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Paving the Cowpath in Blogging for Business

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Cow by the road

 

Using “enhanced electronic aids” for performance management is one of the latest trends in human resource management, but David Arella of Performance Xpress isn’t happy about that. “Does anyone else see the oxymoron here?” Arella asks, referring to “automatically personalized” written employee reviews. “We have paved the cow path and upped the speed limit, but we have not improved the journey or the destination,” he says.

Arella recalls those old meetings managers used to hold with employees to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and to develop targets for the coming year.” The performance review was seen as a way to either justify a salary increase or, in cases where there were problems, to begin a documentation trail to move an employee out of the company without legal ramifications,” he explains.

The new automated tools, in his opinion, have been directed primarily at speeding up the process, not improving it. As a blog content writing trainer, I loved reading  Arella’s reasoning about why speeding up the writing process actually reduces the effectiveness of the communication:

The process of writing requires applying a thinking process. Managers
who take the time to compose their own original paragraphs are likely to be
more specific and grounded in their feedback than those who click on
generalized “coaching tips.”

Blogging requires applying a thinking process. When business owners or professional practitioners blog, they are verbalizing the positive aspects of their enterprises in a way that people can understand, putting recent accomplishments down in words, and reviewing the benefits of their products and services. The very process provides self-training in how to talk effectively about their business or practice.

For those very reasons, company executives and business owners often make great bloggers.  After all, they understand their companies and are passionate about them, two important requisites for great blogging for business. There are three main reasons, though, that almost never happens: no time, no motivation, dislike of writing.

So, are all “training benefits” lost to business owners or professionals who hire freelance blog content writers to be their “voice”? Really, the answer is “no”, at least not if things are done right. “Outsourcing is not the same as abdication,” says John Janistch. “You need to maintain tight control on themes, voice, message, and specific topic needs”. That process of choosing themes, sharing strategies, and planning for content creation requires a thinking process.

Go ahead and pave the blogging “cowpath”, but keep the training benefits of blogging for business!

 

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8 Ways to Find the Right Words for your Business Blog

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Open Dictionary And Reading Glasses“If you want to become a great writer, you need to understand how to choose words that will make your writing more vivid, precise, bold, original, and memorable,” says Stephen Wilbers in Writer’s Digest. People who write with authority,”Wilbers adds, “are people who pay attention to language.”

Wilbers offers 8 wordsmithing tips (every one of which we business blog content writers can put to good use):

  1. Be on the lookout for useful words.  That includes browsing the dictionary.  When you encounter a word you like, make it your own.  Consider its meaning and context and look for occasions to use it.
  2. Use a thesaurus to remind yourself of alternate ways to express an idea.
  3. Be as specific as possible.  Effective writing, Wilbers says, draws its energy from specificity, not from abstractions and generalities.
  4. Appeal to readers’ all five senses.
  5. Opt for action verbs rather than abstract nouns.
  6. Don’t trust modifiers.  Even when meant to intensify, they can diminish.  Try the sentence without the modifier.
  7. Avoid sexist language.  Instead of “his”, “her”, or “his/her”, use plural subjects.  “Good managers know their strengths and weaknesses.”
  8. Use natural language as opposed to formal or fancy language.

To keep blog posts both short and powerful, pay attention to word choice.  As Wilbers puts the matter, that can make the difference between “hooking your audience or pushing the reader away”!

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Don’t Fear ROI…Embrace It!

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Jane's Picture (2)I like receiving e-letters from my friend Jane Thompson, the trade show marketing consultant. Invariably I find Jane’s advice about trade shows applicable to blog marketing, and that’s certainly true of her latest piece about embracing ROI.

Impact on revenue
Jane cites an article out of Exhibitor Online advising marketers to estimate the impact of each trade show on company revenue. Companies need to count the number of sales leads garnered, the “close rate” out of those leads, and what the total revenue was from that show.

As a corporate blogging trainer and content writer, I find business owners’ overriding concern is, in fact, realizing a Return on Investment from their blog marketing efforts and expenditures. At the same time, though, it’s not always possible to associate a specific ROI measurement to the blog without regard to all the other initiatives the client is using to find and relate to customers.  All the parts have to mesh – social media, traditional advertising, events, word of mouth marketing, and sales.  Every effort that “makes the cash register ring” contributes to “marketing ROI”.

Cost avoidance
“Every dollar of cost avoidance is tantamount to a dollar of profit,” Thompson reminds readers. She advises figuring out what you might have spent on sales calls and meetings to achieve the same results you accomplished at your show.

Years ago, Compendium Blogware, Inc. co-founder Chris Baggott used to point out that blogging provides some of the same benefits as email in an easy-to-use and inexpensive way.”  You can’t email people without permission and you can’t ask for permission if you don’t know who they are, Baggott would explain, and that’s where blogging comes in to help in customer acquisition, avoiding mailing costs and expensive sales calls.

While total precision in isolating blogging ROI may not be possible, examining your blog’s general “bottom line”  should be something to embrace.

 

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A Business Blog Needs Words

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emoji

“Blogging has become the best possible way to leverage your online presence and gain traction with Internet searches performed by your potential clients.”(No surprise there, but what I did find surprising is the source of the remark – none other than the National Association of Realtors!)

The realtor website went on to repeat the modern blogging mantra: “An interesting, relevant image is an essential part of your blog post. It’s not merely aesthetic; it’s crucial for boosting your readership and your SEO. People are much more likely to read a blog illustrated with a nice image,” the NAR advises. “It doesn’t matter what industry, topic, niche, or specialty, images matter.”

“Hey!” I sometimes want to shout. “Don’t forget that, no matter what industry, topic, niche, or specialty, the main content of the blog post consists (or at least should consist) of WORDS. Words matter.” Jennifer Olney of bealeader.com knows what I mean. In “Lazy Blogging: Why Your Word Matter,” Olney comments that too many authors rely on visuals to take the lazy way out of writing. Real authors, she implies use adult words and showcase their understanding of the use and beauty of the English language.

“Content comes in many forms, but web copy, articles and blog posts are among the most popular – and effective,” writes Dan Hughes of jtvdigital. Like Olney, Hughes observes that “ Many people overlook words and the power they have to entice their target audience. In this day and age, pictures and video are powerful promotional tools that cater to the attention span of the modern digital consumer, Hughes points out. “However,” he continues, “much like any business, well-crafted web copy is an essential part of success.”

“Words are art, and our ability to convey our message in words helps us be understood without distraction, Olney says. All the emojis in the world could not convey the extent to which I agree!

 

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Business Blog Tidbits Far From Useless

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love and togetherness
So, why do I find seeming “useless” tidbits of information so very useful when it comes to blog content writing? Let me count the ways:

1. Tidbits can be used to describe your way of doing business, to clarify the way one of your products works, or explain why one of the services you provide is particularly effective in solving a problem. It’s interesting when business owners or practitioners present little-known facts about their own business or profession.  In “Keep It Cool,” for example, Mental Floss magazine reviews the history of air conditioning, telling the story of how, when President Garfield was shot and lay dying in the White House, inventors rushed forward with devices they hoped would help, using a contraption to blow air over a box of ice into a series of tin pipes, eventually using a half-million pounds of ice. History tidbits in general engage readers’ curiosity, evoking an “I didn’t know that!” response.

2. One thing I suggest stressing in blog posts is best business practices.  While one goal of any SEO marketing blog is to help your business “get found”, once that’s happened, the goal changes to helping the online readers get comfortable with the way you do business. Mental Floss Magazine highlighted the making of the 1991 movie “The Silence of the Lambs”, in which the serial murderer is obsessed with collecting rare moths.  Animal rights groups might have protested the exploitation of harmless insects just to make a film, but, thanks to animal wrangler Raymond Mendez, the 300 tomato hornworm moths traveled first class, were kept in a room with special heat and humidity settings, outfitted with tiny harnesses during high speed stunts. Blog content writing is the perfect vehicle for conveying a corporate message like this one, starting with a piece of trivia, presented to make a point.

3. Common myths surround every business and profession.  If you notice a “factoid” circulating about your industry, a common misunderstanding by the public about the way things really work in your field, you can use a little-known tidbit of information that reveals the truth behind the myth. In Mental Floss Magazine, I found a cute myth-debunking article about the “Eskimo kiss”. Popular wisdom claims that Eskimos rub noses (because kissing on the lips would cause their mouths to freeze together). The myth started in Hollywood when the director of the 1922 movie “Nanook of the North” saw Eskimo women giving their babies “kuniks”, pressing their noses against their babies’ cheeks and breathing in their scent. Truth be told, Eskimos kiss on the lips just like everyone else. That Eskimo kiss debunk would be perfect for the blog of a lip balm company, a lipstick manufacturer, or a candy company around Valentine’s Day.

For clarifying and debunking, and to add variety and fun, tidbits of information are far from useless!

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