Corporate Blogging A’ la State Farm

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I plan to use the State Farm goodneighborEXTRA e-newsletter I received the other day as a positive example to blog writers.  And, while of course a newsletter covers more topics than should be shouldered in any one blog post, there were several aspects of this particular newsletter issue worth emulating in SEO marketing blogs.

When providing business blogging assistance, one piece of advice I often give is to provide valuable, put-into-practice-right-away information to readers. Interestingly enough, that very piece of advice is the one that encounters the most resistance from business owners thinking of starting a blog. Owners of personal service businesses, in particular, voice fears of giving away valuable information “for free”. What happens in the real world, though, is quite the opposite.  Business owners can use corporate blogging for business to position themselves as “go to” people in their field.

Freelance blog writers may want to use only one main piece of advice in each post, but the State Farm newsletter included no fewer than six different advice articles:

  • Trouble-Proof Your Roof
  • What To Do With a Windfall
  • Reversing the Dropout Rate
  • Watch for Animal Crossings This Fall
  • Make Your Home Workshop Safer
  • 3 Steps to Winterize Your Home

The State Farm newsletter editors apparently agree with my advice to those providing business blogging services:  Include Calls to Action in each post. With the click of the mouse, readers could register for the StateFarm Nation Rewards program, email their agent (Jim Guffey is my own longtime agent), or visit him online.

When it comes to corporate blog writing, I teach indianapolis blog writers to make the “ask”  in the form of a CTA, inviting readers to add a product to their shopping cart, download something, request information, subscribe to the blog or newsletter, or register a “Like” on Facebook. Remember, what we’re discussing here is corporate blogging for business!

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Corporate Blog Writing Lets You Go a Little Wild – But There Are Rules

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pet alligator“Hoosiers can have exotic animals, but a state permit or USDA license is required,” explains reporter Mary Beth Schneider in the Indianapolis Star.  Indiana blog writers don’t need licenses, but there are some basic rules I’ve found I should emphasize in offering business blogging assistance.

Rule #1 for blog content writers should be the (admittedly subjective) Rule of Good Taste. While the tone of blog posts can (and should) be more conversational and less formal than the tone of your website or company brochure, it’s better not to risk offending the fussiest of readers by using poor grammar or just plain bad language. Claims about the company’s products and services should come across as reasonable and provable, with the use of “special effects’ technology kept in modest proportion.

One lesson I’ve learned as a professional ghost blogger comes from the fashion world, where understated style tends to create a better overall impression .  Yes, in business blog writing you can go “a little wild and exotic” in terms of  showing your uniqueness within your field, but accomplishing that within the bounds of good taste is always a good idea.

Rule #2 for freelance blog writers is to always stick to “white hat” techniques in the effort to “win search”. While SEO marketing blogs are meant to improve visibility, attract more online traffic to the website, and generate sales, above-board blog content writing is above all relevant, providing the sort of on-topic, useful information that searchers need. At the extreme, “Black hat” techniques such as link manipulation can result in getting a client website banned (by a search engine) from search results altogether. On the other hand, explains Wikipedia, “SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, …and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience.”. 

Rule #3, I stress in corporate blogging training sessions, is simply the Rule of Good Writing.  Following Kurt Vonnegut’s advice “Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or enhance the action”, I tell Indianapolis blog writers ton keep the content compelling by leaving no doubt in readers’ minds how much you care – about your industry, your products, and your customers. Clarity and focus lend power and strength to the material, while variety in adjectives and sentence structure keep posts interesting.

“State Lets You Go a Little Wild – But There Are Rules,” reads the headline of Mary Beth Schneider’s article about exotic animals.  Corporate blogging for business, I might add, works the same way!

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Indianapolis Blog Writer Shares the Secret of Patience – in Puzzles or Corporate Blog Writing

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For me, playing with words isn’t confined to providing blog writing services. I love word puzzles of all kinds.

what's left word puzzlesOne puzzle type is called “What’s Left?”, where there’s a grid with 60 different words, and each clue tells what categories of words the solver should cross off.  For example, “Cross off all 8-letter words in columns B and D that can be divided into two 4-letter words.”  If I’ve followed all the directions correctly, I’m left with a wise saying.

Well, I’ve just finished solving one of these puzzles, and the saying I revealed is one that I think could be a very appropriate one for all of us Say It For You content writers in Indianapolis to remember:

“THE SECRET OF PATIENCE IS TO DO SOMETHING IN THE MEANTIME.”

The most obvious connection is that corporate blogging for business takes patience – lots of it. Any activity that necessitates sticking to a task week after week, month after month, year after year – well it takes perseverance.  Blogging for business takes patience as well, because (despite some business owners’ unrealistic expectations) even the best of SEO marketing blogs may not be rewarded with instantaneous Google Page One status.)

So what are some of the “in the meantime” activities that can be of business blogging help?

Work on your overall marketing plan. Remember, your blog is just one piece of the strategizing you do with your web designer, marketing consultant, ghost blogger, managers, employees, networking colleagues and customers.

Systematically collect ideas. “The best blog ideas often happen during a conversation, in the shower, or while listening to a seminar. Don’t fight it. Instead, have a method for capturing these ideas so you can save them for later,” advises friend Michael Reynolds in a Say It For You guest post.

Ponder. What’s your special slant in your industry? What are some of the values you want to embody in the way you serve customers?

Read, Listen. Learn.  One of the deceptively simple insights I’ve gained over the years of providing business blogging help and which I share in corporate blog training is that the more you know about, the more you have to blog about.

Business owners and freelance blog content writers – whenever you’re feeling as if your patience is stretched and that blogging is a puzzle –  the solution is to do something in the meantime!

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Core-Beliefs-Over-Core-Products in Corporate Blogging for Business

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The best website content and the best blogs (yes, even the best SEO marketing blogs)binoculars with face give readers insight into a company’s core beliefs in addition to information about products and services that company offers. That’s why, earlier this week, I pointed to the annual report of charitable organization Art With a Heart, where the “What we do” page uses just one-sentence to tell readers what they do, a devoting the rest of the page to “What we believe.”

When I offer corporate blogging training sessions, I try to make sure, especially when it comes to  “newbies” to corporate blog writing, they understand the importance of conveying business owners’ core beliefs through their blogs.

In general, blogging can help achieve quite a number of goals:

  • Building good will
  • Staying in touch with existing customers and clients
  • Defining
  • Announcing changes in products and services
  • Controlling damage when it comes to negative PR or complaints
  • Recruiting employees

Of all these goals served by writing for business, though, the most important might be ”humanizing”.  Existing customers need their trust reinforced. Online searchers need to come away with the impression they will be dealing with real, likeable people, not just with ”a company”.

After years of providing business blogging assistance, I’ve come to realize that, where the business owner is doing his or her own writing, or whether they’re collaborating with  professional blog content writers, the end result has to express the brand in terms of the people behind the brand.

Barbra Streisand touched on this idea when she sang “People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.” Online blog readers need people.  Potential customers need people. Best blogging results happen when writing for business is by people, about people, and for people!

What blogging is about is business people defining and articulating what makes them human!

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Blog More What You Believe Than What You Are!

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The 2009 annual report for the Indianapolis charity Art With a Heart is set up to resemble a children’s book.  The content of the report itself could serve as a wonderfulBelieve model for the most adult among Indianapolis bloggers.

As a professional ghost blogger who trains blog content writers, I was fascinated by the Art With a Heart “What we do” page.  There are two sections on the page. The “We are…” section is one sentence long; the “We believe…” section contains seven short, powerful paragraphs.

Unfortunately, I realized, almost all SEO marketing blogs appear to use a ratio that is the exact opposite, with the majority of the corporate blog writing devoted to describing “what we do”, in other words, to describing all the services and products the company or organization offers. Too little space seems to be devoted to “what we believe”.

When I’m offering business blogging assistance, I emphasize that the best website content – and the best corporate blogs – give online readers a feel for the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs about their industry and the way they want to serve their customers.  Those intangibles are precisely what makes a company stand out from its competitors.  Those “we believe” statements can turn out to be the business’ most powerful calls to action.

There are many details in the projects and programs offered by Art With a Heart, yet their annual report manages to express them all in one statement:

“We are encouraging Indianapolis youth through success in art.”

I’d ask business owners and the freelance blog writers who tell their stories  – Can you find the one statement that expresses the core of what the business brings to the world?

Now, (I add in corporate blogging training sessions), tell me what you BELIEVE!

By the way, here are a few of the things Art With a Heart believes:

…that we can positively affect some of the city’s neediest children emotionally, intellectually, and creatively.

…that the processes used in creating art, such as planning, problem-solving, analysis, synthesis, and self-evaluation, will be used again and again by our students throughout their education.

…that the success and pride in accomplishment these students experience will develop into a desire to enhance their own surroundings…

Indianapolis blog writers composing content for businesses might challenge the premise of this Say It For You blog post.  After all, Art With a Heart is a charitable organization. Can this core-beliefs-over-core-products-and-services emphasis really be as appropriate and effective when the content is about a for-profit business, with the goal being not only to win hearts, but to make the cash register ring?

Give me your thoughts…..

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