Blog Content By and For the Unquenchably Curious

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This week’s Say It For You blog posts are based on the book What Makes Flamingos Pink, by Bill McLain, “a colorful collection of Q & A’s for the unquenchably curious”…

One thing it’s always a good idea to include, I tell content marketers, is interesting information on topics related to their business or professional practice. If you can provide information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know, we explain at Say It For You, all the better. So long as there’s a real “back story” demonstrating valuable lessons learned and why that information should matter to the web visitor, tidbits can prove to be enormously useful tools….

The color of most birds is a matter of genetics, McClain explains in the book. Bluebirds are blue by nature, cardinals red for the same reason – their inherited genes. Famingos are different – they are pink because their diet is heavy in natural pigments called carotenoids. Wisely, the author is quick to show readers the relevance of that information – “When we eat carrots or beets, we are also eating carotenoids,” he explains. ” But no matter how many beets and carrots we eat, the only way we can turn pink is to blush or get a sunburn,” he adds.

One big goal of the writing we do for our business owner and professional practitioner clients is positioning them as experts in the eyes of both their existing clients and their web visitors. While good blog post content can and should be entertaining, it’s important to remember that most online searchers are not pursuing a recreational activity, but instead are on a fact-finding mission. You can hook them, we teach at Say It For You, with humorous and fascinating trivia tidbits, but the material you serve up needs to be meaningful to that audience and – actionable.

The factoid about flamingos’ pink coloring is an example of how trivia can be used in content marketing to accomplish a variety of initiatives: defining basic industry terminology, sparking curiosity about the subject, putting modern-day practices and beliefs into perspective, and explaining why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way.

Always remember, though – they may be “unquenchably curious”, but online visitors are rarely unquenchably patient. Structure the content so as to address the two questions “So what?” (why it might matter) and “Now what?” directing them to the next step.

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To Plot or Not to Plot in Creating Blog Content

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one sentence speech in blogs

 

“I rarely start writing without knowing what I’m going to (try to) write,” confides Simon Van Booey in Writer’s Digest. “I know the story when the pen hits the page, but how to write, the tone, approach, pace – that’s what the deskwork is about.”

Advice to students offered in the Research & Education Association’s QuickAccess laminated writing guide is perfect for content writers of all types: Before you begin writing an essay or writing a research paper, draft a working thesis statement.” That thesis statement should contain the subject of the essay and your opinion on that subject, REA explains.

With the general purpose of any content marketing piece being to promote a product, service, or cause, content writers never “start writing without knowing what they’re going to try to write”. The “thesis” of any individual blog post takes the form of a one-sentence declaration of a fact or opinion that the content writer will set about fleshing out, illustrating or “proving”. And, while business blogs ought to be far more conversational in style than college essays, “plotting” the posts forces writers to focus, which translates into increased impact for the finished piece.

Thankfully, the “thesis” itself can become part of the post. At Say It For You, I’m fond of saying to blog content writers that their task is to keep the reader engaged with valuable, personal, and relevant information, beginning with the “downbeat”, which is what I call the first sentence of each post. The thesis, itself, though can appear anywhere in the blog post, reinforcing the main idea of the message.

“Plotting” an editorial calendar for a marketing blog makes a lot of sense, since, as marketing strategist Alex Honeysett says, “The introduction of social media has forced us to say things too quickly and efficiently…but some topics and musings need more than a few sentences to be fully explored.” On a blog, Honeysett explains, “you’ll have more room to expand on those thoughts.”

From a general content writing standpoint, while we never start writing “without knowing what we’re going to try to write”, since the basic “plotline” has been provided by our client, our task becomes exploring different “templates” to use in presenting the information in ways that will resonate with readers.

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It’s Your Rant, But It’s All About Them

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A “rant”, (venting a complaint in an angry, loud voice), is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “a high-flown, extravagant, or bombastic speech or utterance, a piece of turgid declamation, a tirade.” While oral tirades are still with us, Daniel Seidel writes in Slate, the last decade or so has seen more and more written rants, “a form that has blossomed on the Web.” A good rant, Seidel thinks, expresses a real passion, often one enflamed by a feeling of powerlessness. Still, many rants are humorous, with a tongue-in-cheek tone. Whatever the tone of aa particular rant, he adds, there is neither the expectation nor the desire for a response. “It would be simplistic to think of blogging as a kind of sublimated ranting,” Seidel remarks, “but blogs do form a part of our cacophonous culture.”

Not all blog posts are rants, of course. There are, however, three “rant”- like content piece types that our writers at Say It For You have found useful:

  1. An “if only” best business practice that you wish everyone with whom you do business would adopt. The content makes the point that doing things in a certain way would make the lives of both the provider and of the customer so-o-o much easier and business dealings so much more efficient!
  2. A device, program, or source of information that the owner wants t make sure everyone knows about, something that would make doing business s much smoother and more efficient
  3. A mistake that you see others making over and over that you believe is a big barrier to their success.

(To be most effective, even if a rant post is focused on a single idea, the content should be broken down or “chunked” into bullet points or numbered steps to make the concept easy to remember, as demonstrated above.)

Needless to say, rant blog posts can elicit strong reactions on the part of readers (either because you’ve touched a nerve (what you’re complaining about may be their pet peeve, as well), or because they totally disagree and want to prove you wrong. Worse, your rant risks rubbing readers the wrong way, making them feel as if they are incompetent or uninformed.  People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to your blog seeking information on what you sell, what you do, and what you know about!

If you’re moved to include a rant or two in your content marketing, the cardinal rule to remember is that it’s all about the readers, not about you. How will they experience your rant?

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Survival Tips for Blog Content Writers

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“I realize how depressing publishing survival tips can sound,” Bob Eckstein starts out his “Top 10 Survival Tips for Publishing” article in Writer’s Digest. but it’s essential for writers to realize that all writers experience struggles. As a blog content writer, I actually found Eckstein’s survival tips inspiring more than boring, especially the four listed here:

Show Up.
“Show up daily, happy and ready to work.” The same advice, seems to me, applies to business blogging. I’ve learned that trumping elements of success in blog marketing such as technical expertise and writing skill, is what I dub “drill sergeant discipline”, which involves the simple but very difficult exercise of continuing to “show up” online.

Keep Learning.
“Your work can always improve. Spend a few minutes every week familiarizing yourself with the news in your genre.” A true business  blog content writer never stops “learning the trade,” which, at Say It For You, we’ve found means getting ideas from everywhere and everyone, constantly looking to broaden our own experience and so as to share knowledge of our readers. “Content writers must expand their horizons to more challenging material than they typically read, paying special attention to sentence structure, word choice, and flow,” wordstream.com advises.

Don’t read reviews.
“Trust the experts among your inner circle and your inner monologue – there’s far too much negativity from critics.” Search engine optimization is the science part of the art-science mix inherent in blogging for business, and I frequently need to remind my clients (and often myself) that analytics are important, but they aren’t everything. As yoast.com (the WordPress plugin guide our blog content writers at Say It For You rely on) reassures us ” Above all, your blog post has to be a good piece of writing!

Be Ready to Pivot.
“Your book can be a movie script, Twitter feed, or animated series,” Eckstein tells authors. Of all marketing tactics, I’m convinced, business blogging is the best suited for implementing the lean startup concept of pivoting. In fact, that’s exactly what I love most about blogging as a communications channel. Each post can have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business. With proper tracking, you quickly learn what’s working and what’s less effective; “pivoting” in the blog content does not involve any lengthy or costly new research.

Depressing? Far from it – survival on the internet is simply a matter of getting frequent, relevant, and passionate content “out there”!

 

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The Good and the Bad of Fillers in Blogs

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Fillers are words that add no substantive meaning to a sentence and merely fill the space, Wordvice.com explains. Whether you’re writing a journal article, a research paper, a dissertation, or a blog, creating sentences that are strong and concise is important in conveying your message to your audience.

Wordvice.com offers three examples of sentences that can be shortened by eliminating filler words:

  • “There is an octopus sitting on top of my car.” (Better: “An octopus is sitting on my car.”)
  • “This is actually an interesting question.” (Better: “This question is interesting.)
  • “In order to apply the new method to our entire system, perhaps we should perform a local test.” (Better: “We should perform a local test before applying the new method to our system.”)

In speech, grammarly.com notes, while fillers such as “ums” and “uhs” don’t add meaning to your statements, they do allow you to take a second to think about what to say next. In writing, though, unnecessary adverbs and empty phrases add length but not substance.

Filler words and phrases commonly used in writing include: basically, just, really, highly, needless to say, in my opinion, okay, totally, and literally.

Blog content fillers and SEO
Unfortunately, blog content writers often insert fillers for the sole purpose of increasing the word count of each post. Based on the perception that search engines use article length as a ranking signal, writers intentionally use word fillers to “plump up” their content with an eye to SEO.

Since search engines do measure reader time on site, instead of fillers, writeonline.io suggests “grease-slide copy”, which are phrases that create smooth transitions between paragraphs and sentences and keep readers on the page.. Grease slide text might include questions such as “Have you wondered why…..?”i..Ever noticed how…..?” “Want to know a secret…?” or provocative statements such as “Be honest….” or “We’ve all done it….”

Problogger.com ,  meanwhile, suggest “killer fillers”, which are shorter posts requiring less original in-depth research, including guest posts, interviews,  link roundups, and reader discussions.

At Say It For You, we have found, the most effective length for any one blog post is as long as it takes to show readers that “right here” is where to find answers. I teach the importance of keeping a very specific focus within each post, avoiding either extraneous words or extraneous material.

“Fill” your blog with valuable, “killer”, content, but avoid fillers that have little value to add.

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