Business Blogs Help Readers Put Theory Into Practice
“Colleagues tell me that stories and examples work best in helping students understand how to put theory into practice,” says Elizabeth Natalle in “Teaching Interpersonal Communication”. So, for every concept Natalle teaches in class, she gives an example in the form of a scenario or story. For variety, she sometimes has groups of students analyze a case study.
We blog content writers would do well to follow Natalle’s example, harnessing the power of storytelling to bring out the points we’re trying to make in our posts. And we should do it for the same reason: stories and examples help readers understand the information we offer and relate to what we’re saying.
If one secret of successful business blog writing is, in fact, telling stories, the trick to finding story ideas may be, as Malcolm Gladwell says in What the Dog Saw, “to convince yourself that everyone and everything has a story to tell.” In fact, a big, big part of providing business blogging assistance to my Say It For You clients is helping them formulate stories. Those stories have the power to forge an emotional connection between them and their potential customers.
The setting of a business’ story refers to where it is (where the plant, the distribution area or the professional practice is actually located). The setting also includes the backdrop of the market and the industry or field in which that business or practice operates.
The history of the company or practice makes up the “plot” or story line. The story unfolds as the owners and employees answer questions such as “What do we do?” “How?” “Why?” What does ‘success’ look like to us?” “What values do we stand for?”
I call it the training benefit. Whether owners are doing their own blog content writing or working with a freelance blog writer like me, in the process of verbalizing positive aspects of their own business, helping readers relate to them and trust them, leaders are constantly providing themselves with training about how to tell their own story!
Elizabeth Natalle is on to something: For interpersonal communication (and that’s exactly what blogging for business is designed to be), nothing beats a good story!
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.
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