreational sports department compared Ortega’s analysis of the writing by newly hired staff members to results of those same staff members’ assessment tests.

Ortega found one handwriting sample that set off alarm bells, and she enlisted the help an FBI friend, who confirmed her suspicions that the individual’s writing revealed traits found in serial killers. The university was alerted, so that the person’s behavior could be closely monitored.

To a certain degree, all of abusiness’ marketing materials reveal the owners’ attitudes and beliefs.  But as I’ve continued, over the years, to offer business blogging help to corporate owners and professional practitioners, it’s become apparent to me that blogs are most “telltale” of all forms of marketing. That’s partly because of blogs’ conversational, personal tone, and also because business blog content writing continues over weeks, months, and even years.

It doesn't matter whether you’re doing all the writing yourself or collaborating with a professional ghost blogger like me. As the story unfolds, blog post after blog post, about what you sell, what you do, and what you know, the clearer it becomes  to readers who you ARE!

 

 

 

Zits, as I shared a couple of days ago, is a great example of a comic strip with lessons to 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!