The Magic of 3 in Blogging for Business

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Humanity has had a love-hate relationship with numbers from the earliest times, Ian Stewart writes in Britannica. Ancient Babylonians used numbers to predict eclipses; priests in ancient Egypt used them to predict the flooding of the Nile. Millions of otherwise rational people are terrified of the number 13. In Jewish culture, 18 represents good luck.

Over my years at Say It For You, I’ve come to consider the number 3 important when it comes to writing blog content.

3 elements of a blog post

  1. pictures and charts (the visual presentation of the blog
  2. the content itself (the facts and figures)
  3. the “voice”, the way the message comes across – first person vs. third-person reporting, humorous or serious, casual or formal

3-minute Shark Tank principle
From the time an entrepreneur is introduced to the time one of the sharks says “I’m out”, it is almost always three minutes, writes Brant Pinvidic in The 3-Minute Rule. If you can’t distill a sales presentation down to three minutes or less, the listeners will begin to make their decision without all the pertinent information. Given the very brief attention span of online readers, the essence of the message needs to come across in 3 seconds!

3-legged stool
In business blog posts I recommend a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business, a practice, or an organization.  Other aspects can be addressed in later posts. Offer three examples or details supporting the main idea of each post.

3 levels of involvement
While having a clear Call to Action is important in blog marketing, truth is, not every searcher is going to be ready to make a commitment. In your business blog, therefore, It makes sense to offer 3 different levels of involvement (subscribing to the blog, submitting a question, taking a survey, for example), and an ”ultimate decision does not need to be made now

3-pronged strategy
Working Mother magazine is an example of a 3-part plan of attack: Compliment-criticism-course correction. In discussing various “Mon” personality types, writer Katherine Bowers would compliment the “Drama Mama” or “Snowplow Mom”, suggesting ways in which that parenting strategy is great, followed be a critique – where that mothering style is off-track, then offering “course correction” options. Those same 3 prongs could be used in a blog focused on financial management, healthy living, pet care, or fashion.
https://www.workingmother.com/content/you-know-type-mom-parenting-styles

The rule of 3 in writing
The rule of three is a writing principle that suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers. The audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern.

How The Power of Three Can Make Your Communication Effective

When it comes to blogging for business, make sure to remember the Rule of 3!

 

 

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What Woodpeckers Know About Blogging for Business

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To hardworking, motivated people, diversification feels like the right thing do – enter a new market, apply for a job in a different area, start a new sport, observes Seth Godin in The Dip. “And yet,” the author continues, “the real success comes to those who obsess.” A woodpecker, he says, can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or – he can tap 20,000 times on the same tree and get dinner!

Translating woodpecking into blogging terms, Neil Patel admits that blogging isn’t for the faint at heart. One of the reasons that’s true is that “one thing Google isn’t shy about is that it rewards websites that publish regular, high-quality content that provides real value to users.”

At Say It For You, after years of being involved in all aspects of corporate blog writing and blogging training, one irony I’ve found is that business owners who “show up” with new content on their websites are rare. There’s a tremendous fall-off rate, with most blogs abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Pity, because blogs are startlingly less costly than business print ads, “winning” with content, not cost, and with frequency, not size.

Not to strain a simile, healthcare professionals stress the importance of “regularity” for maintaining digestive health, exhorting us to shun sugar, processed food, alcohol and caffeine in favor of fiber. Harvard Health Letter advocates exercise, emphasizing that is must be regular.

“There’s always been a lot of debate about content quality vs. quantity and frequency in content marketing practitioner circles,” Brock Stechman writes in DivvyHQ. However, he (significantly) points out. It will be difficult to get traction with an inconsistent or slow publication schedule, and frequent, consistent publication is vital for success.

Research on several psychological phenomena supports the importance of frequency in advertising and marketing, Mark Zimmer of Zimmer Marketing explains:

  1. The mere-exposure effect – people show preference for that with which they are familiar.
  2. The frequency illusion – each time the customer is exposed to the message there ia sense of omnipresence.
  3. Information-gap theory – reader feels there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know.

How often should you blog? Blogtyrant.com admits the only correct answer is “It depends” on a number of factors, including your schedule, your topic, and your blog post length. You want your blog to be successful for years to come, but without burning yourself out.

The lesson woodpeckers offer to blog content marketers is consistent tapping!

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Don’t-Do-These-Things Blogging for Business

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“Selling your home? Don’t do these 5 things” is the title of an IndyStar article, and a very good title, at that – for several reasons that should be of interest to blog content writers. For some reason, it’s the ”don’ts” that draw people’s attention far more than the “dos” – readers are drawn to negative titles. It’s that old human fear of failure again, but like it or not, negative titles work.

The article goes on to offer several pieces of very practical, valuable advice, such as warning against doing major remodels to your home to match your own tastes rather than what buyers might prefer, and at a cost that may not be recoverable in the sale price.

“Don’t Do These 5 Things” is an example of a “listicle”, which is actually a very popular type of blog post title. Lists spatially organize information, creating an easy reading experience. By most accounts, search engines like lists as well. IndyStar writer Michael Schroeder is also using “chunking”, a technique for tying different pieces of advice into one unifying theme.

The “listicle” technique can be useful for freshening up old blog post content. Starting with one idea about your product or service, put a number to it, such as:
“2 Best Ways To …,”
“3  Problem Fixes to Try First….”
“4 Simple Remedies for…”

The point of it all is to draw attention to ways readers can use your product or service, making the valuable information and tips you’re offering easy to grasp and retain.

Are there any “Don’ts” about being negative in blog posts? Negatives against competitors are a basic no-no. It’s almost axiomatic that, in writing for business, we want to clarify the ways we stand out from the competition.  How, then, can we get the point across that readers should want to choose this business or this practice, or these products and services over those offered by the competition? Stay positive, is the answer.

Don’t-Do-These-Things titles may work well for attracting readers to your helpful hints. But when it comes to comparing yourself to others, accentuate the positives about your way of doing things!

 

 

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Blogging to Offer – and Change – Opinions

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When online readers find a blog, one question they need answered is “Who lives here?” Providing information about products and services may be the popular way to write corporate blog posts, but in terms of achieving Influencer status – it takes opinion, we’ve learned at Say It For You.

Whether you’re blogging to promote a business, a professional practice, or a nonprofit organization, you’ve gotta have an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

The Earth Day issue of the Indianapolis Star included an article by Jacqueline Cutler that represents a collection of different people’s opinions on the topic of environmental threats. Eight different people were interviewed, with each asked to name what they considered to be the most pressing threat and then to describe one specific change individuals could make in their daily lives that could help make a positive difference.

Photographer Joel Sartore, for example, names climate change as the biggest threat, and recommends including native plants in our landscaping. Brian Skerry of National Geographic Explorer is concerned about plastic waste in the oceans, and recommends switching to metal water bottles. Shirell Parfait-Dardar, Choctaw tribal chief says we should look at our children and at our aging parents, and “just start caring” about the impact waste and warning have on their lives.

Very thought-provoking article, yet from a blog marketing standpoint, there’s a piece missing, I couldn’t help thinking. Cutler has done a fine job “aggregating” the statements of others, without presenting her own opinion. But, in marketing a business, practice, or organization, we absolutely must make clear “who lives here”.

In “Ten tips to write an opinion piece people read”, A. Stone advises starting with an attention-grabbing opening line that cuts to the heart of your key message, evoking an emotion or curiosity.  It can be a strong fact, statement or even the beginning of an anecdote that has audience connection, he explains. “The first line is the display-window for all the goodies you have inside,” Stone explains. In opinion piece posts, the, the opener should at least hint at the “slant”.

We must be influencers, I advise clients and blog content writers alike. Whether intended for business-to-business or business to consumer,, the blog content itself needs to use opinion to clarify what differentiates that business, that professional practice, or that organization from its peers.

 

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Blogging Benefits for Small Business Owners

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Are there any benefits of blogging for small business owners? Sure thing, says Lyfe Marketing. In fact, “Many companies now practice a strategy where consumers come to them for information rather than them pushing sales via outbound strategies to spread awareness about their products”. Importantly, blogging helps reduce overall marketing spend by more than 60%, Lyfe points out, naming no fewer than 11 specific benefits of blogging as experienced first hand by business owners, in each case naming a specific well-known company that uses blogging to its advantage:

  1. Trust: Show that you are an expert in your industry (Airbnb)
  2. Value- add (Etsy Marketplace)
  3. Higher ranking: Search Engine Optimization (Allstate and State Farm®)
  4. Building email lists (beauty blogs)
  5. Cultivate interest through demand generation (Apple)
  6. Lead conversion (Slack)
  7. Visibility (Tesla)
  8. Influencer marketing (Home Depot)
  9. Backlinks – other web pages link to your website (New York Times)
  10. Feedback (Trip Advisor)
  11. Stay ahead of competition (American Express)

“Publishing a business blog is an important part of any marketing strategy,” Marc Prosser, founder of Fit Small Business, writes in SCORE, “but many businesses launch one, not realizing that maintaining it is just as critical.” Prosser adds several items to Lyfe’s list of blogging benefits:

  • Informing customers about the good work you do (85% of customers like companies that give back to the community)
  • Promoting a positive employer brand so employees want to work there
  • Helping business partners grow

As a longtime blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I often remind business owners of a very simple explanation by Corey Eridon of Hubspot of the reason blogging works: “Every time you write a blog post, it’s one more indexed page on your website.  It’s also one more cue to Google and other search engines that your website is active and they should be checking in frequently to see what content you’ve published…”.

As Shane McGeorge writes in CBO. “If you are interested in increasing your online exposure, while establishing yourself as an expert in your industry, then you will definitely want to take advantage of blogging as a marketing strategy,”

 

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