Use Guest Bloggers for Bad-Deal-or-Bargain-Business Blog Posts

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USE GUEST BLOGGERS FOR BAD-DEAL-OR-BARGAIN BUSINESS BLOG POSTS
Every industry or profession can be approached in different ways, and blog content writing for a business or professional practice is the perfect way to offer a “bi-partisan” presentation of the issues.

As a trainer in corporate blog writing, I know how crucial it is to differentiate yourself and clarify the special “slant” you have and your position on the issues faced by your industry or profession. I’ve gone so far as to tell new bloggers. “Blog more what you believe than what you do.”
http://blog.sayitforyou.net/blog/ghost-blogger/blog-more-what-you-believe-than-what-you-are

An article that appeared two weeks ago in the Indianapolis Star called “A Bad Deal or a Bargain?” reminded me just how important it is in blog writing to express points of view in addition to offering product and service information.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20130223/OPINION03/302230027/A-bad-deal-Indiana-bargain–

The Star piece was addressing the debate about the Indiana Gasification Project, which would construct a plant in the southern part of the state to convert coal into “synthetic gas”. The newspaper page was divided down the middle. On the left side, Steven Francis of the Sierra Club and Ed Gerardot of the Indiana Community Action Assn. were making the point that a coal-to-gas plant would hurt ratepayers. On the right, Mark Lubbers, project director of the gasification company, discussed reasons why building the new plant makes sense.

I think the same effect could be achieved in blogging for a business or practice by having a guest blogger explain her point of view, then having the “host” blogger tell her side of the story.

Now, I’ve always taught that reading competitors' blog posts has always been a great form of market research for business owners launching their own blogging strategy.  Even repeating what established bloggers have said (of course in each case properly attributing the material to its source) forces "newbies" to think about what they might add to the discussion.

But today I’m talking about using your blog to present opinions on industry or professional issues.  Rather than you summarizing what others may think, or the way competitors have chosen to handle the problems, why not invite the actual “thought competitor” to express her ideas on your blog site?

In providing blog marketing services to my Say It For You clients, I try to keep in mind the rule Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham shared with Oprah: Always remember to write for people at least as smart as you are. Why not use corporate blog writing to put conflicting views about a particular subject (your guest blogger’s view and your own) out there and let smart readers judge for themselves?
http://www.oprah.com/index.html

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Adding Background Color in Your Blog

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Most business blog posts make claims.  The claims may be understated, exaggerated, or exactly on the money, but still – a claim is a claim. The problem is, often blog visitors don’t know how to "digest" the claims you’ve "served up".  They simply don’t have any basis for comparison, not being as expert as you are in your field.

What I’m getting at is that every claim needs to be put into context, so that it not only is true, but so that it feels true to your online visitors.

As an example, I found a paragraph in a news magazine talking about Suburu.  The piece starts out with a fact: "A report released this week by Suburu of America shows the company sold 23,667 vehicles last month." (As my grandmother used to ask, "So, do I eat this with a fork or a spoon?")  Since I’m not in the car sales business, I had no way of judging how good our how bad 23,667 sales was for Suburu – compared with what?

Fortunately, the report went on to put the number into context in two ways:

23,667 cars sold represents a 35% improvement over the same month last year.
23,667 cars sold is the best May sales total in Suburu company history.

Now I, as the reader, can begin to relate to the number 23,667, because it has a background context. 

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, though, I know there’s more to do with claims.  After the claim has been given background "color", readers must be shown how that claim has the potential to help them with their problem or need! (It’s the old sales maxim about how customers don’t care about the features and benefits of a product or service until and unless they know how much you care – about them!

There are something like ten million blog posts out there making claims of one sort or another as you’re reading this one. Based on my own experience as an online reader, I’d venture to say fewer than 10% of them put their claims in context, and only the very top few manage to convey to their blog visitors what the claims can mean for them!
http://blog.gravymasters.com/blog/ghost-blogger/0/0/station-wiifm-blogging

Add some winning background color to the claims in your blog posts!

 

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Indianapolis Blog Content Writers Can Take Tips From a TV Movie

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Suppose you’re a freelance blog content writer in Indianapolis and your client is Labor Day. 

Your task, through your SEO marketing blog writing, is to attract online readers looking for information about Labor Day, engaging their interest to the point that at least some of them “convert”, becoming Labor Day clients or customers.

(LaborDay.com might be offering history courses, an e-book, picnic supplies, holiday decorations, food, parade float construction, or membership in a new society for Labor Day buffs.)
 

Here are some things you might do:

ESTABLISH COMMON GROUND.
Since today’s the first Monday in September, we’re “celebrating the economic and social contributions of workers,” as Wikipedia reminds us. (Of course, your readers all know this, but confirming they’ve come to the right place is always a good idea in blogging for business.)

OFFER SOME LESSER-KNOWN INFORMATION.
“In 1887, Oregon became the first state to make Labor Day a holiday. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894, thirty states officially celebrated Labor Day.”

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.

PLAY OFF CURRENT NEWS.
Watch for topics currently trending in the news, especially items that relate to your profession or industry.  (In fact, professional ghost bloggers like me are always on the alert for news items in each of our clients’ fields).

“Job Market Continues to Improve in Bartholomew Country” is an upbeat, Labor Day-appropriate example.  Once having introduced that tie-in to the news, though, the blog writer’s next step must be to offer “ client Labor Day”’s own slant on the information, answering the “So what?” “ and “Now what?” questions in readers’ minds. “What can YOU do to take advantage of the slowly-improving job market and land the right position after such a long dry spell?” is one direction the writer might take.
 

BUILD TRUST.
“You must make the audience sense that you’re comfortable with your information…and yourself,” advises friend and professional speech coach Jean Palmer Heck.

Merely by gathering information on their topic and presenting it as part of their blog, online content writers are providing a valuable service, but to go the next step, we must ensure that each blog post offers a perspective.  WHY is this information important to the reader?  What can that reader “do about it”? How can you help?

“The holiday is often regarded as a day of rest and parties,” Wikipedia concludes, adding that in U.S. sports, Labor Day marks the beginning of the NFL and college football seasons.”

Rest, partying, and footfall, are all well and good, but can you see what, at Say It For You, we see all kinds of blogging “labor” possibilities connected to Labor Day?

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Corporate Blogging by Any Other Name – Not as Sweet for Search: Part Three

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Titles matter –  in blogs, anyway.  That’s because the very first thing both readers and search engines are going to encounter is the blog post title. The keyword phrases included in that title will help the blog get “indexed”, or placed where the online searcher is most likely to find it. The title itself verifies to searchers that they’ve come to the right place to get the information they need. 

 I’ve been using headlines from the August 4th issue of the Indianapolis Star as a way to illustrate different elements Indianapolis blog writers ought to include in the titles of business blog posts.

As a corporate blogging trainer, I explained that blog titles have three jobs to do:

  • engage readers
     
  • offer an overview of the topic of the post
     
  • incorporate keyword phrases to attract search engine matches.
     

The headline reads “Buyers could flock to this auction”, and the article featured an announcement that the artwork of birds seen in Peterson Field Guides will be auctioned off next month. 

While Indianapolis blog content writers might appreciate the nice play on words (“flocking” to an auction of bird pictures), this headline would make for an ineffective blog title.  Remember, one of the main motivators for having an SEO marketing blog in the first place is to “get found” by the ‘right people”. (Who are those? People already interested in what you have to sell, what you know, and what you know how to do.)

Although the art auction would obviously be of most interest to bird lovers, there’s no mention in the title of anything to do with birds, bird artwork or Peterson Field Guides.  In order for targeted audiences to flock to your blog, they first must find it, then be induced to click on it!

Consider home-delivered newspapers passé, but at Say It For You, we know there’s nothing old-fashioned about carefully crafting the title of each business blog post!

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Sneaking in the Back Door With Your Blog Content Writing

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Breaking into a prestigious New York publisher without a literary agent was a coup, admits first-time author Diane Kelly, but she was up to the challenge.  More correctly, Kelly went around the challenge.  And the way she “sneaked in the back door” to meet editors is worth examining by every business blog content writer trying to accelerate the process of “getting found”.

As her first step, Kelly (just as everyone providing blog writing services must do), needed to go where her prospects (in her case, editors) were “hanging out”.  She’d written eight manuscripts, but she needed to let the editors know she was there!

The parallel here? Once you’ve achieved the big step of consistently posting content on an SEO marketing blog, the next thing is promoting the blog so people know it’s there.  That effort might begin by letting your existing clients and customers and all your business friends know about the birth of your blog.  You can, as blogger Chris Garrett reminds us:

 

 

 

  • Add the blog’s URL to flyers, business cards, and to your website
  • Email an excerpt from a favorite post to a select group of clients and business contacts
  • Tweet about your blog and tell your followers on Facebook, Linked In, etc.
     

A lifelong networker myself, I liked reading that one way Diane Kelly had a “sneaking in the back door” was very “up front” – she made sure to show up (sometimes as a volunteer) at conferences attended by editors, inserting herself “into the scene”.

“I’m a firm believer in networking,” says Chris Garrett.  And, while Garrett’s mainly referring to social media-based business networking, he allows that “real world networking is great for deepening relationships and forming close bonds. If you want to increase your visibility in a certain group, niche, or tribe, start discovering them and introduce yourself,” he adds.

I remind newbie freelance blog content writers, in blog marketing that what brings people together in any networking venue, online or off, is a desire to do business! Whenever I’m interviewing a new client for my Say It For You business blogging company, I ask that client to tell me in just eight to ten words what they care most about in their business, what keeps them going.  And that’s precisely the kind of conversation we get to have with business owners at in-person networking meetings!

“Sneaking in the back door isn’t always easy,” says Kelly, “and it isn’t always quick. But," she concludes, “with a lot of hustling and a little luck, anyone can stage a coup, just as I did.”

Staging “a coup” in blog marketing isn’t always easy or quick, either.  But the beauty of the blogosphere is that it has many different doors, all of them open to business owners and professional practitioners who want to tell their story to the right people!

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