Business Blog Writing – We Make the Power That Makes the Beer

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Super Bowl Ad Tracker calls it “an ode to the significance of manufacturing”, referring to GE’s commercial, set in a New York pub, in which a worker proudly exclaims, “We make the power that makes the beer.”

I liked the piece, too, and for some of the same reasons Ad Tracker mentions. For one thing, as a professional ghost blogger, I can see a number of parallels between creating that kind of engaging TV spot and corporate blog writing.

“The nod”:
Included in the GE “ode”, there’s a “nod”, notes Dale Buss of Ad Tracker, meaning a nod to Bud Light, official beer of the NFL. In similar vein, blog content writing verbalizes the positive aspects of a business.  Unlike traditional advertising copy, though, blogs take a softer, more “advertorial” approach, with just a “nod” towards the business’ recent accomplishment and its products and services.

Heartstring pulling:
Unlike just about every other major Super Bowl advertiser Buss explains, GE didn’t plan to use humor, but “to pull at our heartstrings instead”. That same idea is expressed by mRelevance, who see blog content writing as a chance for business owners to be real humans, not hiding “behind a slick corporate website”.

In fact, before providing business blogging assistance to any new Say It For You client, I always perform a “reality check” in the form of the following question: “If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you’re passionate about what you do, what you know, and what you sell – what would those words be?”

“Our goal with the ads was to show the pride and passion GE employees have for the products they make,” GE’s spokesperson shared with brandchannel. As blog content writers soon learn, one very important reason behind writing for business is to express that pride and passion is real time.

What about SEO marketing through blogs? Unlike giant GE, who could count of millions of Super Bowl viewers being there to discover their message, local business owners depend on blog content writers in Indianapolis to help them win search.

In the TopRank online marketing blog, Lee Olden summarizes the results of a recent survey of business owners for whom blogs are part of their search engine optimization efforts.

  • 87% successfully increased SEO as a direct result of blogging.
  • 54% began to see SEO benefits from blogging earlier than expected (0-3 months).

Still, as I caution in corporate blogging training sessions, blogs are not magical, guaranteed search engine ranking magnets. In fact, blog content writing should be considered just one element in an overall traditional/online marketing strategy.  In an Indianapolis pub or networking meeting, we corporate blog writers might borrow a boast from that GE worker: 

We make the power that makes the online marketing strategy!
 

 

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Easy Business Blogging – Your Dental Assistant Could Do It In Her Sleep!

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A common refrain they hear from their Australian dentist advisees, Dental Web Strategies admits – It’s really hard to find enough time to blog on a regular basis.

At Say It For You, we know. Business blog writing is hard work.  It seems everyone acknowledges the important role SEO marketing blogs play, but in the real world, 80% of business blogs end up neglected or even totally abandoned. 

Actually, most business owners can think of quite a number of things they want to tell the world about their products, their professional services, and their customer service efforts.  Somehow, in the execution stage, though, inspiration appears to run dry;  the need for business blogging assistance becomes all too apparent.

Dental Web’s suggestion is one that business owner bloggers and professionals blogging to promote their practices need to hear: Answer a common question.   This is so easy, says Dental Web, “your dental assistant could do it in her sleep”. The question might be one dental patients really ask on a regular basis, they add, or “something you find yourself explaining anyway”.

Common explanations make for easy-to-access content, Dental Web emphasizes to its dentist members. Since dental assistants hear the doctors using that content all the time with patients, they can repeat it verbatim.

A related suggestion for “solving the content crisis” comes from Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott.  Baggott, however, suggests “mining” emails sent to customers and newsletter material as fodder for blog content writing. Email, he observes, tends to live in a different “silo” from blogs, so that much wonderful content created by company employees goes forever unindexed by search engines.

Over my years as a professional ghost blogger, I’ve found that business owners and professionals have many stories to tell.  They want to – and need to – share the benefits of their products and services, the history of their business and their own journey, news of importance to customers, how-to information, and their own perspective on trends in their field. Lack of running out of content ideas may be their biggest fear, but it’s actually lack of time that sabotages so many business blogging efforts. That’s precisely the point at which freelance content writers can come to the rescue of all that wonderful content “hiding” in emails, newsletters – and owners’ and dental assistants’ minds! 
 

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Business Blogging When You Don’t Have an Opinion

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“The type of insight and expertise that a blog can demonstrate is far more useful than any PR pitch you could post,” explains fellow blogger Erica Swallow.  Swallow stresses that blogs should be “repositories of analysis and opinions provided by a company’s fine employees”.

 Those of us who offer business blogging services agree.  When blogging for business reveals your unique “slant” or philosophy within in your field, potential customers and clients feel they know who you are, not merely what you do, and they are far more likely to want to be associated with you.

For that very reason, one important facet of my job as professional ghost blogger is to “interview” business owner and professional practitioner clients, eliciting each one’s very individualized thoughts. In a way, I’ve concluded, SEO marketing blogs are just extended, serialized interviews, with the reader learning from the blog posts about the  culture and “personality” of a business or practice.

But, what if the business owner or practitioner hasn’t yet formed an opinion on some important topic?  In that case, Swallow suggests taking polls and reporting on the results. And, as I teach Indianapolis blog content writers, it’s valuable to readers when you clarify and put into perspective both sides of a thorny issue within your industry or profession.

Marketing guru Seth Godin speaks of “cat blogs”, describing them as “personal and idiosyncratic”, written for purposes of self-expression or to gain converts to an opinion or cause.  And, while the type of corporate blogging for business I and my Say It For You writers produce fall within the category Godin dubs “viral blogs”, a little bit of “cat” goes a long way in “humanizing” those blogs and making them more engaging for readers.

“When consumers get helpful information from an authoritative source that has a human face, they are more likely to come back and purchase from that source,” says InteractMedia.com.

For all of the five years of Say It For You’s existence, before offering business blogging help to any company or practice, I've asked the owner or practitioner to answer a question:  If you had only eight to ten words to tell me why you’re passionate about what you do, what would those words be?”  It’s not uncommon for my clients to discover, in the course of being interviewed, that  they do have important opinions to express through blogging for business, after all!

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Serve Classic Blog Content and You’ll Have Many Good Readers

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Third on the list of three things you’ve got 118 seconds to accomplish in an elevator speech is  explaining the priorities you will deliver on, says Jeffrey Hayzlett, writing in Success Magazine.

Always on the alert for ways to convey marketing messages through corporate blog content writing, I couldn’t help recalling Hayzlett’s advice the other day.  A sign posted in (of all places) the ladies’ room in Panera Bread exemplified just such an 8-second mission/priority statement:

“Serve classic French bread and you’ll have many good friends.”

Actually, the other two Hayzlett elevator speech requisites apply to blogging for business as well:

Grab the attention of your would-be customer.
Freelance blog writers need to keep that Hayzlett motto firmly in mind.  “Aim for speed and immediate relevance,” Hayzlett cautions.  Of course SEO marketing blogs are all about relevance, because search engines will “introduce” you to potential customers based in large part on the relevance, along with the recency and frequency, of your blog content.

Describe what your business offers.
“Good, successful copy,” says fellow blogger Michel Fortin, tells the reader ‘why’ right up front.”
I teach Indianapolis blog writers to address five “why’s” in that 110 seconds left in the “elevator speech”: why you (the reader), why me (the blogger), why this (the offer), why now (the urgency), and why this price (the value).

Need business blogging assistance? Keep serving up that sort of classic blog content – you’ll have many good readers!

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Ye Olde Ghost Blogging Debate Haunts Blogs and Book Pages

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“A simple definition of ghost blogging is necessary,” a post by social media commentator Desiree Tunnell begins. “It is the practice of writing blog posts for others and is becoming increasingly common in the corporate world.”

When I first began my work as a professional ghost blogger, debates on the ethics of blogging for others often raged at networking meetings and seminars.  Meanwhile, of course, more and more companies were venturing into online marketing campaigns, viewing blog content writing as just another advertising and marketing function to be outsourced.

Five years and some 7,000 Say It For You blog posts later, I see the same “best practices” debate popping up in books and blogs. “Winning back time” is the way Doug Karr and Chantelle Flannery, co-authors of the book “Corporate Blogging for Dummies”, describe the big advantage for corporate executives, business owners, or professional practitioners in “hiring it done when it comes to composing, researching, and editing content for SEO marketing blogs. “Ghostblogging,” say the authors, “isn’t a dirty word, nor is it a dirty profession.”

Using the Flannery/Karr definition, the Say It For You freelance blog copywriters in Indianapolis are not “ghosting”.  True ghost writing, the authors explain, involves ghostwriters signing their work with the name of the business owner or practitioner for whom they’re writing. In contrast, I recommend posts be signed “by Susie of the ABC Company’s blog team.”

“Decide ahead of time whether you wish to disclose that you’re using a ghost blogger,” warn Flannery and Karr. “There is always the possibility of a ghost blogger being discovered.”

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