In Horseracing or Blogs, Ask for Permission

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Barbara Bush agreed; Margaret Thatcher didn’t. The point, Jake Rossen explains in the Mental Floss article titled “Hoof-Hearted; the Reason Racehorses Have Such Weird Names”, is that most governing bodies for thoroughbred racing set certain parameters for names, and when you opt to name a horse after a person in tribute to them, you have to ask permission.

Similarly, there are rules authors and blog content writers need to know about fair use and attribution. Whenever you want to directly quote, excerpt, or reproduce someone else’s work in something you are writing, you should consider whether or not you need legal permission to protect yourself and your business from potential future problems, the Vervante blog reminds us.

Vervante lists instances when you need to cite your source:

  • You’re quoting someone else.
  • You’re mentioning statistics that you didn’t collate yourself.
  • You’re using another person’s thoughts or ideas that aren’t your own.

The most common way we cite our sources (whether it be an article or a website) within our blogs is by paraphrasing and hyperlinking back to the page where the information originated (precisely what I’ve done three times in this very blog post).

Unfortunately, Jane Friedman explains, quoting or excerpting someone else’s work falls into one of the grayest areas of copyright law. There is no legal rule stipulating what quantity is OK to use without seeking permission from the owner or creator of the material. It’s fine to link to something online from your website, blog, or publication. Linking does not require permission. One guiding principle – if your use is not likely to affect the market for the original work, you’re probably OK.

“At first, it might seem odd that we should direct to other websites the users we’re always struggling to attract to our own domain,” rockcontent.com wryly comments, but “realizing the importance of referrals from other pages to the success of yours will change your mind”, the author adds.

Since the purpose of this Say It For You blog is to help content writers improve their craft, I consider linking to other websites to be my way of paying tribute to those authors’ expertise and knowledge.

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When Blogging, Be Prescriptive, But Be Present

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Understanding how the point of view differs in three different types of personal narratives is crucial in telling a story effectively, William Kenower explains in Writer’s Digest.

  1. A memoir is how we tell a story about something that happened to us in the past.
  2. A personal essay describes a solution to a problem the author sees in the world and lays out how the solution should be brought about.
  3. In a prescriptive, the author is an instructor and the article or piece is an instruction manual.

“Though the author may use stories to illustrate their lesson, in a prescriptive piece, the reader expects and understands that the author will be the one delivering the knowledge. To write these kinds of pieces, the author must feel comfortable in the rule of a teacher or guide,” Kenower says. But even in telling a story, he adds, an author is driven to write because of what experience has taught them.  

“Consumers are used to telling stories to themselves and telling stories to each other, and it’s just natural to buy stuff from someone who’s telling us a story,” observes Seth Godin in his latest book All Marketers Tell Stories.

Not all stories succeed, Godin points out, because not all stories have the following essential elements:

  • Great stories are authentic
  • Great stories are subtle, allowing the target audience to draw their own conclusions.
  • Great stories appeal not to logic, but to the senses.

In business blogs, when we tell the story of a business or a practice to consumers, we “frame” that story in a way that will appeal to the target audience. The business owner or professional practitioner is the “teacher”, driven to write because of what experience has taught them.

Blog marketing is prescriptive, offering how-to advice on solving a particular problem or filling a particular need. At the same time, we’ve learned at Say It ForYou, blogging is a very personal form of communication, and our clients’ corporate messages need to be translated into human, people-to-people terms. The blog is the place for readers to connect with the people behind the business or practice.

Because of what experience has taught me, my advice to bloggers is to be prescriptive, but be present!

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Blogging About What They Said, Not What You Heard

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“Anyone can say, ‘I heard”; only a journalist can say ‘They said'”, explains Amelia Dieter McClure in the Indianapolis Business Journal, emphasizing the commitment to the truth as the core tenet of a journalist.

While blog marketing is not journalism in the true sense of the term, commitment to the truth should take two forms in blog posts, we teach at Say It For You:

  1. Using data to back up claims
  2. Properly attributing ideas, images, and text that come from others’ work.

“The best content marketers aren’t afraid to share,” Corey Wainwright of Hubspot explains. (By giving credit in a hyperlink, not only am I giving Wainwright credit for the quote, I’m linking to the Hubspot website where his blog post appears.

With literally trillions of words being added daily to the World Wide Web, the Internet has become the largest repository of information in human history. Blogging for business has become a rapidly growing part of this information swell, and (inadvertently or on purpose) there’s undoubtedly a lot of “borrowing” going on.

As an occasional high school and college level English tutor, I teach my students to avoid plagiarism by properly attributing statements to their proper authors.  The blogging equivalent of citations is links. There are actually rewards to be gained in this arena for doing the “right and proper thing”: Electronic links enhance search engine rankings for your blog by creating back-and-forth online “traffic”.

There’s a second aspect to “truth-in-blogging” when it comes to claims. Most business blog posts make claims.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly on the money, but still – a claim is a claim. The problem is, often blog visitors don’t know how to “digest” the claims you’ve “served up”.  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field. What I’m getting at is that every claim needs to be put into context, so that it not only is true, but so that it feels true to your online visitors. Readers must be shown how that claim has the potential to help them with their problem or need!

Anyone can blog about “what “they heard” or “what they think” or “what they claim”, but the best business blog writers are committed to the truth.

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Why Blind Dates With Blogs are a Bad Idea

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Have you gone on a blind date with a book? Lauren Carlton of the American Library Association asks. “The set-up for the display is simple”, Carlton says. “Just wrap books in paper to hide their covers — hence the ‘blind date’ — and decorate the wrapping with enticing facts, hints about the plotline, or our favorite, the books’ first lines”.

To get patrons to want to pick up these blind dates, Carlton advises librarians and book store owners, you need books with attention-grabbing first lines.

  • “Don’t look for dignity in public bathrooms” (Big Machine by Victor LaValle)
  • “It was the day Grandmother exploded” (The Crow Road by Iain Banks)
  • “All stories are love stories” (Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson)

Between Shakespeare’s Juliet asking “What’s in a name?” and father-of-advertising David Ogilby’s emphasis on headlines, there’s simply no contest when it comes to blogging for business – titles matter. Just as those first lines enticed readers to buy “blind date” books without seeing the covers or reading the blurb, blog titles set the tone and arouse curiosity in online searchers.

There are a number of different approaches in choosing a title for a blog post:

  • titles with an agenda (making clear the writer’s point of view)
  • emotional “grabber titles”
  • how-to titles
  • “truth about” titles

Blog post titles have two seemingly contradicting jobs to do – arousing readers’ curiosity while still assuring them they’ve come to the right place, I’ve often explained to blog content writers at Say It For You. Unlike the case with the blind date book promotion, where bookstore customers and library patrons are looking for “a good read”, online searchers are looking for specific answers to questions and specific solutions to problems they have. Searchers who’ve found your blog site won’t linger longer than a couple of seconds if what they see doesn’t reassure them they’ve come to the right place for the information they need.

In a blind-date-with-a-book promotion, the book jackets are covered with plain brown wrapping, so that appearances play no part in readers’ choice of their next read. In contrast, images and photos need to be part of any business’ blog marketing, because, as digital marketing maven Jeff Bullas points out, articles with images get 94% more total views. In fact, at Say It For You, we try to use images the same way, selecting one for each post that gives readers an idea of what to expect in the post.

If you’ve recently gotten out of a long relationship or have lost confidence in yourself, a blind date can really encourage you to get back into the dating arena. Blind dates with books are a fun promotion libraries and bookstores use to attract customers. In general, though, one is forced to conclude, blind dates with blogs tend to be a bad idea.

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To Make Blog Titles Pop, Add a Little Assonance and Alliteration

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This month’s issue of Breathe Magazine was the inspiration for both this week’s Say It For You blog posts….

Titles – they either do the trick or they don’t, I always muse while browsing through the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble or the corner CVS. The current issue of Breathe had an especially appealing array of clever titles, I thought.

To be sure, a number of the Breathe titles were very direct, leaving not an iota of doubt as to what kind of information one should expect to see in the article:

  • Unlocking Your Potential
  • Stand Up For What’s Important
  • Ways to Cope With Change
  • Project Declutter
  • The Joy of Dogs
  • The A to Zzzzzz of Power Naps
  • Say It Loud, Say It Clear

Still other titles evoked curiosity about what stance the authors were going to take or what they were going to advise:

  • When Life Tips Out of Balance
  • Food for the Soul
  • Only Fools Rush In
  • Daydream Believer

I noticed a third grouping of titles, where the authors took advantage of the sound of the words themselves. Although I was looking at a printed page, I found, I was almost reading those titles aloud in my own head:

  • Facebook Fallout?
  • From Chore to Choice
  • Navigating Non-Negotiables
  • Experience vs. Expectation
  • Is the Grass Greener?

Notice the way similar consonants or similar vowel sounds are presented in a sequence. In scanning those titles, your eyes are both seeing the repetition and, in a real sense “hearing it” as well.

Breathe Magazine reminded me of something I’ve been teaching for years now at Say It For You, namely using alliteration (consonant repetition) and assonance (vowel repetition) in blog titles with an eye to making them more “catchy”. It’s one thing to write great content, and quite another to get readers to click on it.

To make blog titles “pop”, try add ind a pinch of alliteration and assonance!

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