How to De-Clutter Your Big Business Blog Closet

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There’s certainly no lack of advice about blogging for a business or professional Cpractice. Wisdom is offered in the terabytes on the topics of starting a blog, writing a blog, illustrating a blog, and promoting a blog. (In short, my Say it for You team is definitely not alone in our mission of helping business owners and professionals tell their story to potential clients and customers.)

But who’s advising blogging veterans, you know, establishments that have been producing content by the hundreds or even thousands of posts over, say the last two, three, or five years?

Couldn’t help asking precisely this question about blog clutter after I came across closet de-cluttering devotee Mari Kondo’s “Top 10 Organizing Tips” as reported in the Japan Times.

Kondo vows her stuff-purging method can transform lives. If nothing else, I believe her tactics, applied to accumulated content in business blogs, will infuse new energy into the process of creating new blog content.

Kondo: Approach your sorting and discarding strategically, and do it by category, not location. (Start with clothes and books, rather than with the attic or the spare bedroom.)

Searching by categories is a good thing for blog readers, who can learn more about exactly that aspect of your material that is most important to them. And categories enable you, I teach blog content writers, to update and add information to what you’ve already presented to readers. If things have changed in your industry or profession, reviewing what your position was four years ago is a great way to frame your take on what’s going on today.
Kondo: Pick up each item your own and ask yourself, “Does this bring me joy?” If the answer is no, out it goes.

In a sense, “clutter” in blogs, in the sense of quantity, is a positive. There’s only so much room in even the most spacious closet, but once I’ve put content on this Say It For You blog, it can remain on the Internet forever.  (This post is actually #1053 for me, yet all my 1,052 past blog posts haven’t disappeared. All, that content remains, available to readers in reverse chronological order, a very good thing when it comes to “winning search” online!)

 

So what’s the point of asking whether a two-year old piece of content brings you joy, or, put another way, how can de-cluttering help in blogging for business?

In corporate blogging training sessions, I often explain that it’s perfectly OK to repeat a theme you’ve already covered in former posts, adding a layer of new information or a new insight. You can’t do that, of course, without going back into your blog content “closet” to discover your own business “past”!

 

 

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How About a Riddle for Your Business Blog?

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One curious thing I’ve found is that blog readers tend to be curious creatures.  In Hands holding a white piece of paperfact, their curiosity factor is highest when they’re learning about themselves.  As a longtime Indianapolis blog content writer, I’ve found that “self-tests” and surveys tend to engage readers and help them relate in a more personal way to information presented in a marketing blog.

Taking that concept one step further, we can use riddles as jumping-off points to the content in a blog post.  I found some great examples of the way riddles can get readers’ brain cells whirring from the get-go.

A riddle can help define basic terminology:
What is the one thing shared by all four of these: a needle, a potato, a hurricane, and a person?
Answer: An eye.
(This riddle might be used to introduce a post about hurricanes for a vendor of weather apps for mobile phones.)

A riddle can explain why the business owner or practitioner chooses to operate in a certain way:
If you have me, you want to share me.  If you share me, you haven’t got me.  What am I?
Answer: A secret.
(This riddle might be used to assure potential clients that their information will be kept confidential.)

A riddle can be used as a call to action:
What is always coming but never arrives?
Answer: Tomorrow.
(This riddle can be used to urge readers of a diet and exercise blog to get started on a program to better their health and not procrastinate.)

A riddle can be used as a “mantra” or as “motto” for a business:
A mile from end to end, yet as close as a friend., a precious commodity freely given.  What is it?
Answer: A smile.
(This riddle could adorn the website of a dentist or orthodontist.)

How might YOU use a riddle to enrich your business blog content?

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A LASSI Assessment for Business Blogging

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ExamDid you know that our ability to learn can be diagnosed?

The LASSI (Learning and Study Strategies Inventory) is an 80-item assessment based on the theory that success in learning relies on thoughts, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.  What’s the purpose of the assessment? The LASSI, developed at the University of Texas, gives students feedback, so they can focus on improving their  knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and skills.

The aspect of LASSI that was so fascinating to me as a trainer in the field of business blogging was its three components: Skill, Will, and Self-regulation.

Skill
One key skill the LASSI looks for is information processing, including selecting main ideas.

As I think about that, before the reader ever sees our blog content, we writers need to have exercised skill in selecting the main idea we want to present.
A repeating theme in my corporate blogging training sessions is focus. Each blog post should emphasize one story, one idea, one aspect of the business or practice. If the writer has exercised that very key skill of selecting a main idea, it will be that much easier for the “student” (consumer of the blog material) to focus and get the point.

Will
This component of strategic learning has to do with attitude and motivation, with diligence and self-discipline.

In fact, in the early years of my company Say It For You, I talked about the “drill sergeant discipline” needed by blog content writers and about the fact that the main key to business blogging success was going to be simply keeping on task.

Self-regulation
An important part of the self-regulation component of strategic learning is time management. The LASSI scale measures how well student do in managing their time and maintaining concentration.

Couldn’t help recalling the Say It For You video I’d recorded about time management for blogs. Allowing 120 minutes total per blog post, I explained, I’d allocate 40 for research and “reading around”, learning others’ opinions on your topic and gathering information.  50 minutes should be used, I advised, for the actual writing and editing of the business blog, with 10 minutes for finding photos, charts, and clip art for illustrating your points, and 20 minutes for the actual posting on the site.

What might a LASSI assessment tell YOU about achieving greater business blogging success?

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Blogging to Tell Them What to Think About

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Thinking manHara Estroff Marano, writing in Psychology Today, says she won’t tell you what to think, but will tell you what to think about.  While in this article the psychologist is offering food for thought in the sphere of dating and self-motivation, I couldn’t help but love that line of hers, realizing how very apropos it is for us business blog content writers.

In fact, a point I often stress in corporate blogging training sessions – whether you’re blogging for a business, for a professional practice, or for a nonprofit organization, is this: you need to voice an opinion, a slant, on the information you’re serving up for readers. In other words, blog posts, to be effective, can’t be just compilations; you can’t just “aggregate” other people’s stuff and make that be your entire blog presence.

On the other hand, if you, as a business owner or professional practitioner, try telling people what to think, that’s a surefire way to lose friends and customers in a hurry. Yes, your blog is your “podium”, meaning you get to showcase your business so customers will want you to be the one to provide them with the product or the service they need. But they need to arrive at that point as a result of their own thinking.  Dr. Marano hit the nail on the head – don’t tell readers what to think; give them all the facts they need to think about.

How can blogs help potential clients and customers make better, sometimes complex, decisions?

  • By suggesting questions readers can ask themselves while choosing among many options. (Do they want ease of use? Current functionality? Future capabilities?)
  • By “mapping”, meaning showing how choices are related to consequences.  How much sooner will your mortgage get paid off if you add $100 each month to your payment. How should the prospect feel about the purchase (Relief? Trust? Premier status?)
  • By offering easy ways to make choices, so that the decisions are not pressure-packed.

You might say the art of blogging consists of In supplying facts, and then putting those facts in context.  As bloggers, we’re giving them the raw materials to think about, but we need to go one step further, demonstrating why those facts matter, suggesting ways readers can use the information for their own benefit.

To the woman concerned that the man she’s been dating has been legally separated for the past twenty years, Marano suggests, “Could it be that your online friend values clinging to the comfort of the status quo?”

What can you give your blog readers to think about?

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