Direction and Misdirection in Blogging for Business

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This week I’m devoting my Say It For You blog posts to information I gleaned at this month’s meeting of the National Speakers Association of Indiana.  Humorist Jeff Fleming ran a workshop on “Humor Secrets for Improving Presentations”. Always on the alert for good material to use in teaching corporate blogging best practices, I found quite a number of valuable points to share.

Fleming explained the “Rule of Three”, in which the first two statements serve as a “set-up”.  Then, the third statement or item is not what the listeners are expecting.  That “misdirection” causes surprise, which is what makes whole thing strike listeners’ funny bones.

“Ask yourself what you want the reader to know about your topic….Think of three details or three examples for each idea,” says Quick Study, referring to student essays.  With blog posts typically much shorter, less formal, and less detailed, content writers can still use three examples or details to emphasize the one main point of each post.

So how can that element of surprise and misdirection “wake up” blog readers and keep them engaged? Putting ingredients together that don’t seem to match, I teach Indianapolis blog writers on the search for fresh blog content ideas, is an excellent tool for engaging readers.It’s helpful, in getting readers to understand your “unique value proposition”, to compare the unfamiliar with things with which readers are already comfortable.

Misdirection, on the other hand?  I don’t advise it, given the very short attention span of the average online reader.  In fact, our challenge as content writers is to keep readers on track. First-time readers (who probably constitute the majority of visitors to any blog) came online in the first place with a particular need, not to be amused.

Directing readers’ attention to a problem can be done with statistics. Once readers realize the problem, the door is open for you to show how you help solve that very type of problem for your customers!

Directing readers’ attention to business owners’ or professional practitioners’ unique slant on their fields of business can be done by pointing out incongruities in the way their competitors are choosing to serve customers . I advise business owners to avoid "putting down" the competition. Instead, I teach, accentuate the positive: Some dry cleaners return clothes to you…. At ABC Cleaners, we believe…….is best."

Directing readers’ attention away from the path leading to solving their problem? That may lead to a laugh, but will it lead to a click?
 

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Exaggeration – Handle With Caution in Businss Blogging

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At the National Speakers Association of Indiana meeting, humor speaker Jeff Fleming had valuable information for speakers which we blog content writers can use. This week I’m sharing some of Jeff’s wisdom with my Say It For You readers.

One technique often used in comedy, Fleming explained, is exaggeration.That can relax the audience, entertain them, and also emphasize points you want them to remember.  

Well….maybe, I couldn’t help thinking. Exaggeration is something bloggers for business need to handle very, very carefully. After all, we’re trying to build trust. “Claiming to have expertise you don’t have can create customer dissatisfaction and complaints, ultimately eroding your reputation,” cautions the Ethics Center. So, how can we content writers take advantage of humor to add a refreshing quality to our material?

Comedy writing maven Todd Strong quotes a Johnny Carson exaggeration joke:  Johnny was visiting a small town.  How small? The Enter and Exit signs for the town were on the same pole!

Now, there’s an inoffensive piece of humor, I thought. Strong offers a concrete method for writing exaggeration jokes.  Pick a noun as your subject, say a car. Write down some quality of that noun, say “expensive”. Then associate that adjective or adverb with a place or thing. Strong used a car as the subject.  “My car is so expensive, the radiator requires Perrier.” “When I get a crack in the windshield, the repair shop refers me to Tiffany’s.”

Since it’s a good idea in blog posts to give searchers a “feel” for the relief and comfort they’ll gain after using your products and services, you could start out with an exaggerated question:

Are the charges for routine maintenance on your car getting to the point of the ridiculous? Do you sometimes wonder if your radiator requires Perrier or you need to visit Tiffany’s to replace a cracked windshield!

Once you’ve used humorous exaggeration to “hook into” the reader’s concern about cost, it’s time to offer serious, usable information.  Edmonds.com does that very well on its website:
:
“When you take your car to the dealership's service department for repairs, you know you're getting Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) car parts. However, if you take your car to an independent shop, you'll most likely get aftermarket car parts. Is there anything wrong with that? Does a less expensive part mean a poorer-quality part? And in what situations should you use only OEM parts?”

When it comes to comedy writing,  Fleming reminded us that “a story must be spiritually accurate, but not necessarily factually correct." On the other hand, while we writers can use exaggeration to lighten the mood, engage readers, and show sympathy for their dilemma and problem, it’s crucial that we be “factually correct” in describing the extent to which our products and services can be of help.
 

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In Blogging for Business, Start With the End in Mind

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If anybody knows about crafting stories, it’s humor speaker Jeff Fleming. Start with the end in mind, Fleming advised us at the National Speakers Association of Indiana meeting just a week and a half ago. Why? Deciding, up-front, what your point is going to be allows you to organize your story for maximum impact and surprise.

Maximum impact, of course, is what every blog content writer aims to achieve for her business, practice, or organization. As I listened to that talk on ”Humor Secrets for Improving Presentations”, I couldn’t help sifting for secrets that might apply to the blogging world. Since our primary tool is the printed word, we can’t use all the voice variations and body language techniques Fleming has mastered. The impact needs to come from engaging with the reader’s desired results –from the get-go.

Organization counts for a lot.  There are three goals my Say It For You contract writers are out to accomplish on behalf of each client:

  • Provide information that is valuable to readers and which satisfies the needs that brought them online to find answers
     
  • Demonstrate the particular expertise and history of the company or the professional practitioner and how they are different from their competitors
     
  • Provide a clear navigation path that brings readers closer to becoming clients and customers of that business or practice

Of those three, it’s absolutely essential for the first to happen quickly, so that readers are assured they've come to the right place.

“All of us speak on hope,” Jeff Fleming observed, knowing that, in our speakers’ group, most were content speakers, not humorists.  “No matter what the topic, listeners are hoping to have a better life in some way.”  In blog content writing, I believe, it’s the “pow!” opening lines that engage the reader by appealing to that hope.  If we fail at the “pow”, readers may not stick around for us to tell them the “how”.

Funny or not, in each business blog post, start your writing with the end in mind!
 

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Actively Blogging for Business

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Blog content writers can take a tip or three from the laminated student guide “Writing Tips & Tricks” by quickstudy.com that I found on a carousel at the FedEx store. One idea stressed in the guide that definitely bears repeating is how important it is to use the active voice in writing. “Passive voice occurs when the subject of the sentence is the receiver of the action; active voice occurs when the subject of the sentence performs the action,” explains Quick Study, comparing the passive “The race was won by the girl” to the active “The girl won the race.”

Since one of the very purposes of business blog writing is to showcase the accomplishments of the business owners, as a general rule we bloggers need to focus on “staying active” in our content. “Sentences in the active voice have energy and directness, both of which will keep your reader turning the pages” is the advice from dailywritingtips.com.

So, is it ever OK to use the passive voice? Yes, it is, says editor and writing coach Debra Butterfield. It depends where you want to put the emphasis.  If the recipient of the action is more newsworthy than the one who performed the action, she says, the recipient should take precedence.  As an example, she points to the sentence, “The three year old little boy was abducted by a neighbor.”  Sometimes in statistics, Butterfield points out, we don’t know who’s performing the action: “1 in 4 girls is abused before she turns 18.”

I know that in this Say It for You blog I spend a lot of time discussing the ingredients of good writing. There’s certainly a lot more to effective blogging than just the writing. Bloggers need marketing expertise and at least some degree of technical expertise.  The bottom line, though, is that blogging involves the skillful use of words.

As writers, we’re constantly feeling our way, aiming for short versus. long, clear versus vague, specific versus. general, active versus. passive, and on.  Whoever said corporate blog writing was an easy job? I love helping blog content writers perfect their craft. The goal – we all get better and better at sharing information with our online readers in the most impactful of ways!

 

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The Three-Legged Stool in Blogging for Business

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The laminated student guide “Writing Tips & Tricks” by quickstudy.com I found on a carousel at the FedEx store might have been made to order for my Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions. This week, I’m devoting my blog-about-blogging to sharing scraps of wisdom from that guide.

“Ask yourself what you want the reader to know about your topic….Think of three details or three examples for each idea.”  Quick Study is referring to student essays, typically much longer, much more formal, and more detailed than corporate blog posts. In fact, the sample outline format contains three main ideas, each with three details and examples.

In business blog posts, by contrast, I recommend a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of a business, a practice, or an organization.  Other aspects can be addressed in later posts. Focused on one thing, I tell business owners and practitioners, your post will have much greater impact, since people are bombarded with many messages each day. Respecting readers’ time produces better results for your business.

That doesn’t mean blog content writing shouldn’t make use of the “the three-legged stool” idea, with three examples or details supporting the main idea of each post.

Another interpretation of the 3-legged stool concept comes from public speaking maven  Jim Endicott.  Just as it takes three legs to keep a stool balanced, every oral presentation must use three elements to be effective: visual presentation, content, and delivery, Endicott explains..
 
Engaging blog posts need to contain more than well-structured sentences. Pictures and charts add interest and aid learning, and evoke emotions. How can the term “delivery” apply to blogs? To me that means the “voice”, the way the message comes across. Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, it’s opinion that clarifies the difference between that business, that professional practice, or that organization and its competitors.

Keep your blog content writing balanced with the three-legged stool!

 

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