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In Blogging and in the Air, a Bit of Explanation Goes a Long Way

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explanations in blogging“Although many frequent fliers think they know what to do in an emergency, in fact most probably haven’t listened to the safety videos in years and if you quizzed them about the content, they’d flunk,” writes George Hobica in USA Today.

The basic content of safety videos, Hobica explains, is established by the International Civil Aviation Organization, with room for additional advice at each airline’s discretion. It’s all super-important content, he says, because whenever there’s been an emergency on a plane, we see footage of passengers doing the wrong things – escaping a crash landing carrying luggage and not wearing shoes, or not knowing how to put on an oxygen masks, for example.

So what can be done to get passengers to watch the videos? (As a blog content writer and trainer who’s occupied with getting people to read the content we prepare, I was really interested in what Hobica would have to say on the subject.)

“I truly believe that if the videos explained the reasons behind the instructions they give, then people would listen more,” he says. “For instance, the exhortation to ‘place the mask over your mouth and nose’ could be changed to ‘place the mask over both your nose and mouth, because otherwise you won’t get enough oxygen and you’ll pass out'”.

Blogger Michel Fortin says he’s a big fan of reasons-why advertising. “Good, successful copy,” Fortin adds, “tells the reader why right up front.” (If you don’t, he warns, they’re left wondering why you left that information out.) Why are you highlighting a certain topic now? Why is the solution you’re proposing particularly relevant for this reader?

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If They Don’t “Get” Annie, They Won’t Buy the Gun

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allusions

“Imagine,” LitCharts.com writes, “if every time someone used the expression “it was a real Cinderella story,” they had to retell the entire story of Cinderella to explain exactly what they meant.” By using an allusion to something a majority of people will already know, you can clarify your own message – provided they DO know what you mean.

Around six years ago, the Indianapolis Star ran a story about an auction at which items title of the piece was “Annie Get Your Checkbook”, referring to the movie and Broadway show “Annie Get Your Gun.”  As it happened, I recognized the allusion immediately, but as a blog content writer and trainer, I had to wonder how many other readers would have “gotten” the point. That’s the thing about allusions, I tell writers – they need to be handled with caution.

“Use pop culture references sparingly,” cautions Joanne Brooks of Helium.com, offering two main reasons why:

  1. You want your work to have relevance several years from now.
  2. Pop culture references can delay reading and cause you to lose your audience.

On the other hand, the last thing you want is to be ho-hum and b-o-o-r-ing,so there are reasons to consider popular culture references. For one thing, as Neda Ulaby noted on National Public Radio, even if only a minority among in your audience understand your allusion, they are going to feel like really special insiders and be bonded to you.

The Blocabulary blog points out that allusions can:

  • help people see unique connections between two ideas
  • help readers better understand the subject
  • be surprising and funny

My own observation, based on working with Say It For You blogging clients from many different industries and professions, is that it’s a challenge to find the precise style of communication that will best connect with target readers. While this is especially true in business-to-consumer blog content writing, even with suppliers and distributors, you want to avoid anything that is a barrier to understanding.

Going back to my original example of the IndyStar auction promo, in business blog copy writing, it’s a simple equation: If they don’t “get” Annie, they won’t buy the gun!

 

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In Blog Marketing, Look for a Plot

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plot in blogging

 

“Don’t look for a plot here. This is a polemic,” are the words a reviewer in the Mensa Bulletin uses to describe J.K Hillstrom’s book, A Humanitarian’s Fantasy. The book is a more like a series of lectures, the reviewer complains, rather than a coherent, sequential piece of prose.

Individual business blog posts may appear to be non-sequential, separate pieces of writing rather than parts of a coherent whole. Yet a small business owner’s or professional practitioner’s blogging efforts can have an effect on marketing results that is disproportionately larger than might seem possible from mere short, informal selections. The power comes from the “plot”.  

Whenever I’m sitting down with new Say It For You business owner clients as they’re preparing to launch a blog for their company or practice, I find that one important step is to select one to five recurring – and related – themes that will appear and reappear over time in their blog posts. The themes may be reflected in the keyword phrases they are going to use to help drive search, but themes are broader in scope than just key words.

The variety in their blog is going to come from the details we will be filling in around those central themes, different ways the company’s products can be helpful, different valuable tidbits of information or how-to tips, plus specific examples of how the company helped solve various problems.

The unifying themes in a business blog are the beliefs of, and the unique “slant” of, the business owner or professional practitioner. Those “leitmotifs”  help the separate blog posts fit together into an ongoing business blog marketing strategy.

In blog marketing, look for the plot!

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Business Blogs – Inviting Buyers into Your Own Walled Garden

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blogging for business

 

“Perhaps the world has moved past the idea of merely having a webpage that’s your own, and nobody else’s. Perhaps we’re expected to do everything, instead, on social media or in someone else’s walled garden,” muses Ernie Smith, editor of Tedium, in response to the question “Is blogging dead?” Maybe, when blogging was on the rise, Smith says, we needed an onramp to the information superhighway, a starting place in a culture where many people chose to both consume and create in equal measures. Smith prefers to think that blogging is very much still alive, but that we’re not using that term to describe our actions.

“There will always be a market for good content,” says “Redditor” William Pitcher. “What is gone are the days you could post what sandwich you had for lunch and have people read it because of the novelty.”

What about the studies showing that as many as 60% of social links are shared without ever  being clicked? The truth is, you still need those blog posts for the audience that does read and does care, says Dave Choate of rakacreative.com.

“Think about it: if you have a website and are putting out content on it, you are blogging,” says Gary Vaynerchuk. Blogging has simply morphed into a much broader category in which the attention graph has shifted.  Social networks are where you meet readers to direct them to your blog page. Don’t abandon the traditional blogging format, Vaynerchuk advises; instead test like crazy on social media to get people to click over to the website content.

Personal blogs offer something that social sites will never have, Vaynerchuk says – the fact is that you control the platform; you decide the amount and frequency of content output.  In a world of “rented:” social media space, that’s valuable, he explains.

As a freelance copywriter providing corporate blogging training, I’m finding the same thing. Businesses  are continuing – and more are beginning –  to use blogs to get their message out to business buyers.  The concept is the same as for personal blogs – bring readers to your website in order to convert them into buyers.

In the early days of Say It For You, I remember, Seth Godin was writing about cat blogs, boss blogs, and viral blogs. The “cats” were personal and idiosyncratic. The boss blogs were written to share ideas with team members. It was the viral blog category my professional ghost writing business was designed to serve. What each of my business clients is interested in remains the same: spreading the word about what they know, what they know how to do, and what they sell.  In other words, I help invite buyers into my clients’ very own walled gardens!

 

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Blog Two Viewpoints to Make Your Point

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viewpoints in blogging

To promote my Say It For You content writing business, I became involved in various networking groups. Invited to make a presentation one day on the subject of asking for referrals, I chose to present not one point of view about referrals, but two…

Viewpoint #1:

  • Referrals build business; the more you ask for referrals, the more you’ll get.
  • Asking for referrals represents a small effort with a big reward.
  • According to the Wharton School of business, referral customers have a 16% higher lifetime value.
  • When you are referred by a trusted source, you gain “reflected trust”.

Viewpoint #2:

  • Asking for referrals feels “pushy” and “sales-ey”.
  • Real referrals aren’t made on request; they grow naturally out of satisfied customers wanting to have their friends enjoy the same benefits you’ve given them.
  • Requests for referrals are often ill-timed and poorly perceived (“Who do you know that could use my product/service?”)

Now, blogging for business, you’d have to say, is not an argumentative pursuit.  Still, your company’s – or your practice’s  – blog is your way of “arguing” in favor of your point of view relating to your industry or profession as compared with opposing viewpoints.

In the book Blogging for Business, Ted Demopoulis suggests referring to other online resources, listing different viewpoints and tips from others, and then clarifying your own position. “There are four different views on giving children an allowance” is more welcoming, he suggests, than “There is one right way to giving children an allowance”.

By offering more than one point of view, we blog writers can actually showcase our knowledge of thought trends related to our field, while at the same time clarifying our own special expertise and slant.

Blog two – or more – viewpoints to make your own point!

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