Posts

It’s All in the Game for Your Business Blog

/0 Comments/in , /by

Carnival Game with Ducks“There’s a unique recipe that goes into coming out ahead in just about anything,” Jessanne Collins writes in Mental Floss, “an enigmatic equation of skill, technique, calculation, probability, chance, and all kinds of other immeasurable factors.” Collins examines competitions ranging from carnival games to spelling bees and Texas Hold “Em poker, concluding that the perfect formula for winning is uncrackable.

Despite the myriad of words devoted to blogging advice, the secret code for blogging success is probably uncrackable as well. Still, I can’t help thinking, the equation for business blog content writing contains all same basic elements Collins found in poker playing and carnival games:

Skill
“The vast majority of content online is poorly written,” laments Kevin Muldoon of elegantthemes.com. While anyone who can use the Internet can technically write a blog post, all content is not created equal, he observes.

“The best writers are also keen readers,” advises wordstream.com., adding that content writers must expand their horizons to more challenging material than they typically read, paying special attention to sentence structure, word choice, and flow.

Technique
Great blog posts begin with planning, and that means creating outlines, doing research using authoritative resources, fact-checking, creating good headlines, editing, using images, and inserting humor judiciously, wordstream.com continues.

Calculation
“In our site reviews we often see that a site’s category / tag structure is completely unmanaged,” reports Joost de Valk in Yoast. When used correctly a good “taxonomy” system can boost your blog’s SEO; when used incorrectly, he says, “it’ll break things”. Using analytical tools is the blogger’s way of calculating which tactics are most likely to succeed.

Chance
“Until you’ve had a chance to build up a target audience, you’re dealing with assumptions and educated guesses based on your first-hand experience and anecdotal evidence,” says Peep Laja of conversionxl.com.  After you learn more about the market, you can pivot, changing direction to fit the facts.

Just as with carnivals, spelling bees, and Texas Hold “Em poker, with corporate blog writing, it’s all in the game!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Know Your Reader When Using Allusions in Business Blogs

/0 Comments/in , /by

White dove isolated on black.
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes reference to a place, person, or event. The point of using allusions in writing? An allusion can:

  • get readers thinking about your subject in a new way
  • get a point across without going into a lengthy explanation
  • cement a bond between the writer and readers based on shared experiences and knowledge

Blog content writers can use allusions with all three of those results in mind.

  • In a financial planner’s blog: There’s no need to act like a Scrooge (allusion from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”). Simply plan your charitable giving as part of your overall monthly budget.
  • In an internet security provider’s blog: You may think a new piece of software can be useful to your business, but it can turn out to be a Trojan Horse (allusion from Homer’s “Iliad “about how the Greeks won the war through trickery).
  • In a nutrition counselor’s blog: If chocolate is your Achilles’ heel (allusion from Greek mythology), allow yourself one chocolate indulgence each week, cutting back on other sweets.

Because allusions make reference to something other than what is directly being discussed, explains yourdictionary.com, you may miss an allusion or fail to understand it if you do not know the underlying story, literary tale or other reference point.

In the Indianapolis Star the other day, I solved the Cryptoquip as follows:  “Did you see that bird meditating while using a mantra? It was probably an om-ing pigeon.” This rather clever puzzle uses a combination of a pun (homing pigeon) and an allusion. It also reminded me that, as a blog content writer, I need to gauge my readers’ level of education and familiarity with the reference.

Remember, an allusion does not describe in detail the person or thing to which it refers. The writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its importance in a text. Problem is, if readers don’t get the connection, they’re going to find your content frustrating more than illuminating.

Know your reader when using allusions in business blogs!

 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Myths Have Pulling Power in Blogs

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

 

??????????????????????

Mythbusting is used in many fields to counteract what researchers suspect might be counterproductive thinking, and I’m a firm believer that myth debunking is a great use for corporate blogs.

I was reminded of this the other day by a USA Today article, listing – and then busting – some common myths about airline food:

  • Myth:  All airplane meals are frozen and reheated hours later.
  • Facts:  Salads and sandwiches are often included in airplane meals. even when food is cooked and then chilled, the “sous vide” method is used, with each ingredient sealed in airtight plastic bags and cooked slowly.

In the normal course of doing business, you’ve undoubtedly found, misunderstandings about your product or surface might surface in the form of customer questions and comments.  (It’s even worse when those myths and misunderstandings don’t surface, but still have the power to interrupt the selling process!)

That’s why the de-bunking function of business blog writing is so important. It’s owners’ way of taking up arms against a sea of customers’ unfounded fears and biases.  Blog content writing can “clear the air”, replacing factoids with facts, so that buyers can see their way to making decisions.

Myth-busting is also a tactic content writers can use to grab online visitors’ attention. The technique is not without risk, because customers don’t like to be proven wrong or feel stupid.  The trick is to engage interest, but not in “Gotcha!” fashion.

In other words, business owners and professional practitioners can use their blogs to showcase their own expertise without “showing up” their readers’ lack of it.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Think-Like-a-Shrink Blogging for Business

/0 Comments/in , /by

portrait of middle aged female therapist

“When someone is struggling with a problem you think you could solve easily, remember that the problem looks simple only because it’s not your problem,” Dr. Jeremy Sherman reminds readers of Psychology Today. “Don’t pretend that your guesses about what motivates people are objective observations.  They’re always refracted through your own biases,” Sherman adds.

For purposes of business blog content writing, understanding what motivates our readers is crucial. People are online searching for answers to questions they have and for solutions for dilemmas they’re facing, and we’re out to engage our blog readers and show them we understand the dilemmas they’re facing. But, do we really understand? How can we get better at “guessing”?

Sherman recommends curiosity. “If you’re intellectually curious,“ he says, “every experience, story, idea, conversation, and argument is a window into human nature. Read broadly across the social sciences and apply what you learn to everyone, yourself included.”

In blogging for business, I recommend curiosity as well. “Reading around” and “learning around”, in fact, are my prescriptions for keeping blog post content fresh and engaging. When you learn snippets of O.P.W. (Other People’s Wisdom), you enrich your own knowledge, including your knowledge of people.

E-learning coach Connie Malamed, for example, lends insight into the way our brains process information.  She recommends a strategy called chunking, which means breaking down information into bit-sized pieces so our readers can more easily digest the information.

Then WIBC newscaster Mike Corbin gave me a useful understanding when he talked about “unpackaging” news events by discussing those events from varied standpoints. I realized that “unpackaging” is a perfect description of the way we bloggers can help online readers connect with information we’ve presented.  We put facts and statistics into perspective, so that readers realize there’s something important here for them.

Drawing ideas from everywhere and everything – what you read, what you hear and view is what I call “learning around” for your blog. It’s absolutely true that every experience, story, idea, conversation, and argument is a window into human nature – and, for us blog content writers, that means the readers!

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail

Accentuate the Negative?

/0 Comments/in /by

 

dog food

“Eliminate the negative an’ latch on to the affirmative” was Johnny Mercer’s musical advice back in 1945. Playing to one’s strengths has, in fact, been a popular fad in management development circles. As a blog content writer, though, sometimes I wonder.

The latest issue of Modern Dog magazine features eight article titles on its cover:

  1. How Not to Train Your Puppy
  2. Gift ideas galore
  3. Big Dogs and their Puppy Counterparts
  4. Winter Survival Tips
  5. Great Gear
  6. I’m Adoptable
  7. Find a New Best Friend
  8. “Why is My Dog Staring at Me?”

Guess which one attracted my attention the most? Yeah, gotta admit… it was the negative one telling me how NOT to train my puppy. And guess what? It’s not just me.  People are drawn to articles with negative titles, my friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball pointed out a year ago. Posts with negative titles stand out in a blog roll, on a Twitter feed or LinkedIn page, and the negative posts are more likely to be shared, retweeted and read.

What’s with us? Well, “Edgy language draws attention”, Lorraine explains. (Lorraine’s title “Why Your Blog Titles Suck” is one too edgy for me, but I get the idea. I do.) Fact is, I would’ve picked “Why is My Dog Staring at Me?” before “How to Train Your Puppy”.  It was that How-NOT-to that drew my attention.

But that doesn’t jibe at all with Rich Brook’s advice on socialmediaexaminer: “The how-to is the most powerful of all the blogging archetpyes.”  Your prospects and customers have a problem and you can help them solve it by creating a step-by-step post that walks them through a solution, he says. That may be true, counters Lorraine Ball, but fear of failure is core to who we are as people, and it’s hard to resist reading material about how to avoid it.

Could it be that first accentuating the negative, and only then latching on to the affirmative is the best advice for us business blog content writers?

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedintumblrmail