Say It For You

Blog content writers can take a tip from friend and fellow blogger Susan Young of Aimfire Marketing. When we’re delivering information to online visitors through blog content writing, we should pay attention to three of the cautions Young issues about sending press releases.
 

• Include the most important information up front, (so the reporter/producer knows the overview of the story before going into the details).

Remember, the reason online searcher find your SEO marketing blog site in the first place is that what you provide matched up with whatever need or want those searchers typed into the search bar! Those readers need confirmation that they’ve come to exactly the right place to fulfill their needs and wishes – and they need to know that right off the bat!
 

• Stick to the main idea; don’t include too much information in your release or pitch.

When it comes to business blog writing, I explain to business owners for whom I'm providing blog writing services, minimalism means focus.  Presenting, then illustrating, a single concept, leaving the rest for another day, is the very essence of effective blog post creation.
 

• Research your targeted publications to ensure they’re a good fit for your story.

To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your blog must to be the result of a well-planned strategy aimed at a specific segment of the market.  Never try to appeal to  everybody – talk to the ones most likely to be reading what you have to say.

Breaking media etiquette rules may get your pitch deleted or ignored, Young points out.  As all good freelance blog content writers know, failing to engage online visitors upfront, including too many ideas in one blog post, and not knowing your audience’s needs will get you “bounced” in a big way!

Stopped at a light on my way to provide business blogging help to a Say It For You client, I had just enough time to read some rather arresting billboard content.  This health service provider’s “ad” was really a mission statement.  IU Health pledged:

• To be driven by excellence
   
• To handle any challenge
   
• To never slow down
   
• To always stay in front

That billboard, I realized, illustrates a truth that everyone doing business blog writing -  and everyone providing business blogging assistance, needs to keep in mind:  The way I state that truth is “Your brand ‘r you in your blog”.

What I mean is that blog content writing is about a whole lot more than what you do, what you know, and the stuff or services you sell. It’s really about who you are, and about what you pledge – to yourself, and to the clients and customers you serve.

In fact, as an important part of my process in clarifying the message that a business owner or professional practitioners wants to convey through blog content writing, I challenge each of them to answer the following question:

If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you’re passionate
about what you do, what would those words be?

Having seen that IU Health billboard, I realize there’s another way to provoke the sort of introspection that gives rise to compelling, highly personal blog content writing – a sort of fill-in-the-pledge exercise:

• By what are you driven?
   
• Why must you never slow down in your quest for excellence in what you do?
   
• Why, in your field, is it important to “stay in front”?

And, whether a business owner or practitioner is doing the blog writing or collaborating with a professional ghost blogger partner such as Say It For You, the blog is an embodiment of a brand – and of a mission!

An “ice page”, I learned, is a web page on which the primary content has a fixed width, usually set to the left side of the window. (More flexible settings are called “jello” or “liquid”.)

Interesting. Since I train blog content writers in Indianapolis, I immediately realized that “ice” in blog writing can be a time-saving device.  After all, the primary excuse business owners use to explain why their corporate blogs have fallen into a state of disrepair (or been outright abandoned) is lack of time.

While up until a few days ago I wasn’t familiar with the term “ice page”, I am familiar with the general concept.  In fact, when company owners or professional practitioners (or the professional ghost bloggers they’ve employed to help them) express doubts about their ability to keep generating new blog content over extended periods of time, I have been introducing them to an “ice” concept which I call the leitmotif.

Effective blog posts for any company, professional practice, or organization can be planned around key themes.  (Leitmotifs are the recurring musical phrases that connect the different movements of a symphony, for example.) Those themes, like “ice pages”, are fixed ideas that form the basis for blog posts.  But around those pieces of “ice”, blogging for business means filling in new details, examples, and illustrations (the “jello” and “liquid” elements that bring variety and freshness to individual posts).

That’s why, at Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, our discussions are not about ways to continually find brand-new ideas, but on building “e.g.’s” and i.e.’s around the business’ or the practice’s core themes.

A teacher for many years, I know that every lesson needs to be offered in a variety of formats, because students have different learning styles.  Blog writing services need to incorporate the same principle – the basic messages remain the same, but since online readers have different tastes and needs and learning styles, SEO marketing blogs must offer a variety of styles and material. 

With well-defined “ice” content as the core around which that “jello” is created, that otherwise formidable task becomes a whole lot easier for blog content writers!

“We use our inside voices at school,” I overheard one kindergarten teacher saying in a well-modulated tone, in sharp contrast to her students’ shouts.

Blogger Daniel Scocco (“Skellie”) offers similar advice in “10 Principles of Successful Business Blogging”: “When you take a business-related call with a client….do you use slang, swear, or are you otherwise impolite?” he asks, reminding us blog content writers to think of our writing as an extension of our professional “voice”.

Two more Skellie principles relate to bloggers in terms of use of company manners as well:

• Be personal (that helps establish you has someone clients can relate to)
   
• But don’t be too personal, he cautions, getting into family matters, relationships, stresses, etc.  In other words keep your tone positive, minding those “company manners”.

In Say It For You corporate blogging training sessions, I recommend just that sort of “high road” approach to business blog content writing. Yet, while Skellie tells bloggers to “keep politics, morality, and controversy out of your business blogging”, I encourage business owners and professional practitioners to use their business blog to reveal their core values and corporate culture.  That may mean coming down strongly on one side of an issue, to be sure. Fact is, people want to do business with real people who have real passion concerning their work. 

Think of the most highly skilled corporate blogging for business  as truth-telling with an “inside voice”!

Years ago, at a National Speakers Association meeting, I remember being taught to create a “one-sentence speech”. 

The idea was that anyone who’d been in the audience should come away being able to summarize in one line what I’d said; otherwise, my speech would not have been well-constructed.  Today, as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer in Indianapolis, I apply that same “one-sentence” rule to business blog writing.

A second step, useful in both speech preparation and blogging for business, is to apply the Rule of Three.  I first heard of the Rule of Three at Toastmasters, but came across it again today in a SpeakingResource blog post. With each blog post focused on one main idea, freelance blog writers would use three points to illustrate and to expand on that idea.

Daniel Janssen of Speaking Resources suggests one possible arrangement:
 
1. An anecdote
2. Some statistics or facts
3. A personal experience

Blog content writers for a professional practice, for example, might describe three benefits readers could derive by availing themselves of that practitioner’s services.

Or in blogging for a business that sells three different versions of a given product, each of the three paragraphs might describe which situation would be best matched with each version of the product, (A company that sells a hair product with different formulas for curly hair, frizzy, or fine hair, for example, might devote a paragraph to each type).

The same concept holds true for Sapeurs in the Congo, who “wear designer clothes and serve as ambassadors for moral conduct, proper etiquette and peace” and who have very strict fashion rules, including a dictate that the perfect ensemble may contain no more than three colors.
 

From fashion to speechifying to corporate blogging – stick to the One-Sentence Speech and the Rule of Three!

In real life, chances for real “do-overs” tend to be few and far between.  Hopefully, we learn enough from our most terrible mistakes to avoid repeating them – at least not repeating them in exactly the same way.

A recent issue of Mental Floss (a never-failing idea source for me as a professional ghost blogger) related the story of one of the biggest corporate bloopers of all time – VISA.

Before 1958, credit cards had to be paid in full each month.  As Bank of America prepared to launch the first-ever revolving-line credit cards, the company asked each of its Los Angeles bank branch managers to prepare a list of customers who should definitely NOT be issued revolving lines of credit.

Uh-oh…the BankAmericards were issued only to that very group of “no-no” customers! The result – in the first few months of the program, there was a 22% delinquency rate on the new cards, and BofA lost a whopping $20 million in its first year.  Meanwhile, a PR fiasco ensued, with clergy and the press criticizing the company for fostering an “immoral” credit-based economy.

As readers of this Say It For You blog already know, the story of revolving-credit cards continues with a spectacular turnaround, with Bank of America straightening out the problems and changing the name of the card to VISA.

So, what’s my point in calling attention to this business tale gone bad, then great, in discussing SEO marketing blogs? One very important function corporate blog posts can serve is damage control.

As a reader, I enjoyed learning the BofA snafu story because that failure has turned into such a success.  I teach freelance blog writers in Indianapolis to include stories of their clients’ past mistakes and failures. Such stories have a humanizing effect, engaging readers and creating feelings of empathy and admiration for the business owners or professional practitioners who overcame not only adversity, but the effects of their own mistakes!

What’s more, business blogging help can turn out to help with customer relations.  When customers’ complaints and concerns are recognized and dealt with “in front of other people” (in blog posts), it gives the “apology” or the “remediation measure” more weight. In fact, in corporate blogging training sessions, I remind Indianapolis blog writers to “hunt” for stories of struggle and mistakes made in the early years of a business or practice!

Remember the old alchemists who turned junk metal into gold?  When it comes to blogging for business, mistakes and struggles can be “golden” content for blog posts!

Long before corporate blog writing became the centerpiece for conveying a business’ message to potential customers, none other than poet Walt Whitman understood the importance of connectivity in SEO marketing blogs.

“To have great poets,” Whitman asserted, “there must be great audiences, too.”

As I consistently stress when offering business blogging assistance, blog are not only for reading, but for acting, reacting, and interacting. In other words, in the world of corporate blog writing, it’s not enough to be a “poet”.  You have to have readers.  “Your personal brand visibility is made up of your search engine ranking and how many eyeballs physically see your content each day,” explains Chad Levitt (quoted on P. 150 of Branding Yourself).

Great audiences, though, must bring more than just their eyeballs to our clients’ websites, as we Indianapolis freelance bloggers know, and being “influential” online means a whole lot more than being found.  Blogging for business has to mean business, which means “having the ability to push your followers and friends to action”, as Levitt explains, and that action needs to be in accordance with the business’ personal branding plan.

There’s more than one reason for using the blog writing process to build great readership:

Backlinks – The more links pointing back to a blog, the more importance search engines will attribute to that blog.  “Blogging is about community.  Don’t expect people to read your blog if you aren’t reading and commenting on theirs,” tweets @Justheather.  So right – leaving comments on other people’s blogs and writing about those other people will, sooner or later, Heather suggests, get them to write to and about you.

Richer content – The lesson I try hardest to impart in corporate blogging training sessions is: “The more you know, the more you can blog about”.  Business content writing in blogs is the result of a lots of reading and listening on the part of the blogger.

Decades ago, poet Walt Whitman knew that a key element in effective poetry writing was the cultivation of great audiences to enjoy that poetry.  The right kind of readers – (those with an interest in your topic who value your products and services and are willing to pay for them), are the “great blog audiences” every business owner and professional practitioner wants to attract!

“Not blogging?  You’re in the minority,” asserts Lisa Barone in smallbiztrends.com, with 65% of small business survey respondents in HubSpot’s annual “State of Inbound Marketing” study saying they are using corporate blog writing.

Well, at Say It For You, we are most certainly blogging! The fact that the very post you’re reading is #600 in the series brings to mind the S&P 600 stock index.  The S&P 600 covers only an approximate 3% of total U.S. stocks.  Powerful despite that small size? You bet.  As of February 24, the index was up 10.77% for 2012!

Small but powerful is, as a matter of fact, a perfect description for the tactic of using business blog writing to accomplish three goals all business owners have: building awareness, credibility, and trust.  As a corporate blogging trainer in Indianapolis, I call attention to business content writing in blogs as a natural centerpiece for most small business’ social media marketing.

What’s keeping the other 35% of small businesses from using blogs as a business-building tool?  The two biggest fears, I’ve found, are:

• “Giving away” information and know-how that might prompt potential users to become do-it-yourselfers instead.  In reality, informational blogs have the opposite effect, demonstrating to prospects how knowledgeable the business owner or professional practitioner is!
   
• Running out of content ideas. At #600, as you can see, this small business is still going strong; creative content generation is what I teach!  Collaborating with a freelance blog writer can be the answer to owners’ lack of time to devote to creative writing.

Only those who put money into the S&P 600 stocks saw their investment grow by that amazing 11% in two months.  Likewise, only those business owners and professional practitioners who put frequent, recent, and relevant content into the blogsphere on a consistent basis will be able to realize all the benefits blogging for business can bring.

“If they’re in your session, they’ve already drunk the Kool-Aid,” explained well-known humor speaker and coach Bill Stainton at our most recent National Speakers Association of Indiana meeting.  Stainton was offering a tip to conference “breakout session” speakers, but he might well have been coaching content writers in Indianapolis.

Conference attendees who choose to attend sessions titled “Better Employee Relations”, “Applying the New Federal Regs on Manufacturing”, or “Orange Growing in Your Own Back Yard”, for example, already have an interest in one of those topics. The point Stainton was emphasizing to us speakers is that in such a situation, long introductory remarks are superfluous;  the session leader needs to get to the heart of the matter straight away.

As a professional ghost blogger for business owners and professional practitioners, I realized that breakout sessions at a conference are an almost exact parallel with corporate blogs. If readers have arrived at your business blog, it’s because they already have an interest in your topic – they’ve already “drunk the Kool-Aid”, and are ready to receive the information, the services, and the products you have to offer. It’s now up to you to assure those visitors, through the words and pictures in your business blog content, that they’ve come to precisely the right place to get what they’re after.

In any talk, not only a breakout session but even a keynote address, Stainton explained, the first five minutes must be indicative of what the audience can expect. What will be the format and presentation style (humorous/ serious, questions welcomed/questions held to the end?) and “stance” (problem-solving/ informational/motivational?). The audience will go along with any number of different approaches, but they want to know “the deal”, meaning what they should expect.

When I’m offering corporate blogging training sessions to business owners and their employees, or talking to freelance blog writers, I’m telling them the same thing.  It’s just that a couple of seconds, not five minutes, describes the “window” of time blog content writers have to “get indicative” and capture readers’ attention.

Yes, online readers who arrive at your business blog may have already tasted the Kool-Aid and apparently are interested in more of it.  Your task is to keep them engaged with valuable, personal, and relevant information, beginning with the “downbeat”,(which is my term for the first sentence of each post).

Yes, those visitors are drinking Kool-Aid, and the only question remaining is – will they be drinking your brand?

Realtors quoted in the Indianapolis Star and New York Times reporter Matt Richtel each offer advice to consumers that I think all Indianapolis blog content writers should heed:

“Curb appeal,” report the realtors, “is critical to attracting the public.  If prospective buyers don’t love it from the curb, they won’t even schedule an appointment.”

In blogging for business, curb appeal starts with the title of your blog. Even if the search engines have delivered readers to your link (on page 1 of Google, for instance) the title must be appealing to readers, and, ideally, short enough to be shared on social media sites. In fact, having engaging titles in SEO marketing blogs is the equivalent of applying fresh paint and new handles to the front doors of a house you want to sell.

The New York Times article, on the other hand, is reporting on cars.  The increasingly complicated “infotainment” systems on the dashboards in cars distract drivers and cause accidents, federal traffic agencies are beginning to realize. .

For business owners, distractions are plentiful, and many a blog, begun with the best of intentions, ends up neglected or with the effort totally abandoned. With SEO marketing blogging on the rise, more and more business owners and professional practitioners are running out of time and hiring freelance blog content writers to take up the slack.

Those providing business blogging services, on the other hand, need to avoid distractions on the blog page itself.  Anything that takes readers’ attention “off the road”, away from the message and the Call to Action is distracting.  Overdoing the visuals with complex charts, graphs, and diagrams, even too much Flash technology on a blog page can divert attention away from the core message of the blog.

Focused blog content writing for any business or practice adds curb appeal and avoids distractions.  Remember, business owners want online visitors coming past the “curb” and into their website.  We writers want those readers keeping their eyes on the road to all the valuable information, products, and services business owners and practitioners are eager to provide!

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“All bloggers would like to get more interaction and participation from their readers and visitors,” says vandelaydesign.com.  (As a blog content writer and corporate blogger trainer in Indianapolis, I found nothing new in that observation.)

Imagine my delight, though, to learn that, aside from the obvious conclusion that engaging readers through our business blog writing helps increase the response to our Calls to Action, we freelance blog writers may be helping protect against dementia in seniors!

Getting social, according to a 15-year study of older people in Sweden, may prevent dementia by providing emotional and mental stimulation. Subjects in a University of Michigan study did better on tests of short-term memory after just ten minutes of conversation with another person.

What are some of the ways Indianapolis blog writers can encourage more interactivity through our corporate blog writing?

Vandelaydesign.com advises displaying the most recent comments in the sidebar of your blog. In corporate blogging training sessions, I go one better by advising blog content writers to periodically compose an entire blog post around a question posed by a reader.

Two other Vandelaydesign suggestions include putting a link on your blogsite that says “email to a friend” and adding a “share on Facebook” link.

Two tactics I often incorporate into my Say It For You blog writing services include using “tests” and surveys to engage readers and help them feel they are part of a conversation with my business owner clients.

Engaging in conversation can provide mental stimulation for people of all ages. It’s nice to know, though, that memorable business blogs can help improve customers’ memory!

“When journalists write pieces, they write so a person can look at the headline and say ‘Wow, that looks interesting.’ When somebody reads a retirement document, you want them to say, ‘Wow, I learned something today.’” 

Employee benefit advisers say their biggest challenge is overcoming the apathy that many employees have toward saving for their retirement, and that the secret is in the way the message gets presented.

In “Using Blogs to Educate your Stakeholders,” Kat Liendgens says that same thing applies to corporate blogging for business. When you make sure, in your business blog, to educate your users not only about new features and products, but about the benefits of those products and features, she explains, you’re ensuring continued buy-in.

“Wow-that-looks-interesting” headlines that stoke curiosity constitute tactic #1 in freelance blog writers’ anti-apathy strategy.  “Gappers”, according to advertising maven Michel Fortin, are headlines that make readers want to close the gap between the problem named in the headline and the solution. (I’ve used a variety of that tactic in this Say It For You post by posing a question.)

When it comes to creating “wow-I-learned-something-today” content, as a corporate blogging trainer, my mantra is a simple one:

“The more you know about, the more you can blog about.”

 In other words, in order for us freelance blog content writers in Indianapolis to deliver high-quality website materials, articles, and corporate blogs, we simply must keep educating ourselves, reading everything from newspapers and magazines to billboards and advertisements, and listening to everything from TV and radio shows to casual conversations.

Blogging for business, I repeat, is a matter of enriching ourselves so that our content can be richer.  Anyone providing business blogging services should be able to state “Wow! I learned something today!” - every day!
 

“Do you have to be told never to re-gift promotional items?” asks regiftable.com.

Apparently one Chinese exchange student did need to be told. The student had given his American host, N.Y.Times columnist David Brooks, a gold tie as a thank-you gift.  The tie was one that had been handed out by Gov. Mitch Daniels during a trade mission to China, and the tie’s label proudly proclaimed that fact!

It’s not that re-gifting itself is a no-no, explains regiftable.com.  In fact, the practice is gaining in popularity. But, just as with corporate blogging for business, there are certain rules of the road that all re-gifters would do well to observe. As a corporate blogging trainer. I can see parallels between re-gifting and the practice of content curation in business blogging.

Regiftable.com advises asking “Is this going to work?”, re-gifting items only to people who are not likely to see the original giver.

When it comes to blog content writers in Indianapolis, I teach exactly the opposite approach.  When you link to someone else’s comments about the subject you’re covering, that reinforces your point and shows you’re in touch with others in your field.  But you must identify and link to the source you’re quoting, so that all the readers of your blog content DO “see” the original giver!

Regiftable.com cautions re-gifters to “always spring for a new card or gift tag”.

At Say It For You, we couldn’t agree more. Merely quoting others in your SEO marketing blog adds value in the sense of aggregating resources for the benefit of your readers. Still, that’s hardly enough; business blogging service providers need to add their own “spin” to the material based on their own business wisdom and expertise.

“Never feel guilty once you’ve done it,” advises regiftable.com.

Guilty?  Of course not!  By curating or “re-gifting” content, properly attributing that content to its source, then adding our own thoughtful commentary, we professional business bloggers demonstrate our own confidence. We have something special to offer within a very competitive business environment!
 

My Say It For You business blog writing advice pieces this week were all triggered by items in the latest copy of Scientific American Mind magazine.  One corner of one page features only a headline, which was taken from a CNNHealth story:

“Insomnia costs U.S. $63 billion annually in lost productivity”
 

Citing startling statistics like this one is, without doubt, one tactic blog content writers can use to capture readers’ attention.  But my experience as a ghost blogger for business – and as a corporate blogging trainer – has shown me that statistics, even the startling sort, aren’t enough to create positive results for any SEO marketing blog.

Why not?  The fact that a serious problem exists (even if the searcher suffers from that very problem) is not enough to make most readers take action. And in the final analysis, of course, the success of any blog marketing effort depends on that action. As Health.com puts it, “People who have trouble sleeping rarely see their problem as an illness that requires treatment.”

True, as I stress in corporate blogging training sessions, blog content writing has one enormous advantage over traditional “push marketing” tactics. What blogging does best is deliver to corporate blog sites customers who are already interested in the product or service they’re providing!

While it may not in itself galvanize customers into action, including “startling statistics” in corporate blog writing can serve several functions:
 

• Assuring readers they are hardly “alone” in their need for solutions to their medical, financial, or personal challenges
   
• Assuring readers they’ve come to the right place for help, and that this blog content is being offered by a business or professional practice that knows the field and is “up” on recent developments in it.

Once that basic connection has been established through the attention-commanding statistic, the blog content writing can focus on creating the emotional connection with the reader.  At Say It For You, in fact, we believe that more intense connection is what blog writing services should be all about!

 “Boosting voter turnout could be as simple as making individuals see voting as part of who they are rather than as something they do,” writes Janelle Weaver in Scientific American Mind.

 

As a corporate blog marketing trainer, I was very interested to learn that this statement came as a result of a 2008 survey. Of registered voters asked the question, “How important is it to you to vote?" there was an actual 82% turnout at the polls.  Of those asked “How important is it to you to be a voter?” by contrast, there was a 96% turnout.

We freelance blog writers in Indianapolis need to pay attention to the conclusion published by Christopher Bryan of Stanford University about that 96%:

“We offered people the prospect of claiming a desirable
 identity,” he said. “That’s a very powerful thing.”

In offering business blogging assistance to business owners over the past five years, I’ve had many express hesitancy about being too “sales-y” or about appearing too self-serving in their SEO marketing blog. At the same time, of course, business owners require a return on their marketing investment dollars..

The sweet spot may lie in the creation of just the kind of “desirable identity” for customers to which researcher Bryan was alluding. First, I tell business owners, the blog content writing effort should aim to offer readers a feeling of what it would be like to have you working alongside them to help with their challenges and issues.

Even more important, though, is leading potential customers and clients to view themselves as part of the bigger picture your company is working to create – better health, more convenience, greater safety, financial security, or increased energy savings.

Writing for business should help you, as my friend and fellow marketing blogwriter Tony Fannin likes to say, “BE somebody to your clients!”
 

 If you’re not sure, in doing corporate blogging for business, which content is best placed at the beginning of your blog post, you might consult researchers in Israel.

In the course of a study of Israeli rulings on convicts’ parole requests, scientists discovered there were more parole approvals at the beginning of a session than at later points in the day.  They attributed the difference to the breakfast or snack the judge ate just before starting!

From my vantage point as a professional ghost blogger and corporate blogging trainer, my conclusion about these research results is simple: We blog content writers need to pay attention to them.

The author of the Scientific American Mind article explains: “Judges often organize their cases according to the time they are likely to require. Shorter cases are often dealt with first, to allow busy prosecutors and defense attorneys… to leave court and get on with the rest of their day.”

In offering business blogging help, I’d offer the same sort of advice, and for the same reason.  Online searchers want to “get on with the rest of their day”. When it comes to SEO marketing blogs, business owners and those doing corporate blog writing for them must heed Peter Guber’s advice: “Capture your audience’s attention first, fast, and foremost.”

While those providing business blogging services need to create valuable content throughout each post, it’s important to place key information, including Calls to Action, in the opening paragraph. It appears that “right after breakfast” (meaning right after the blog’s opening lines) might be the best time for customers to make your cash register ring!

In their new book Branding Yourself, fellow Indianapolis bloggers Erik Deckers and Kyle Lacy observe that the starting point of a personal brand campaign is the “positioning and transaction statement”. This statement, they explain, is basically a tagline, a catchy or memorable phrase or sentence that expresses the uniqueness of your brand.

In corporate blogging training sessions, I like to talk about leitmotifs or recurring core themes to which blog content writers can refer again and again.  The five-question exercise that Decker and Lacy suggest for setting up the P&T (positioning & transaction) statement can be perfect for pinpointing such central themes for any SEO marketing blog:

   Positioning:
   Who is your competition?
   How are you different (3 reasons per competitor)?
   How are you similar (3 reasons per competitor)?
  
   Transaction:
   What does the transaction look like?
   What is the end goal?

Just such a thought process leads to what I’ve nicknamed “the training benefit” business owners can derive from corporate blog marketing. (This holds true, I’ve found, whether owners do their own blogging or collaborate with a professional ghost blogger.)  The very exercise of answering the questions and thinking about your own business practices helps train you to articulate those things to clients and customers.

While the Branding Yourself authors are guiding business owners towards a one-phrase or one-sentence statement, the very same five questions they pose can be of business blogging help. In fact, the big advantage business blog writing has over ads, billboards, brochures, and even static website content is that blogs are, by definition, a work in progress.  Using blogs, the corporate mantra or professional practitioner’s message can continually be honed.

Blog posts, as we see them at Say it For You, are continuous-run positioning and transaction statements!

“People are more important than ever before,” remarks fellow blog content writer Michel Fortin. That’s because, he explains, “The internet is cold and impersonal.”

What Fortin calls “taking the human element out of the sales process” is actually the polar opposite of what freelance blog writers aim to accomplish, and getting personal is a huge element in the success of any SEO marketing blog.

Practical eCommerce’s Paul Chaney agrees. “Blogging,” he says, “consists of one person – or one company – communicating directly with consumers in an unfettered, unfiltered manner….blogs are a more personal form of communication.”

As a corporate blogging trainer, I liked the specific blog Chaney pointed to as a great example of getting personal: “How Differences With Your Spouse Can Make Your Marriage Stronger”, written by publishing company CEO Thomas Hyatt. “It’s that type of transparent self-disclosure that has made Hyatt both a popular blogger and a respected leader," Chaney observes.

If people are to be more important than ever before, that means Indianapolis blog content writers must focus on personal anecdotes and on the personal values of the business owners and the people delivering professional services.
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“Be intimate.  Be ego-driven.  Above all, be emotional.” Is Fortin’s advice to online marketers. SEO marketing blogs may be writing about business, but it had better be about people as well, and that includes both online searchers and online blog content writers, both buyers and sellers. The message: You’ve gotta get down and personal!

“We are what we write,” professional speaker and handwriting expert Theresa Ortega shared with me almost three years ago, explaining that “all writing is brain writing”. I learned, to my amazement, that amputees who hold a pen their mouths or even between their toes form their letters precisely the same way they used to before their accident!

Of course as an Indianapolis blog content writer and corporate blogging trainer, I use the word “writing” in a context broader than just penmanship.  Still, as Ortega and I concluded about personal branding by business owners as expressed through business blog writing, we are also what we blog.

Just this month, as I shared with my Say It For You freelance blog writers, Theresa Ortega was featured in the Indiana State University Magazine. As part of a study, the school’s recreational sports department compared Ortega’s analysis of the writing by newly hired staff members to results of those same staff members’ assessment tests.

Ortega found one handwriting sample that set off alarm bells, and she enlisted the help an FBI friend, who confirmed her suspicions that the individual’s writing revealed traits found in serial killers. The university was alerted, so that the person’s behavior could be closely monitored.

To a certain degree, all of abusiness’ marketing materials reveal the owners’ attitudes and beliefs.  But as I’ve continued, over the years, to offer business blogging help to corporate owners and professional practitioners, it’s become apparent to me that blogs are most “telltale” of all forms of marketing. That’s partly because of blogs’ conversational, personal tone, and also because business blog content writing continues over weeks, months, and even years.

It doesn't matter whether you’re doing all the writing yourself or collaborating with a professional ghost blogger like me. As the story unfolds, blog post after blog post, about what you sell, what you do, and what you know, the clearer it becomes  to readers who you ARE!

Zits isn’t the only comic strip with lessons to teach Indianapolis blog content writers. Three years ago, I coined a tongue-in-cheek phrase, “accidental organic blog donors” to describe the way organic search sometimes rewards us for the wrong reasons.

In offering business blogging assistance to different companies and organizations, I sometimes need to remind owners that online search is not the most precise of processes.  Every once in a while, there’s a “disconnect” between what a searcher wants and what he or she actually finds.  And, every once in a while, that “mistaken” visit to your SEO marketing blog can result in converting a searcher-gone-astray into an actual buyer.

I was reminded of this not-really-so-rare and sometimes fortuitous source of business blogging help the other day by the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm.
 

- “What are you reading, Ralph?
- “Learning how to care for the newt.  This manual says that newt hates onions.”
- “No, Ralph, the book says ‘unions’.  Newt (Gingrich) hates unions.”

On the surface, as I point out to business owners and Say It For You freelance blog writers, this is nothing more than a laughable situation: Ralph was searching for information about pets and instead reaches a political “site”.

But, who knows?  Isn’t it possible that the political blog will divert Ralph’s attention to the campaign? And, isn’t it possible that a dad trying to help his kid with a homework assignment on Hawaii happens upon a travel agent’s website about vacations in Hawaii and bookmarks that site to use in planning a vacation?

I think the lesson to be gained from Mother Goose and Grimm is that accidental matchings will happen.  And, at least occasionally, you’ll have reason to be thankful to the search engines for the mistaken identity!!