In Law and in Blogs, There are Facts and Ideas, and Then There are Creative Expressions

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“A copyright is a form of protection in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original copyrightworks of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression.”

How does corporate blog writing relate? Every blog content writer faces originality challenges – on both sides of the copyright coin. 

“When you write a blog post, you instantly create a copyrighted work,” explains Michelle Fabio, Esq.

On the one hand, blog content writers can take comfort in the fact that according to the law, the moment a blog post is “created and fixed in a tangible form that is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or a device”, their original work receives copyright protection.  That means that as a trainer providing business blogging assistance to help with corporate branding and corporate identity, I can assure business owners they do not need to register their blog or even attach a © sysmbol.

(The “small print” when it comes to the automatic copyrighting of corporate blogging for business, Fabio adds, is that, if you ever wanted to sue someone in federal court for copyright infringement, your work would first have had to be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.)

In offering business blogging help, I’m more often emphasizing the other side of the copyright “coin”, the part of the business blog writing bargain you need to hold up as part of writing for business. Your corporate blog, remember, is part of your overall marketing strategy.  Simply put, your blog is part of your brand, and it needs to put your best “you” forward. In all my corporate blogging training, I stress ways to avoid any hint of plagiarism by attributing quotes to their authors and providing links back to your sources.  (Notice that, as a blog content writer, I’ve done that very thing twice in the first two paragraphs of this blog post!)

There are no official “laws” when it comes to providing the kind of fresh, relevant content that helps move your corporate blog higher in search rankings while continuing to engage readers’ interest. Looking back to copyright law, however, can be a big help.  That’s because ideas are not copyrightable.  As Michelle Fabio puts it “You are absolutely free to use someone else’s idea as a jumping-off point for your own expression.” Copyright doesn’t protect facts, either.

I guess that leaves lots of room for us bloggers to spread our corporate blogging wings!

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Business Blogging to Appeal to Readers’ Better Nature

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giving charityAs a ghost blogger offering business blogging training, I think the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy may be onto something when it comes to corporate blog writing.

Five years ago, Courtney Martin handed each of nine friends $100, directing them to use the money for creative acts of kindness.  Since then, explains Mental Floss Magazine, "the idea of small-scale creative giving has captured the imagination of do-gooders around the country," adding that the Secret Society now has chapters in New York, California, and Georgia.

In many SEO marketing blogs, the content focuses on appealing to consumers’ fear or greed.  The message is often geared towards highlighting a problem, creating enough fear about that problem that readers will be moved to do something about that fear – now! The other frequently used approach is an appeal to greed, telling readers about all the wonderful benefits they can gain by taking action.

Learning about the Secret Society of Creative Philanthropy made me wonder if blog content writers shouldn’t be using Calls to Action to appeal to readers’ higher instincts as well as their need to avoid pain and gain comfort. In fact, marketing blogger Michael Masterson calls fear and greed "two overrated emotions". 

Fear appeals don’t work in the long run, says Masterson, unless you follow fear with hope of some kind. Greed-based promotions attract the wrong sort of customer, he adds. Buyers don’t like to think of themselves as greedy; they want to be successful and to feel good – about their choices of product, services, and providers.

The bottom line in all this, I believe, is that corporate blogging for business has to be part of a company’s overall marketing strategy and tactics development. Put another way, every word that appears in a business’ blog – including the Calls to Action – must be consistent with the company branding and corporate identity.

The popularity of the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy seems to be tied to the anonymity of the giver.  In providing business blogging help, though, the "secret" I’d share is that, to appeal to a better kind of customer – the kind that buys for the right reasons and then remains loyal – Calls to Action (both the implied CTA’s in the blog content itself and the Call to Action "buttons) should appeal to readers’ better nature.

 

 

 

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Help ‘Em Get Your Business Writing Out of the Package

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"Frustrate me at your peril!" is the unspoken message from online searchers to blog vaultcontent writers and web designers. It’s a message I find bears repeating to business owners who use my business blogging services as part of company marketing.

Sure, as a freelance SEO copywriter, I create blog posts with an eye to making them readable, informative, and engaging.  But, whether I’m the author or providing training to others in corporate blog writing, the writing itself and the page on which the blog content writer’s work appears both need to be "easy to open", in other words, navigable.

The December 20-26 issue of the Indianapolis Business Journal drove home this very point in an editorial cartoon: "It’s not that I don’t like the product," explains the harried lady returning a gadget at a merchant’s "Returns" window. "I can’t get it out of the package!"

A fact of life in corporate blog writing is that a search engine’s delivering a potential customer to the "door" of your blog guarantees absolutely nothing – if that reader suffers inconvenience at your hands. Pay attention to these possible "My bad" pitfalls:

  • Poor match between the SEO marketing blog post title and the content of the first paragraph of the blog post itself.
  • Difficult to find – and harder to follow – Calls to Action in the post or on the blog page.
  • Links that lead nowhere.

Remember, online readers don’t need to come to a "Returns" window.  If it isn’t convenient for them to "get the package open" (to get the information they came to find out of your corporate blog content), then to follow the "map" to take the next step – they’ll click away, leaving you with a half-opened package and tears of frustration in your eyes!



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Governor-Style Business Blogging – From Consensus to Call-to-Action

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Governor DanielsWhile you’ve got more like 30 seconds than the 30 minutes allotted to Governor Mitch Daniels’ State of the State address last week, Daniels’ consensus-to-call-to-action makes a lot of sense in corporate blogging for business.

One aspect of the speech that really stood out for me as a blog content writer and a trainer in business blog writing is that Daniels started with some experiences he’d shared with his audience:

"For us" (notice how the ‘us’ implies he’s on the same side as his listeners, exactly what any SEO marketing blog needs to do in each post) "sports fans, recent times have brought a frustrating string of ‘almosts’ ". 

Daniels goes on to relive three experiences with us in the audience:

  • At 60, Tom Watson almost won the British Open.
     
  • The Colts almost won the Super Bowl.
     
  • Little Butler almost won a national basketball championship.

(Start by establishing common ground.  Your readers have come to exactly the right place for the information, products, and services they need, because you understand their needs.)

Daniels then makes clear what will be lost if his listeners don’t take action.

"One thing is certain.  The rest of the world will not wait on us.  Other nations, and other states, are forging ahead with the kind of reforms I have proposed here…."

(In writing for business, one goal is to make clear what opportunities will be lost if readers don’t respond – and in timely fashion   to your Calls to Action.)

Daniels very effectively repeats the words "wait" and "waiting" to emphasize the main theme of the speech – we need to take action now.

"Our children are waiting.  Our fellow citizens are waiting.  History is waiting…Your’e going to do great things.  I can’t wait"I

In corporate blogging training, I recommend a powerful closing line for each post to "cement" the theme of the blog post in readers’ minds and incite them to action. The implication is "You can’t wait!"

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Verbifying Your Business Through Corporate Blogging

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dictionary 1One aspect of linguistics could prove important to every blog content writer – verbification.

When, back in 2006, Merriam Webster added the verb "google" (spelled with a small "g") to its dictionary, defining it as ‘a transitive verb meaning to use the Google search engine to obtain information", that was an example of verbificatiion.

As a professional offering business blogging services, I can see that verbification might be viewed as a negative . Google executives, for example, may have worried that verbifying their company name might turn their search engine process into aspirin (News.cnet.com reminds us that Bayer literally lost Aspirin as a U.S. trademark in 1921 when the term "aspirin" turned into a generic term.)

Blogger Grammar Girl doesn’t object to verbification of the word Taser, because "saying tasingsomeone was ‘tased’ allows reporters to writer clearer sentences." In offering business blogging help, I’d say the same holds true in writing for business – more verbs makes for more dynamic blog content.

Especially for smaller companies, I wonder if achieving verbification of the business brand should be an actual goal of a blog marketing strategy.  As Bits.blogs.nytimes points out, "There is a strong positive marketing value from verbing, because verbs connote activity and excitement." Aren’t activity and excitement the main two results of successful corporate blog writing?

Here’s a corporate blog writing verbification challenge for you:

What noun can your business turn into a verb by introducing it,
then repeating it frequently in blog posts, emails, tweets, and promotions?

Just off the top of my head, what about "blogcasting"?

 

 

 

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