Indianapolis Blogger’s Advice Bolstered by Dilbert

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When it comes to the style/substance debate relating to corporate blog writing, it felt good to have my views verified, especially by clever comic strip writer Scott Adams.

One important point I’ve been stressing in corporate blogging training sessions, not to Dilbertmention in these Say It For You blog posts, is that when a blog is posted in the name of your business, you’re putting your name and your brand “out there”.  You always want to be sure that poor grammar and misspelled words aren’t distracting the reader from your SEO marketing blog message.

Those blog content writers taking the other side of the argument tend to stress that since blogs are more personal than websites and brochures, the message should sound “natural” rather than stuffy.  Blog readers (who don’t read carefully, anyway), they maintain, need get the general gist of what you’re saying, and that’s all that counts.

Well, in this particular Dilbert cartoon, manager Alice (with the triangular hairdo) is saying to colleague Ted, “I’m judging the quality of your business case by your bad haircut and your poor font choice,”  to which Ted replies “I value substance over style.”

In a way, I think, that’s the point!  You never want to have style (or lack thereof), getting between the reader and the real substance of your writing. Even punctuation can either help or hurt the “cause”. 

Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott points out that blogging for business is about instant customer gratification. Well, whether I’m functioning as a freelance blog writer or providing business blogging assistance to business owners and their employees, I see grammar and punctuation as tools I can use to lead readers to exactly the information they need.

When Ted stubbornly maintains he values “substance over style,” Alice asks “How’s that working out?”, leaving the reader to arrive at the obvious answer I’ve been touting all along.

The “style” – layout, font, punctuation, grammar, vocabulary, tone – all those things matter.  All are part and parcel of the “substance” you want to convey in your business blog writing!



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Advice for Blog Content Writers: Hard on the Grammar, Easy on the Links

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Social media and blog marketing maven Douglas Karr has some on-the-mark remarksspinach in the teeth about “The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page”. 

With this week’s Say It For You blog posts devoted to using other bloggers’ pearls of wisdom as a jumping-off point for me to offer business blogging help to owners and freelance blog content writers, I found two of Karr’s recommendations to be particularly valuable for writing blogs.

Everyone who knows me at all well is familiar with my near-maniacal preoccupation with proper language usage. Informal and conversational as business blog writing might be, I constantly stress to anyone blogging for business – or anyone providing business blogging services – how important it is to check for “spinach-in-the-teeth” bloopers in their SEO marketing blog content.

“Impeccable grammar” in the world-according- to-Karr, ensures “the trust of the customer will not be risked.” One very common error Doug and I discussed is the misuse of “it’s” and “its”. The apostrophe, I stress to blog content writers in Indianapolis (for some reason, this particular error seems to occur more commonly with Hoosier writers), is there to replace the letter “i” as in “it is”, whereas “its” means “belonging to it”. 

#7 on the Karr web page Anatomy Cautions is “Go easy on the links”.  In business blog writing, I teach, links can be useful in a number of ways:

  • Linking to news sources lends credibility to your company’s point of view
  • Linking to someone else’s writing on your subject as part of business blog writing shows you’re in touch with what’s going on in your industry
  • Linking can be a form of networking through exchanging ideas.  Anyone providing business blogging help should advise clients to use their blogs as networking tools.

I think, though, that Karr would agree that hyperlinking to other sources belongs in the “slow” category in the system of “Go”, “Slow”, and “Whoa” elements in corporate blog writing, a tool that can easily be overused and become distracting rather than helpful to the reader.

In summary, blog content writers – go hard on the grammar, easy on the links!

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Blogging for Business is Like Five Minutes on Air

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microphone radio speechGood ideas, along with the good people who came up with those ideas, abound, I teach in corporate blogging training sessions; synergy can be generated through spreading those ideas around.

Let me hasten to assure Say It For You blog readers that I would never advocate  becoming what blogging maven Stephen Guise, in a guest blog for Problgger.net, dubs “copy bloggers” who “rip content” word-for-word from other blogs’ RSS feeds.  Nor do I want blog content writers to be what Guise calls “name-droppers,” who give rise to the question “Okay, so what do you bring to the table?”

I guess when it comes to business blog writing, my recommendation would be for you to read materials of every ilk and on diverse topics – billboards, magazines, newsletters, flyers, brochures, along with blog posts, deciding which presentations “speak to” your own ideas on your own topic.

The Real-Impact blog, for example, is written by my longtime friend and fellow National Speakers Association of Indiana member Jean Palmer Heck.  I found Jean’s recent post on “Why Media Training Takes Time” very relevant to my work as a ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer. You see, in offering business blogging assistance to entrepreneurs, practitioners, and employees, I found, their biggest concern is the lack of time to devote to regular corporate blog writing.  That’s why I was blown away by Jean’s estimate of the time needed to properly prepare for a five minute interview on national radio or TV:

  • An hour deciding what message to deliver
  • An hour refining the message
  • An hour practicing delivering the message
  • An hour considering the worst questions
  • An hour doing a series of practice interviews

Take comfort, you who are hovering at the pool’s edge, hesitant to dive into business blog writing. You probably won’t need anywhere near five hours per blog post (although Stephen Guise claims “Some of my posts take me 15 hours to write!”). On the other hand, you want to be sure you’re doing what my high school English teacher used to call “autographing your work with excellence”.

Corporate blogging for business demands discipline and time, no doubt about that.  Using a freelance SEO copywriter is one solution to that problem.

“Your five minutes of airtime is a golden opportunity to deliver a simple, effective, relevant message,” says Jean Palmer-Heck.  Certainly you should think of whatever the number of seconds of your online readers’ attention you can engage as your golden opportunity to introduce them to your company’s message!


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Say It For You, Actum, and Indiana Realty One have the Same Single-Minded Approach

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focus on one thingToday, and for the next two blog posts, I’m taking my own advice: Reading others’ blog posts is a great way to generate ideas for your own SEO marketing blog. Of course, as a content writer in Indianapolis, I’ve made reading everything I can get my hands on part of my daily routine in the care and feeding of these Say It For You blog posts. This go-around, though, I’ve selected among the several dozen blogs to which I subscribe.

“I’m a big believer in focus and personal branding,” asserts Arnie Goldberg of Indiana Realty One. "When you walk into a room, everyone should know you for one thing.” As a ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, I couldn’t agree more.  No question in my mind – the idea that focus is the secret of success in business blog writing is in sync with Goldberg’s statement. In fact, I think Indiana Realty One must’ve been reading, on my Say It For You website, about the “Power of One”:

  • One message
  • One outcome
  • One audience
  • One writer
  • One client

And, whether you happen to be a freelance blog writer like me or are blogging for your own business, it’s clear that blog posts have a simple advantage over more static traditional website copy.  Why? Each post can have (should have) a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business or your professional practice.

Jeff Bowe, my second idea generator for today, apparently agrees that focus is important; the selling model at Actum Group is called INFOCUS©, with Bowe explaining that his company’s focus is in increasing sales.

“Proactive sales is not leading the horse to water, but making the horse realize how thirsty it is,” advises Bowe.  Blog content writers can let the power of “pull marketing” to some of the leading – searchers land on your blog precisely because there’s already a thirst for what you offer. Still, focused, easily navigable business blog writing can help those readers realize just how immediate and urgent their” thirst” is!

Sounds as if Say It For You, Actum Group, and Indiana Realty One are all focused on the same goal – focusing on the needs of buyers!

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Blogging is Deep-Impact Branding: Special Guest Blog Post by Bob Chenoweth

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Bob ChenowethToday’s special guest blog post is by friend and fellow Indianapolis blog writer Bob Chenoweth, owner and principal of Chenoweth Content & Design LLC and TipTopics LLC. He serves emerging and established businesses with content, design and strategy for print, Web, email, video and social media.

Everything you do in your business will either reinforce or detract from your brand. Yes, I said everything. But to deeply imprint your competitive advantages in the minds of consumers, there is probably no communication tactic that is more effective over the long term than business blogging.

Blogging is marketing. Blogging is storytelling. Blogging is branding.

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Isn’t branding all about logos and signs and uniforms? Isn’t branding just graphic design and visual marketing? In a word: no. Here’s why: I define a healthy brand as being the trustworthy, memorable (and referable) essence of your company’s values, people and products/services. Your brand is ultimately what your consumers perceive and how they share that perception with others. That perception – that message – IS your brand. And blogging gives you the opportunity to boost your brand in the minds of both followers and finders.

Followers hang on your every word. They already know enough about you to know they should be paying attention because they will learn something along the way, even if they don’t have an immediate need for what you have to sell. Finders, on the other hand, need information or a solution now.

Followers and Finders are also, of course, consumers; and consumers are skeptics. They have objections, conscious or unconscious, stated or unstated. As a solution provider, your primary goal must be to convert the skeptical prospect into a customer by overcoming these objections and gaining trust. Blogging gives you the perfect platform to do just that. Strategically implemented and managed over time, business blogging lets you tell your story and engage in relationship-building dialogues with followers and finders. Blogging breaks down barriers. It helps you minimize and overcome objections. As your prospects drill deeper, blogging helps you elevate their perception of your brand.

Yes, blogging is marketing and blogging is storytelling. But blogging is also branding. Deep-impact branding.

Every word of this post can be of business blogging assistance to any business owner or any freelance blog writer. Sometimes , in the corporate blog writing "arena", I find that SEO marketing blogs put so much emphasis on "getting found" that they forget the "deep branding" that is a function of the blog content!  Thank you for putting the emphasis where it belongs, Bob! Content writers in Indianapolis – take heed!

   Rhoda Iisraelov

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