Who Really Writes The Songs That Make The Young Girls Cry?

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Country Music picture As a business ghost blogger for hire, I take an interest, not only in the work of colleagues in that small but growing profession, but also in the doings of “ghosts” in other fields.  Take country music, for example (being a square dancer these many years has bred in me a love for country tunes). The relative importance of lyrics versus melodies in songs of any type can be debated, but you’ll have to admit that, with country songs, storytelling and “plays on words” constitute a big part of almost all the best-loved country songs’ special appeal.

Leafing through Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine on a recent trip, I came upon an entire feature story about Nashville, Tennessee country music stars and the songs that made them famous.  Writer Elaine Glusac comments, “The truth in this town and a secret to most music fans is that songwriters, not performers, are largely responsible for those storytelling songs about love, Grandma, whiskey, and divorce.”   Unlike on the coasts, where soloists write their own material, she explains, “in Nashville it’s the writers who feed the stars”.

Writing, adds Glusac, is generally acknowledged to be an individual sport.  But, in Nashville’s culture, they work as a team. “It’s called co-writing”, she explains.  Now, isn’t that exactly true, I thought, about the way in which a business uses a ghost writer to bring its message and tell its story to as many customers and clients as possible using the power of the Internet?  When I think about it, it’s uncanny how similar a good blog is to a good song.  The best country songs, explains the Spirit article, are short and powerful.  “When you’ve got so few words to deliver the emotional punch, each word must be laden with meaning.” Ditto and then some for blogs!

For those who can’t get to Nashville to hear lyrics sung to steel guitars, more than two thousand U.S. radio stations bring country music to 56 million listeners per week.  The amazing thing is, the World Wide Web can put your business in touch with an audience even bigger than that.  You gotta know when to blog ’em, is all!

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Spin A Basketball – Or A Blog

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Leafing through Southwest Airlines’ Spirit magazine during a recent flight, I came upon a “How To” feature by Harlem Globetrotters veteran Kevin Daley. (I stopped to read that page in detail, recalling our family tradition, years back, of taking the kids to see the Globetrotters on Thanksgiving Day.)  “Special K” Daley was instructing readers on how to get a basketball whirling, one of the team’s trademark tricks.According to Daley there are four steps to the basketball spin, and I was struck by the fact that every one of those steps could be applied to the “spin” in a web log (blog). 

First, says Special K, “Set the ball”.  Position the ball with the lines vertically and prop it up on your fingertips in front of your body. In an earlier blog,  I explained that business bloggers need to keep a specific target audience and goal in mind. Then, the blog can address that target audience and work on achieving that specific marketing goal. basketball

Second, says Daley, “Tilt and whirl”.  Raise the ball to chest level, then twist your wrist to get maximum torque. It’s the same with blogs.  Remember, a blog is not an ad.  You’re providing information with a particular slant or twist that showcases your expertise in your field or the special qualities of your product.

Next, according to Special K, you need to “Poke with power”.  Let the ball go, and it will hover in the air briefly.  You can then catch the ball on your fingertip.  Each time a new post is put on your business blog, even if it’s recent, and even if you’ve posted frequently, it won’t make the customer want to go further and meet you on your website unless the blog entry’s got power and punch!  You must drive readers to want more.

Lastly, advises Daley (and this is the one that really, crucially, applies to blogging), “Stick with it”.  Don’t expect to succeed the first time  or even the tenth, in basketball spinning, he advises.Keep it up, and you’ll soon be doing it all day long.  Search engine optimization through blogging is never a matter of overnight success.

Before your blog gets noticed by search engines, it has to be”recent and frequen”.  You have to provide relevant material, and keep providing material again and again, for your blog to get moving closer towards the top of the search lists.  Then, you have to keep your blog there, spinning, telling your business story to all your potential clients and customers.

My special thanks to Special K.  He probably has no idea he was providing tips any ghost blogger can use!

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But A Ghost Blogger Can PLAY One!

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Alan Alda, as he’d be the first to admit, never went to medical school (although he did address the 1979 commencement at Harvard Medical School).  But as Hawkeye on M.A.S.H., Alda helped millions of viewers understand the crucially important role medics play in wartime.  Pat Dempsey, playing Grey’s Anatomy’s Doctor Derek Shepherd, at least has four sisters who are real-life doctors.   Perhaps that explains why, without any medical training himself, Demsey is able to very effectively convey to viewers the realities of hospital medicine. Andy Griffith, through his role on Matlock, offered a glimpse into the legal world without ever having attended law school.  All three actors, like many of their colleagues in the acting profession, successfully helped viewers identify in a favorable way, not with themselves and their own profession, but with the character they’d adopted, and with that character’s profession.

While the doctors or lawyers who have credentials for real-life practice bring healing and legal recourse to hundreds, even thousands of patients and clients, few have the potential for their message to reach millions.  In a sense, the actors are their “ghost” portrayers, reaching out to viewers on their behalf, offering valuable information and breeding respect for the professions of law and medicine.

As a ghost writer and ghost blogger, I’m sometimes asked how we do it.  How can we ghost bloggers write for business owners and professional clients without being trained in those fields ourselves?  It takes two things:  research and good hearing.  A ghost blogger uses a ‘third ear” to understand what the client wants to say and to pick up on the client’s unique slant on his/her business or profession. 

In these days of Internet commerce, marketing is more and more about search engine optimization driving business to websites than about billboards and advertising.  Blogging can be an absolutely indispensable tool.  But, since web rankings are based on frequency of posting new content, often business owners and professionals, even if they enjoy writing blogs, lack the time to keep up enough frequency and recency to win the Internet search.

So, while I may not be a doctor, a lawyer, an auto mechanic, a telephone technology expert, a travel guide, a gourmet chef, or a  tax expert, as a ghost blogger, I can still play one! 

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Ghost Bloggers Pied Pipers In Reverse

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As a professional writer, I derive pleasure out of a nicely turned phrase, a “word tidbit”, if you will.  In an earlier blog,  I shared one nice tidbit used by The New York Times to report on high food prices.  Then, just the other day, I read another really great word tidbit in the Journal of FInancial Planning (I retired from a financial planning career, but still keep up on continuing education).

A short item about affluent investors’ loyalty to their original financial planners was titled “Advisors No Pied Pipers”.  The writer presented a survey showing that only 33% of clients would follow their advisor to another firm. I confess I hadn’t thought about the pied piper story since grade school, but this title immediately brought into my mind a picture of the Pied Piper, bells on his pointed cap and pipe in his mouth, prancing ahead of an army of rats, leading them away from the town.  In just four words, the writer was able to make me think about the whole story.  And, using just the right words to evoke an image, I reflected, is exactly what we ghost bloggers try to do! 

In the case of blogging, of course, I’m after the reverse Pied-Piper effect, trying to lead customer to my client’s website.  Through search engine optimization techniques, including using key words, posting frequently, and providing relevant content, the blog “pipes” itself towards the top of the search list and then “pipes” customers right to the website  After all, when it comes to web-based communication, words, along with pictures, are a business’ only “music”.

Closing my copy of the Journal of Financial Planning, I thought: Now, that’s what a ghost blogger does for a living – makes music in order to make business happen.  Please excuse me while I sew bells onto my cap!

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Befitting Bloggery

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I’m fond of  thinking of ghost blogging as an art, but, truth be told, there’s quite a bit of science to it as well. Part of the science has to do with targeting an audience.  By that I mean your blog can’t be all things to all people, any more than your business can be all things to everybody.  The blog must be targeted towards the specific type of customers you want and who will want to do business with you.  Everything about your blog should be tailor-made for that customer  – the words you use, how technical you get, how sophisticated your approach, the title of each blog entry – all of it.

Science comes into play in another sense as well.  As your ghost blogger, I’ll be using, and repeating, “search terms” to help search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN “notice” your blogs and move them higher and higher on their list. In other words, your blog becomes a marketing tool to achieve SEO, or search engine optimization.

Earlier, I wrote about blogs bringing you to “top of mind” status with customers. Well, in the same concert program booklet where I found the specialty license plate ad I was writing about, I saw a second advertisement.  Very interesting, this one, called “Make Every Day A Great Performance”.  Talk about targeting an audience –  this ad is printed in a symphony concert program book, remember, and every word of that full-page ad had to do with performances and with music.  The ad was’nt about music at all – it was promoting a retirement living facility!  ”  My compliments to the ad agency or whoever created that page! It was designed to appeal to the type of customer they knew would be seeing that ad.

Your company blog is definitely not an ad and should not sound like one.  What it is, though, is an invitation to learn more about your field of expertise and about the kinds of products and services you have to offer.  Everything about your blog needs to be targeted for your audience.  And everything about my work as a ghost blogger,  both the science and the art of it, must be targeted to Say It For You – to the right people!

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