Say It For You Magazine Challenge Revived – Part 2

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This week I’m offering a challenge to all SIFY readers to come up with blog post ideas out of a single magazine of their choice. Choose articles that trigger ideas for you to blog about your business or practice – what you sell, what you know, what you believe, and what you know how to do. I’m using one of my favorite sources of interesting information:  Mental Floss.  (If you’ve never been exposed to this bi-monthly publication, I highly recommend you try it – you’ll be hooked for sure!)Mental Floss magazine-cover-copy

In this month’s issue of Mental Floss, for example, there’s a whole page of interesting historical tidbits about seating. Did you know, for example, that:

  • Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair back in 1775, by adding rollers from window sash pulleys to make a spinning seat. (The Declaration of Independence was signed by Jefferson while sitting in that chair!)
  • William McKinney designed a chair for the White House by having persons of varying sized sit in snowbanks, then transferring the curves left behind to the drawing board.
  • President Kennedy had such a bad back, his doctor prescribed a rocking chair.  Kennedy gifted rocking chairs to other heads of state to his valet, and the chair became popular.
  • Before the 16th century, churches had no seats. By the early 1800s, some British parishes installed pews and then rented them out.

In this case, seating is the topic “thread” that unifies all the tidbits from different periods of history. This is very much like the “letimotifs” used in blog content writing. In corporate blogging training sessions, I teach that effective blog posts are centered around key themes, just like the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony.
What blog writers might use this particular set of facts about seating as a jumping-off point to discuss their business or practice?  The obvious answers are furniture stores and home decorators. But how about a chiropractor (using the material about rocking chairs for Kennedy)? On the question of renting out the pews, I can see that tying in with a discussion about renting versus owning (life insurance agents? Realtors?).

I know just how challenging it can be to sustain the discipline and “the faith” needed for long term business blogging success. Ideas for blog posts, on the other hand? That’s the easy part.  Just pick up a popular magazine– and learn!

 

 

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Say It For You Magazine Challenge Revived

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Mental FlossThe magazine challenge concept was born in the Minneapolis airport back in 2008.  To pass the time during an unexpected two-hour layover between flights, I challenged myself to find at least a week’s worth of ideas for the Say It For You blog in a single magazine issue.

Out of that experience came a challenge to all SIFY readers to come up with blog post ideas out of a single magazine of their choice, selecting articles that trigger ideas about their business or practice – what they sell, what they know, what they believe, and what they know how to do.

Now, eight years later, I’m issuing the challenge again. If you do corporate blogging for business, send me a link to at least one blog post you wrote triggered by a magazine article.  Or, if you’re not blogging, go ahead and email me a paragraph or two about your business as relates to a magazine article and I’ll publish it here.

The magazine I’m going to use this week is Mental Floss.  (If you’ve never been exposed to this bi-monthly publication, you ought to try it – one of the most fun, interesting reads around!). The May 2015 issue has a great two page spread on “The Secret Origin of 7 Extremely Important Actions”.

One of those actions is the “selfie”, which of course we think of as being part of our own era of cell phones. Julie Winterbottom explains that the practice of taking one’s own picture actually goes back more than 150 years. Just months after Louis Daguerre, one of the fathers of photography, had announced his invention, he pointed the lens of the newfangled camera at himself. Of course, as Winterbottom points out, he needed to hold really, really still – exposures for early cameras took up to 15 minutes!

As a business blogging trainer, I think this insight into the history of the selfie could be used for just about any type of business or practice. That’s because, in every industry and every profession, things are not the same as they used to be.  Write about those changes. Help readers understand how to get the maximum benefit out of today’s version of the products and services you offer. Share thoughts you have about your work, thoughts triggered by looking at the past, but about things that are relevant today.

What is there about your business, like the selfie, is much, much better today than it used to be?

 

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Glass-Breaking and Myth-Busting in Business Blogs

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Vidrio rotoSo you’ve found some interesting material in a funky magazine called Mental Floss.  Question is, as a freelance blog content writer, what do you with it? After all, how could a brief history of people who worried that they were made of glass help in blog marketing for your – or your client’s – business or practice?  Gather round….

By way of background, awhile back I came up with a remedy for blog content writers when they get stuck thinking up new ideas to keep their business blog posts engaging. I advised leafing through popular magazines to spark ideas that can help business owners and practitioners explain what they do and how and why they do it.  OK, so how about those people who thought they were made of glass?

  •  In the 1400s, King Charles VI of France, convinced he was made of glass, wore special clothes to avoid breaking into pieces.
  • In the 1600s. a play (Thomas Tomkis’ Lingua) and a novel ( Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Doctor Glass-Case) featured characters who were afraid to move or to be near people for fear they would break into pieces.
  •  The History of Psychiatry chronicles a 1600’s man who wore a cushion on his derriere to prevent breakage.

One very important function of blog writing for business is to debunk common myths. Business owners can use their blog not only as a way to dispense information, but to address misinformation. All those now funny misapprehensions about glass were understandable when the technology was new.  After glass had become cheap enough for ordinary people to use it for windowpanes, the delusions, Mental Floss editors explain, began to “slide into obscurity”.

In the natural course of doing business, misunderstandings about a product or a serve may surface, especially if the technology behind the product or service is new.

Dentistry:
Do amalgams used for fillings cause mercury poisoning?

Beauty:
Does makeup cause acne?

Internet security:
If you don’t open an infected file, can you get infected?

Jewelry:
Have diamonds have always been the symbol for marriage?

Life expectancy:
In the past, didn’t 9 out of 10 people die before age 40?

Home décor:
Should small rooms be painted in pale neutral colors?

I explain to newbie content writers in Indianapolis that citing statistics to disprove popular myths gives business owners the chance to showcase their own knowledge and expertise. Myth-busting comes with a caveat, however.  The trick is to engage interest, but not in “Gotcha!” style. Business owners and professional practitioners blogging for business can showcase their own expertise without putting readers “in the wrong”.

What myths need busting in your business or practice?
 

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Spoon-feeding the Why’s to Business Blog Readers

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five“Because the baby slept all night….”  “Because he emptied the litter box…”  “You don’t need a big excuse to give a great gift,” read the sign at the end of the cafeteria checkout line.

Even though I’m constantly stressing to business blog content writers that blog posts are NOT ads, there’s a lot we can learn from advertisers.  After all, we have stuff to sell – whether it’s products, services, or ideas, and whether it’s for our own or our clients’ businesses or practices. And, that MCL sign notwithstanding, we have to make sure our prospects, the ones reading the blog content, see that they have good “excuses” to buy.

Fellow blogger Michel Fortin names five types of “why” you can tell buyers. (Fortin’s alluding to ad copy, but  his list is a good outline for using proof in your business blog posts to build belief in your – or your client’s – services and products.)

Why YOU:
Why did you target this particular market (the one represented by this potential buyer)?

Why ME:
The “me” is the business or the professional practitioner (or the ghost blogger as his or her voice). What is our expertise and experience?  Why do we care?

Why THIS:
What are the specific solutions you provide? Why is your product or service designed in the particular and unique way you describe?

Why NOW:
What reasons can you offer the reader to act now – (missing out on something important, preventing further damage, expected scarcity of the product, etc.)?

Why THIS PRICE:
Your blog can make clear where you fall price-wise in your market and why your business has chosen that pricing niche.

You may not need a big excuse to give someone an MCL gift card, but only blog believers become buyers!

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