Tying In to Other People’s News in Your Own Business Blog – C

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Tying into OPN (Other People’s News) is the theme of this week’s Say It For You blog posts. As blog content writers, of course, Bwe can always use new ideas for presenting information to readers about our company, our practice, or our industry.

Reading the daily newspaper, I teach, is just one of many strategies for blog content development. Both news and feature items can spark ideas for blog posts, while positioning your blog as the place to find interesting and valuable information. You may actually cite material from the newspaper story, relating it to new developments in your own industry, or simply use the articles as “triggers” that remind you of areas you might not have covered thoroughly in prior blog posts.

In the particular issue of the Indianapolis Star I used for this week’s blogwriting exercise, “Family ties to Panama Canal history” tells the story of Carmel, Indiana residents John Hawks and son Frank Hawks, descendants of John Frank Stevens, a chief engineer of the Panama Canal. The story chronicles the royal reception the Hawks were given when they visited Panama this past August.

As a Star reader, I loved the way reporter Michael Auslen connected the present-day Hoosier family to the milestone engineering project from the past. As a corporate blogging trainer, I couldn’t help thinking that any business can trace its connections to the history of its industry or profession.

Merely by gathering information on our topic and presenting it as part of our blog, we’re providing a valuable service, but to go the next step, we must ensure that each blog post connects the people running the business or practice to the people using the products and services. “Tracing the chain” by bringing readers back to the beginnings of the enterprise and sharing how someone’s idea turned into a business or professional reality makes for powerful blog content.

When we’re “stuck”, experiencing “blogger’s block”, Other People’s News can become just the nudge we need!

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If You Blog “God bless You!” What Are the Chances They’ll Sneeze?

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Man with allergy, cold, blowing nose with a tissueQ: “If you call a random phone number and say ‘God bless you,’ what are the chances that the person who answers just sneezed?” (This is yet another of the absurd hypothetical questions to which author Randall Munroe offers serious scientific answers in “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”.)

This Thanksgiving week, I’m devoting all three Say it For You blog posts to myth busting through blogging, using Munroe’s book as a jumping-off place. In the world of business and professional services, there are inevitable misunderstandings about products and services, and blog content is the perfect vehicle for combating these misconceptions about our (or our blogging clients’) industry or profession.

As a corporate blogging trainer, of course, what I’m really getting as is that content writers need to find “story starters” and “idea prompts” to help sustain the creativity level of our content marketing over long periods of time. (In fact, I’m issuing a challenge to readers of Say It For You blog to write in their own ideas for using an absurd hypothetical question/answer in one of their own posts!)

A:  There’s probably a 1 in 40,000 chance the person picking up the phone just sneezed, says Munroe, but, you need to know there’s also a one in a billion chance that person just finished murdering someone, he cautions. While the sneezing rate doesn’t get much scholarly research, Munroe adds, a doctor interviewed by ABC News pegged sneeze frequency at 200 sneezes per person per year. To add to the absurdity, Munroe recalls the statistic that 60 people are killed by lightning in the US every year, meaning there’s only a one in ten billion chance you’ll call someone in the 30 seconds after they’ve been struck by lightning and killed!

Having personally composed hundreds of blog posts on the topic of sinus ailments and balloon sinuplasty, I can think of quite a number of ways to use the “God bless you” call tidbit as an idea prompt. For the benefit of my freelance content writer colleagues and trainees, though, how about these tie-ins:

  • Allergists, home remedy merchants
  • Etiquette advisors and human resource professionals: (“What is most politically correct to say when someone sneezes if you don’t know their religious preference?” asks Quora.com)
  • Headhunters looking for statisticians

If you blog “God bless you?”, what are the chances readers will convert to buyers?

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How Many LEGO Bricks Would it Take to Build a Blog Post?

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Q: “How many Lego bricks would it take to build a bridge capable of carrying traffic from London to New York? Have that many A variation of plastic toy bricksLego bricks been manufactured?” asks Jerry Peterson. (This is another of the absurd hypothetical questions to which author Randall Munroe offers serious scientific answers in “Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions”.)

Since myth debunking is such a great use of blogs (due to the inevitable misunderstandings about a product or service that happen in the world of business and in professional services), I find Munroe’s book a terrific idea stimulant for blog content ideas. While our blog readers may never actual pose such large-scale questions, it’s a good idea for us blog content writers to do that for them, as a way of combating common misconceptions about our (or our blogging clients’) industry or profession.

A. There have certainly been enough bricks to connect New York and London, Munroe assures the curious; in LEGO® units, the two cities are 700 million studs apart.  Of course, he hastens to add, the bridge wouldn’t be able to hold itself together or carry anything bigger than a LEGO car, but it’s a start.

Writers’ Digest advises novelists to use story starters or writing prompts. And while we business bloggers aren’t dealing in fiction, some of Munroe’s absurd hypothetical questions can function as idea prompts and help us pump up the creativity level of our content marketing. (In fact, I challenge readers of this Say It For You blog to write in ideas about how they’d go about using one of the absurd hypothetical question/answer selections I’m highlighting this week in one of their own posts!)

Still not sure how LEGO® bricks can build blog content?  Here are just a few thoughts:

  • Preschools, tutoring services, toy stores, parenting magazine publishers, child psychologists (According to the Center for Childhood Creativity, “Positive parent-child interactions – how parents and children communicate through language, shared experiences, and mutual discovery – powerfully influence how children learn, grow, and thrive.”
  • Construction engineers
  • Travel firms promoting New York-London fares.

How many LEGO® bricks would you need to build an interesting new blog post for your business or practice?

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Shooting Blogging Arrows to Shed Light

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Aiming archersQ: In the movie “300”, they shoot arrows up into the sky and they seemingly blog out the sun.  Is this possible, and how many arrows would it take?” asks Anna Newell. (This is one of the absurd hypothetical questions to which author Randall Munroe offers serious scientific answers.)

A. Longbow archers can fire 8-10 arrows per minute, with each arrow spending only a few seconds in the air, and with each arrow intercepting only about 40 cm of sunlight. In short, it would be pretty hard to make the sunblocking operation work, Munroe concludes. To be fair, he adds, if the sun were low on the eastern horizon at dawn, with the archers firing north, the shadow effect could be pretty powerful. 

Myth-debunks are a great use of blogs, I’ve found, because many of the misunderstandings about a product or service present themselves, in the natural order of business, in the form of questions and comments from readers and customers. Shining the light of day on that misinformation shines light on your own expertise. And, while readers may never actual formulate those “absurd hypothetical questions”, it’s a good idea for us blog content writers to do that for them, offering ”serious scientific answers” that debunk common misconceptions about our (or our blogging clients’) industry or profession.  A business or professional blog is the ideal vehicle for anticipating readers’ “negative assumption” questions and their misconceptions.

There’s a caveat here, however, and it relates to the danger of rubbing readers the wrong way. People generally don’t like to have their assertions and assumptions challenged, even when they come to our blog seeking information on what we sell, what we do, and what we know about. So, after you’ve debunked a myth or misconception, I suggest, throw readers some intriguing, little-known information to soften the resentment they might be feeling at having been proven “wrong”.

One misconception about blog marketing itself, observes Doug Rice of 12most.com, is that it’s all about technology. It isn’t, he says. “Content marketing is not a technological idea, but a philosophical one. It is essentially the notion that, if you give away valuable information, potential customers will see you as a valuable resource (thought leader) and, eventually, buy from you.

You might say we blog writers shoot content “arrows”, not to block out the light, but to shed light on the subject!

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Blog Post Content and Song Lyrics – Sisters Under the Skin

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Since, at Say it For You, I lead teams of writers for hire, it’s natural for me to take an interest not only in freelance business blog Song writer with little guitarwriting, but in the doings of ghostwriters in other fields.

Political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies and magazine articles, as do celebrities of every sort. In fact, George Washington hired “ghostwriter” James Madison to craft his inaugural address!

Consultants may hire a ghostwriter to create a book about some aspect of their professional area, in order to establish their credibility (This is a service we’ve just recently begun to offer at Say It For You.)

I actually came across a website offering advice on ghostwriting comic strips!  “When writing for an anthropomorphic animal,” Devin Crane reminds writers, “be sure to give them a worldview that reflects the animal they are….A skunk should think everything stinks. A turtle should be introverted, a dog loyal and dumb.”

In songwriting, the ghost-written ballad “You’re Beautiful”, sung by James Blunt, became the first song by a British artist ever to top the Latin American Top 40 list; a second set of lyrics (ghost-written by the same Amanda Ghost), became a blockbuster for Beyonce and Shakira (“Beautiful Liar”).

When I started Say it For You nine years ago, I was very much part of the then-raging debate about using ghostwriters. Today, of course, the outsourcing of content creation for blog marketing campaigns has become commonplace. Fact is, targeted blogging can lead to honestly earned, long-term success for a business.

Whatever the reason people use ghostwriters, (lack of time, lack of discipline, or lack of writing talent), when it comes to blog marketing, the content in a blog must be in harmony with the business owner’s or the practitioner’s  style, approach to customers and niche within the specific industry or field of expertise.

When you think about it, blog post content and song lyrics are really sisters under the skin!

 

 

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