Blogging Like an Egyptian

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If you’re into Egyptology, it’s easy to find books on the subject. One tells you how to “Run Like an Egyptian”,  others how to “Walk Like an Egyptian”, “Think Like an Egyptian”, “Treat Your Lady Like an Egyptian Goddess”, or even ”Shop Like an Egyptian” .

None of these seemed to have any usefulness in terms of blogging for business. I did find a number of interesting ideas I can use in corporate blogging training sessions in a Mental Floss Magazine article entitled “Gift Like an Egyptian”.

“Want to make your presents felt while globe-trotting? Author Laura Turner Garrison begins.

  • "In Egypt, a gift recipient will generally wait until after the gift giver has left to unwrap his or her treasure.”


It’s possible that some readers of your SEO marketing blog won’t be ready to take action just yet. They may want to wait until later to “unwrap the gift”.   In offering business blogging help, I remind writers to offer different options. Visitors ready to buy should be able to do that right away, but others may want to watch a video or download a white paper to learn more, or merely “favorite” your url and “unwrap” it later.

  •  In Japan, Garrison explains, “your gift may be declined numerous times before it’s accepted.”

In blogging for business, you want to be perceived as a subject matter expert offering usable information and insights. Once readers feel assured that you know your stuff and that you care about offering good information and good service, they might be ready to take action.
 

  •  “Brazilians are somewhat superstitious about the color of their gifts, including the wrapping; black is an obvious no-no.” In Russia, I learned, “sending a birthday present late isn’t rude.  In fact, sending one early is considered incredibly bad luck.”

Knowing our target readers’ culture is crucial for freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis when composing content for business owners’ and professional practitioners’ blogs. There are many subsets of every group targeted, and not every message will work for every person. At Say It For You, we realize online searchers need to know we’re thinking of them as individuals and that we understand their problems and wishes, not merely their stats.

Running like, walking like, thinking like, and shopping like Egyptians – that’s all well and good for general cultural knowledge and sensitivity. But blogging like an Egyptian? That means learning about our target readers and then writing business blog content with them in mind!
 

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Mooc-ing in Indianapolis with Blog Content Writing

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No, I didn’t say we Indianapolis blog content writers should be compared to a mooch, (you know, that parasite-like person who’s always asking you for favors and never reciprocating).

I was referring to MOOC’s, those Massive Open Online Courses) offered by universities and organizations. Always on the alert as I read my Indianapolis Star for interesting material that can be of business blogging help, I was fascinated to read about Ball State University instructor Christina Blanch, who’s teaching 5,000 students from around the world about, of all topics, Gender Through Comic Books.

I was also fascinated to learn that not every university has as positive an outlook on MOOC-ing as BSU. Purdue’s Chief Information Officer Gerry McCartney characterizes MOOC’s as marketing devices.  “They are not an educational device,” says McCartney, “not in their current form.”

Maybe MOOC’s are all about marketing rather than about university-standard education. Since at Say It For You, we’re all about content marketing strategy, we’re more than OK with freelance blog writers being thought of as the MOOC-ers of the Internet. Still, I’d have to point out, business blogs are massive educational instruments in their own right. Anyone providing business blogging services should be able to state “Wow! I learned something today!” and those writing for business should aim for the target readers being able to make that same statement about the informative material they’ve been offered. In fact, information (as opposed to promotion), is what successful business blog content writing is all about.

In the world of academia, MOOC advocates consider those online courses a “disruptive innovation” that will transform higher education for the better. Critics compare MOOCs to trucks that deliver groceries but can’t influence changes in nutrition. It’s certainly true that blogging for business has its own advocates and critics (when blog content writing is compared with more traditional websites and even with alternative marketing strategies).

I found what Karen Head, Director of Georgia Tech’s Communication Center, had to say especially interesting:

“As instructors test the new pedagogical environment, college may not be able to meet the growing need for sophisticated support system.  In our case, we cannot wait, so we continue to make adjustments day by day.”  

Blogging is growing by leaps and bounds, both as an online marketing strategy and as an  educational and  opinion forum. The lesson for me as a freelance blog content writer serving my business and professional practitioner clients is both complex and simple:

We business bloggers will need to continue to make adjustments day by day!

 

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Blogging Aloud With Imagery

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I think Holly Becker might be onto something, especially when it comes to a few of the 15 blogging tips she offers readers of Where Women Create Business magazine.

Of course, as a freelance Indianapolis blog copywriter, her reminders to

  • Know your audience
  • Set a schedule
  • Keep going

have become “old hat”, but as a corporate blogging trainer, I loved Becker’s observation that “perfection is not the goal.  …Bloggers are relatable and that is our competitive edge.”  

One excellent piece of advice Becker offered is simply “Sleep on it. If you write a post but are not sure whether you should post it, don’t water it down or delete it – save it as a draft. Read it the next day and see what you think.” In fact, with quite a number of my professional practitioner Say It For You ghost-blogging clients (doctors, lawyers, accountants in particular), all of the blog content we create needs to be preapproved by the client after checking for accuracy and compliance with the regulations in their field.

“Experiment more”, Becker advises bloggers, trying new layouts and formats.

“Inspire with imagery. On days when you cannot write, post a few photos and let the images speak for you. Form a few coherent, short-but-sweet sentences to accompany the photos.”  Besides offering a text-writing ‘break” for the blogger, photos can have an extra purpose: in SEO marketing blogs, embedding keyword phrases in the tags of photos can help in the overall effort to “get found”.

My very favorite of the Becker tips is the very practical suggestion to “Read your post aloud. Hearing your words may help you to better structure your copy and to edit or even add to what you already have.”
 

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Why You Might Want to Blog About What You Don’t Know

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“I’m not sure who started encouraging writers to ‘write about what you know’”, observes novelist and literature professor Elan Barnehama. At first glance it makes sense, he admits. The problem is, he says, the story is always better served by the narrative that could happen when you don’t have constraints. That doesn’t mean he can’t use what he knows, Barnehama hastens to assure his readers, but when he allows himself to discover new aspects of the world, his novels end up being about his readers, not about himself.

Blogging about what you don’t know? That seems to fly in the face of all the corporate blogging training I’ve ever received or given to others. After all, isn’t the whole idea in blogging for business to showcase the expertise you have and the problems you KNOW how to solve?

Fellow blogger Ivan Widjaya of Biz Penguin might have tapped into the Barnehama’s mentality. “Off-beat posts regarding your company can bring people closer to you. They can lower the fence, so prospects and customers can have a peek on what’s going on inside your company and brands.” Widjava advises being not only passionate, interesting, but unusual and even quirky.  Sometimes, he thinks, being quirky can “help you establish a unique audience that will take whatever you offer them.”

There’s another aspect of this “what-you-don’t-know” aspect of blog content writing. To sustain our blog content writing over long periods of time without losing reader excitement and engagement, we’ve need to constantly add to our own body of knowledge – in our industry or professional field, and about what’s going on around us in our culture. Ironically, business blogging can serve as a form of market research in itself, as smallbiztrends.com points out.
Reading, bookmarking, clipping – and even just noticing – new trends and information relating to your business field goes a long way towards keeping the quiver stocked with content ideas.

At Butler College of Business (where I’m an Executive Career Mentor), “experiential learning” is a hallmark of the teaching method, with the idea being “learning by doing”. In creating content for SEO marketing blogs, it could be a case of “doing by learning”. As we “read around” and “curate” materials from other thought leaders, we’re becoming better ‘teachers” by becoming better learners. Now that Barnehama has got me thinking about it, I realize that, for Indianapolis bloggers, “what we don’t know can HELP us!”
 

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Innie and Outie Blogging for Business

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"As a writer, you spend much of your writing time alone," says Mary McCauley Smith of Absolute Write. "You may have thought this peculiarity went hand-in-hand with the writer's life, but perhaps it runs deeper than that.  Maybe you are an 'innie'," she suggests, referring to the Myers-Briggs preference for introversion.

Sorry, Ms. Smith, but no; actually,  my Meyers-Briggs "errs" strongly on the extrovert side. You made me think, though: Are there more "introverted" and more "extroverted" styles in blog content writing?

Introverts and extroverts differ from each other in three ways, Smith explains, and each of these traits affects your writing life.
 

  • Energy usage – Introverts are energy conservers.  Extroverts are energy users.
     
  • Response to stimulation –  The noise and hustle of the world can overwhelm an introvert, while extroverts are thrilled by a variety of stimuli.
     
  • Approach to knowledge – Introverts like a narrow, in-depth focus.  Extroverts prefer to collect a wider base of data.

In my profession of corporate blogging trainer, I work with business  owners and professionals, with their employees, and with Indianapolis freelance copywriters to create blog content, often for SEO marketing blogs.  While I confess I hadn't been viewing any of these writers in terms of their Myers-Briggs preferences, now that I think about it, I agree with Byron Walsh, author of "The Upside of Being an Introvert". After studying introverted leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi, Hillary Clinton, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Mother teresa, and extroverts Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Marie Antoinette, and Winston Churchill, Walsh concluded "it takes both kinds to make history".

I think effective blog writing takes both kinds, too.  Consider research, for example.  You could make phone calls, talk to experts, visit different stores and facilities, interview customers for testimonials, or…you could rely on Internet research to glean most of the information you need.

With the practice of writing blog pposts for others becoming increasingly common in the corporate and professional worlds, whose Myers-Briggs preference is reflected in the content?  It depends…on the target audience, and on the business owner or professional practitioner who's being "introduced" through the blog.
 

Five years ago, in crafting the mission statement for Say It For You, I wrote the following:

"A ghost must use her 'third ear',  not only hearing what you want to say, but picking up on your unique style of saying it.  That way, the ghost can speak your message in your 'voice', to your customers.  A good ghost blogger should not, herself, be seen OR heard!"

 

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