Being the Type They Can Count On

January 7, 2016/0 Comments/in blog marketing, Business writing tips /by Rhoda Israelov

In deciding whether to trust someone, we weigh two key characteristics, Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer explain in their book Friend and Foe – competence and warmth.

Basically, we ask ourselves two questions:

Does this person have the ability to follow through?
Do they have my best interest at heart?

Trust is a mightily important element in business blogging. Readers, after all, found your blog because what they needed corresponded with what you sell, what you know, and what you know how to do. They’ve clicked on the link, and now they’re “meeting” you for the first time.
How will you appear to readers in terms of competence? There are two elements at work here:

Credibility – It becomes evident, through the content of the blog, that you’re the subject matter expert they’re seeking.
Reliability – You’ve helped clients and customers “just like them” many times before; you’re familiar with your readers’ needs and concerns.

Even if you’ve come across as the most competent of providers, you still need to pass the “warmth” test. Does your blog present you as “real people”, with a passion for serving in your field?

The founder of Moth, a nonprofit dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling, believes the success of his organization comes from two elements:

There’s no “wall of artistry” or stage curtain between the storyteller and audience.
The storytellers share their own human failures and frailty.

As business owners or practitioners in today’s click-it-yourself, do-it-yourself world, our content writing needs to demonstrate to online searchers that, in our fields, we ARE smarter than Google Maps, or eHow, or Wikipedia.

Even more important, we need to make clear, we’re a lot more caring for our customers – they can count on us!

Business Blogging Using Not-So-Trivial Trivia – Part B

November 12, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, idea sources for blogs /by Rhoda Israelov

This week I’m devoting my Say It For You blog posts to sharing some of the gems I discovered, in J.K. Kelly’s Book of Incredible Information.

There seems to be an ongoing debate in the world of fashion about pantyhose. “The look will never be quite the same as it would be with a nude leg, but there’s nothing you can do about that,” says Charles Manning of Cosmopolitan. Sheer and “leg-colored” pantyhose are no longer worn for fashion, but rather for function or professionalism, according to the budgetfashionista.com.

Whether nude pantyhose are a “thing” again or not, J.K. Kelly reassures us that pantyhose are not just for legs. What ARE they for, then?

Lost something? Slide a length of pantyhose over your vacuum cleaner hose, secure it with rubber bands, and vacuum where you think the lost item might be. The hose will keep the item from being sucked up into the bag.
Cut a piece of pantyhose slightly larger than your new hairbrush. Push the bristles through the hose. When it’s time to clean the brush, pull the pantyhose off – with all the hair – and put on a new piece.
Line houseplant pots with pantyhose to prevent soil loss from the bottom of the pot.
Insert a bar of soap into a pantyhose length, tie a knot at both ends, and use as a back-scrubber.

So how might you use this pantyhose trivia for business blogging? (Remember, tidbits serve as jumping off points for explaining what problems can be solved using the company’s’ products and services.)

These pantyhose hints would add humor and interest to a fashion blog or a dress or shoe company’s blog. Blogging for a garden shop? A hair salon? An appliance store? Any one of these could use the Kelly’s helpful hints to add new interest to the ongoing marketing message in their blog.

Using blogs to perform a focus group function can be a very feasible marketing strategy, with blog readers invited to offer their own ideas about how fashionable or gauche pantyhose are, and create ways to use the ones for household tasks. “Polling” in your blog can be a great technique to stimulate interaction with target customers.

Make those not-so-trivial trivia count in blogging for business!

You’d-Be-Surprised Blogging for Business

November 5, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, Business writing tips /by Rhoda Israelov

While strange-and-unusual lists help spark readers’ curiosity and keep them moving through our blog pages, as blog content writers we can’t stop there. We need to take readers to the next step, which is telling them about surprising things they can do and accomplish (with our professional help, of course!).

For example, it’s all well and good for David Moye to write in the Huffington Post about Strange Things That Get Sent in the Mail. Strange and unusual tidbits most readers wouldn’t be likely to know can make for engaging blog content.

It’s just that strange and unusual simply isn’t enough. Unless the information is somehow tied to the reader’s problem or need, unless the blog content explains why the writer cares about that information or why that information could make a difference to the reader, there can be no Call to Action. You’d be surprised how many businesses and practices create valuable content for their blog without going that extra step!

Online searchers must be assured they’ve come to the right place to find the information, products, and services they need. Without guidance, those searchers are unlikely to make the connection between the startling statistic, the strange-and-unusual tidbit, or the new information – and the actions they ought to consider taking!

Let’s compare that Moye article about strange things that get sent in the mail to one offered by Michele Porucznik on BuzzFeed.com called “21 Things You’d Be Surprised You Can Actually Mail”. (First off, the personal pronoun “you” takes the topic from theoretical curiousness to stuff the reader can USE! While the average reader might never be inclined to put stamps on a coconut, a potato, a flip-flop, or a sombrero, it nevertheless offers ideas readers might use for a birthday gift or a business promotion.

You’d-be-surprised blogging for business focuses less on the surprise and more on the YOU!

Strangest-Things Blogging for Business

November 3, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, Business writing tips /by Rhoda Israelov

You wouldn’t believe some of the strange things that get sent in the mail, says David Moye, writing in the Huffington Post. In fact, Moye explains, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not runs an annual Strange Mail Contest.

The 2014 contest winner, for example, was a 19-pound tree trunk with a horseshoe embedded in it. Ripley vice president of exhibits and archives Edward Meyer chose the entry not only for its size and weight, but also because of its uniqueness. Runners-up included a prosthetic arm, an animal skull, a mailbox, and a roll of toilet paper.

Mental Floss Magazine’s latest issue lists “14 Unusual Items You Can Get at Libraries”, including:

umbrellas (Cornell U. Library offers umbrellas than can be borrowed)
American Girl dolls (the Arlington Public Library has eight dolls available to borrowers)
Surfboards (Inverloch Library in Australia)
art for your office (Aurora Library in Illinois) has 30 sculptures available to borrow for up to 8 weeks)
knitting needles (Morse Institute Library in Natick, Mass.)
puppies (Yale Law Library)

While all these things are available for temporary use, for us blog content writers, the real and “permanent” takeaway, I believe, is that strange and unusual tidbits tend to engage readers’ curiosity and interest. If we open our minds to it, I’m convinced, we can make very good use of on-the-surface-useless information. The whole idea is to provide information most readers wouldn’t be likely to know, and then tie the tidbit to our own topic.

What are some of the strangest things you’ve encountered in your business or practice?

Wouldn’t You Do It Every Single Blog?

October 15, 2015/0 Comments/in blog marketing, the Say It For You blog /by Rhoda Israelov

“If you knew something as easy as adding images to your blog posts would increase your readers, Orange Megaphone subscribers, followers, and leads, wouldn’t you do it every single time?” asks Neil Patel of HubSpot.com.

We live in an age of visual culture, observes Jeff Bullas. In fact, Bullas points out, 10% of photos taken by humankind took place in the last 12 months, and photos are becoming “the universal language”!

Bullas lists a number of rather startling statistics to demonstrate the reason images and photos need to be part of any business’ marketing tactics:

Articles with images get 94% more total views.
60% of consumers are more likely to consider or contact a business when an image shows up in local search results.
In an online store, customers think the quality of a product’s image is more important than product-specific information and even more important than ratings and reviews.

Images need to have a purpose, though, as Neil Patel observes, and not be there merely as decoration or “filler”. Purposes include:

Emphasizing a point
Explaining a concept
Showing personality

I teach content writers that, even though the words you use to tell the story are the most important part of blogging for business, visuals add interest and evoke emotion. Personally, I like “clip art”. Why? These commercial images aren’t original to my client’s business or practice and they don’t depict the actual products or the customers or colleagues of that business or practice. But what clip art does accomplish, I find, is capturing a concept, helping express the main idea that is articulated in the post.

When it comes to writing headlines, Neil Patel advises, focus on the 4 U’s: unique, ultra-specific, useful, or urgent. At Say It For You, we try to use images the same way, selecting one for each post that gives readers an idea of what to expect in the post. Wouldn’t you do that every single time? You bet!

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