Business Blogs Worth the Glass They’re Bottled In

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Read around, learn around, is my ongoing advice as a corporate blogging trainer. Ideas are all over the place, all of the time, in fact, but you've got to "hear" and make the connection. This week, I found several examples of Other People's Wisdom (O.P.W.) in the October issue of Mental Floss magazine tto share with Indianapolis blog content writers.
 

            On a hot summer night in Manhattan, some young beer connoisseurs came to the sad conclusion   that three of the top-selling light beers in America – Bud Light, Coors Light,
 and Miller Lite – were “barely worth the glass they’re bottled in.”

Over the next four pages, the article “In Praise of Light Beer” reveals all the intricate steps that go into the making of light beer, ending with the following: “This level of precision exerted over so many millions of barrels of beer is stunning.  And while it may not convince you to pull a cheap six-pack off the shelf, it should help you see the brew in a new light.”

“Stunning” visitors to your site and helping them see what you have to offer in a new light is, very simply, the not-so-simple job of your SEO marketing blog. I explain to business owners or professionals launching a blog that online searchers may know what they need, but they lack expert knowledge in your field.

I explain to freelance blog content writers in Indiana that buyers want more than just products. Blog content writing can introduce readers to their clients’ businesses and practices, explaining the owners’ specialty or niche within their field, their special “philosophy” about their area of practice or their industry, and their unique approach to providing client services.

In short, the art of business blog writing lies in the showing what goes into the product or service , answering the unspoken reader question– “What does it take to do what you do?”

 

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Using Business Blogging to Let Readers Define Your Brand

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Last week wasn’t the only close presidential race in American history.  Back in 1840, Mental Floss magazine reminds us, when Whig candidate William Henry Harrison campaigned to unseat Democrat Van Buren, an interesting thing happened. Not only does my finding blog fodder in this political story illustrate the process of “learning around for your business blog”, there’s a real lesson here for Indianapolis blog content writers about handling reader comments.

Read around, learn around, is my ongoing advice as a blogging trainer. Ideas are all over the place, all of the time, in fact, but you've got to "hear" and make the connection, using Other People's Wisdom (O.P.W.) to help visitors to your blog understand what it is that you do, what you sell, and what your business is really all about.

Sometimes, though, it goes the other way, with your readers helping you better understand what they would like to receive from your business or practice.

As Mental Floss relates the story, in the 1840 campaign, Harrison was derided by a newspaper editor as a “poor farmer who would be happy with a pension, a log cabin, and a barrel of hard cider.”  Rather than trying to combat this “attack ad” (shades of our own recent political races!), Harrison, who was fairly wealthy and didn’t drink hard cider at all, embraced the brand, campaigning as the “log cabin and hard cider candidate” who understood the common man better than the snooty New Yorker Van Buren.

The lesson for blog content writers in Indiana?  “Get feedback from your customers,” as corporate trainer Roger Dawson advises. Using testimonials in blog posts, capturing customer success stories, and welcoming comments to your blog are all ways to get feedback.

And if the comments are negative? (This is one of the big fears business owners and professionals confide they have about starting an SEO marketing blog in the first place.) A blog is the perfect vehicle for putting your own "spin" on reports about your cmpany, is my answer. Through blog content writing, you can exercise control over the way the public perceives any negative developments and correct any inaccurate press statements.

The Harrison story deserves a place in corporate blogging training sessions.  You can't embrace either kudos or criticism if you don't know about them.  Blogging for business is the perfect way to let readers help you define your own brand!

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Business Blogging and the NASCAR Effect

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“On the fifth day after a televised NASCAR race, something strange happens: Roads turn into death traps.” West Virginia Institute of Technology professor Guy Vitaglione discovered that watching the race on TV affects drivers subconsciously, causing them to speed.

Can SEO marketing blogs have a similar (but perhaps more beneficial) effect on readers?  As an Indianapolis blogging trainer, you know, I can’t help but think the answer is “Yes”.

Like viewers who tuned their TV’s to the NASCAR race, choosing that channel, online searchers are directed to your particular blog because of their interest in what you do and what you know. The good news for business owners or practitioners is that at least the proclivity to be influenced by your business blog content writing is already there!

So…(not to stretch the point too far), will it take five days for the effect of your corporate blog to kick in?  No researcher I, all I can venture is “Who knows?” But, even if a readers doesn’t respond to your blog’s Call to Action on the spot, continually putting our new content can have the effect of a “drip marketing’ campaign.

In any event, my “curating” Professor Vitaglione’s content can serve to illustrate two points to business owners and their freelance blog content writers:

  • Everything you hear, read, and see can suggest new ways to explain what you’re selling, what you believe, and what you know how to do.  For example, while I’m no raving NASCAR fan, that tidbit in Mental Floss magazine about the five-day delayed reaction of TV viewers caught my interest and helped me formulate thoughts about my own field.
     
  • The sort of “scouting” for engaging blog content material that has become part of my own daily routine would be impossible, due to time constraints, for most busy business owners and professional practitioners to maintain.  That’s precisely the reason the professional concierge service of blog content writing has gained so much traction on Indianapolis’ online marketing “track”!
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Indianapolis Business Blogger’s Magazine Challenge – C

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“Is cardboard OK?” is the question that caught my eye in Birds and Blooms magazine as part of the self-imposed magazine challenge blog writing exercise I took on this week for my Say It For You blog. 

With the whole idea behind the magazine challenge being to combat “writer’s block” (you know, that time when, inevitably, blog content writers get stuck thinking up new ideas to keep their business blog posts engaging), I’d come up with the concept of leafing through popular magazines to spark ideas to help owners explain what they do and how and why they do it.

The article about using cardboard in gardening does two things that I teach newbie corporate bloggers should be included in any SEO marketing blog strategy::

  • It debunks some common myths. While consumers might worry about the formaldehyde in the glue used with cardboard, it’s at a very low level and will decrease as time goes on, Birds and Blooms assures readers.
     
  • It deals head-on with a touchy issue (in this case, environmentally non-friendly materials or practices). While it’s perfectly OK to leave cardboard in the garden to break down on its own, before you grow vegetables in cardboard be aware of what the cardboard held before (could it have been used to ship industrial chemicals?)  In general, Birds and Blooms assures us, cardboard should be fine.

Think about your own business, I ask owners in the course of providing them with business blogging assistance: Is there anything that might be considered unsafe, cruel, or environmentally non-friendly about your industry or your business? What are you doing to mitigate those factors?

Certainly, I explain, the content on a website can deal with the subject and offer reassurances, but there's nothing like the cumulative effect, spread over time, of stories, testimonials, tidbits, and information delivered through corporate blog writing.

And when it comes to any negative comments or negative PR, business blogging is the ideal vehicle for defusing and offering reassurances.

Is cardboard OK in blogging for business?  You bet!

 

 

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Indianapolis Business Blogger’s Magazine Challenge – B

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Birds and Blooms is the inspiration for this week’s business blog writing magazine challenge, and, when I saw the article “Editor’s Picks”, it make me think of the way we blog content writers can use “picks” of our own and become valuable resources of information for online readers.

In the magazine issue I was leafing through, Birds and Blooms editors were naming their “Top Must-Haves for This Season”, in which they included work gloves, a seed-starter product, a zinc terrarium, and waterproof shoes. The “EditorPick” format itself is hardly new, by the way; Wall Street Journal editors, for example, recommend picks news articles they think worth reading.,

In corporate blogging training sessions, I often talk about a technique called content curation, which HubSpot defines as “selecting and aggregating information into one place that creates more value for consumers.”

In the case of Birds and Blooms, interestingly, the editors weren’t merely curating content, they were actually endorsing and recommending specific products, naming prices and linking to sites where these very products could be bought.

Business owners and professional practitioners may also choose to monetize their blogs through affiliate marketing arrangements, earning commissions on products bought as a result of their recommendations.  But I’m referring to a much simpler idea here, a non-monetized strategy Indianapolis blog content writers can use to add reader value to their business blog posts. By becoming the “place to go” to get advice and general product information related to your practice or business field, you enhance the intrinsic value of your own blog site.

  • The blog for a bedroom furniture store can offer mattress care tips or bedroom furniture placement ideas
     
  • A chiropractor’s blog might offer exercise suggestions
     
  • The blog for a dental office might include ideas on types of lipstick that don’t leave marks on teeth or on types of juice that don’t stain tooth enamel.

Keep in mind, through all this that the overwhelming majority of readers will be visiting the blog site for the first-time, and they are focused on the main topic of your blog. Effective blog posts are centered around key themes, and it’s important to keep your blogs focused and targeted. Your “editors’ picks” need to bring readers’ attention back to the primary topic of your blog and your business. 

Losing focus in corporate blog content writing could turn out to be “for the birds”!

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