"Branding" - we hear a lot of this popular marketing term, don't we?  Business owners put a whole lot of their time and money into creating a brand name, complete with a logo and other graphics, sometimes adding a motto or slogan.  As a professional ghost blogger, I'm considered part of a company's marketing team, and so I'm always looking for ways to help reinforce each business client's brand.

The other day, though, in Speaker magazine, I read an article about branding that put things into a whole new perspective.  The writer was telling professional speakers that a brand is really much more than a name and graphics.  The brand, she was saying, is the business owner (the professional speaker, in this case).  A brand, she added, is not something you create; it's something you discover! You live your brand by discovering your core values and skills, was the main idea of the article.

The thought occurred to me that, if building a brand for a speaker is done through the process of thinking through the message in each speech, the same process is true for a business owner who's blogging.  It's the old idea of not really knowing a subject well until you've gone through the process of teaching it to someone else. In Use Blogs To Capture Concepts, I explained how I work with business owners to arrive at the right tone and the right emphasis for the blogs I'm going to ghostwrite.  I start by challenging the owner of the business or professional practice with the following question: "If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know, and what you do, what would those words be?"

In other words, whether the business owner him or herself is doing the writing, or whether they're collaborating with a professional ghost blogger partner like me, the very process of deciding what to put in the blog is one of self-discovery.  A business blog, then, doesn't just keep repeating and emphasizing a brand; the creating of each blog post is part of the process of inventing and reinventing the business brand.  The Speaker Magazine article was "spot on" - your brand 'R You in your blog.

As a professional ghost blogger, I've taken my "one giant step" into the digital world.  But entering my fourth decade as a denizen of the business world, I find face-to-face encounters are still my favorite flavor. The other day I had a delightful personal encounter with none other than the encounter empress herself, Susan RoAne.  Here from California to speak at the annual gala of the Network of Women in Business, RoAne was offering tips on memorable mingling and networking.  (In fact, her newest book, Face to Face: How To Reclaim The Personal Touch in a Digital World, comes out this week, and I'll be in line purchasing my copy.) 

Specializing in writing to market my clients' businesses online, I may have been the only audience member to find so many parallels between blogging and RoAne's hints about what she calls "memorable mingling".  The process of mingling starts, she explained, by us getting over encounter reluctance. Shyness keeps many of us, at a party or business meeting, from approaching a "stranger", making eye contact, and starting a conversation.  To shift our thinking, Susan had us picture a barn dance.  Just by virtue of having come to that barn in the first place, each person who was there obviously had some interest in dancing (or watching, or playing music for the dance) - there really were no "strangers". As Susan put it - "The roof is your introduction!"

In Won't You Please Come Into My Blog?, I likened the Internet to a big trade show.  Potential customers are milling around, looking for information or for a product or service.  They are at the trade show for a reason - they're under the "roof", and so, as Susan reminds us, they're not "strangers" at all!  The very fact that searchers browsing on the Web have arrived at your blog "booth" means the encounter has already begun.  All you need to do is make eye contact and welcome them to your website.

In memorable mingling, sometimes you make the first move; other times someone approaches you.  With business blogging, you've made the first move and begun the process, literally "putting yourself out there". The way the search engine process works, if you blog frequently, posting relevant, interesting content, and build "equity" by continuing the blogging, you'll re be positioned to "win search", with others coming up to you.  It's simple - The blog "roof" is all the introduction you'll need!

Amazing, how you can find great business advice in the most unlikely places!  As part of my reading to keep my Certified Financial Planner™ credentials current, I subscribe to all manner of journals about insurance, investments, and employee benefits. In the August 2008 issue of Employee Benefit Advisor, there was an article discussing avatars.  (This is so interesting!) Avatars are computer-generated characters, and these avatars are being integrated into employers' communication with their employees about their benefit plans.  Avatars become virtual staff members, helping employees enroll in health benefit programs and answering employees' questions about their benefits. 

Here's the part that is so relevant to my work as a professional ghost blogger: A study  conducted at Stanford University found that employees' interaction with these avatars (remember, these are basically cartoon people!) was sufficiently human-like that people responded online in ways that mirror social interactions in real life.  The conclusion was that the perceived "realness" of these human interactions may lead avatars to succeed where other self-service efforts have failed.  One of the authors of the Stanford study wrote, "People naturally seek out other people rather than a manual or other resource."

In Creating Buzz With Blogs, veteran business technology consultant Ted Demopoulos explains, "Blogs create buzz because people will feel like they know you, and people like to do business with people they know."  Remember the avatars? They succeed because they're like people.  As I remarked in Business Blogs - Still Way Closer To An Actual Human, blogs represent people, people talking to people. Maybe Barbra Streisand was apparently onto something when she sang about people who love people being the luckiest people in the world…Blogging's the business manifestation of that.

                                                                                                                                                                    

On my way to an appointment with one of my ghost blogging clients the other day, I heard a neat word tidbit on the radio. As a professional writer, I get special pleasure out of phrases that, in a very few words, make a big impact or that clarify a complicated concept (see my earlier blog From Meat To Mustard).

This tidbit I was hearing on the radio was actually part of a commercial for, of all things, GM cars. The speaker was painting a scene, reminding us how, in years past, you'd go into a store to buy, say, a fine cigar or perhaps a fur coat. The proprietor, in order to make you feel you were a special customer whose business he prized, would have you wait a moment while he went to the back to get his very best merchandise.  That's where the best stuff used to be kept, the announcer reminisced - the best was always in the back!

I don't know about you - for all I know, you may be too young to remember small stores with "proprietors" who helped customers, trying to make each one feel he was getting a very special deal. Anyway, I am old enough, and that word picture really took me back in time to an era of small shops manned by their hardworking owners.

But, since I was on my way to a meeting to talk about a very modern form of marketing, namely blogging, I couldn't help myself from drawing a parallel between the front and back of the cigar store described by the radio announcer and a business blog in relation to the business'  website.  In Enuf Is Enuf In Blogs, I explained that blog audiences are scanners, not readers.  A blog should offer just enough information to entice the searcher to visit your website to find out more about your products or services.  A blog needs to capture interest, yes, so that Internet browsers feel they've come to the right spot to get what they need, but remember -  keep your best stuff in the back!

A writer myself, I'm always interested in the doings of other writers, and I love reading pieces about the writing process itself. Since the success of business blogging is so very dependent on the sheer discipline of continually posting new content, I was especially interested in some advice for writers I found in The Autobiographer's Handbook. Author Anthony Swofford tells writers:  "Wake up.  Drink coffee. Write.  Ignore phone, ignore email, ignore world. Write." Then he adds (I imagine with a rueful smile born of personal experience) the part I think is so absolutely apropos for business blogging: "Ignore everything, just don't ignore your lovers for too long.  They might not stick around."

Writing allows you to create a message and communicate it.  Writing blogs allows your message to literally reach to the ends of the Internet world.  The challenge lies in "getting found".  Very, very few searchers online will click through to Page 15 or 23 on Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engine, so the first goal of business blogging is to win rankings and get your blog as close to the top of Page 1 as possible.  One key factor in getting to those coveted top spots (and staying there) is frequency.  Composing blogs isn't like working on your autobiography.  Swofford advises writers working on their book, "Ignore the world.  It'll all be there when you are done".  Well, with blogging, while it's not as much work as composing an autobiography, you're not "done"; to keep on top, you need to keep on writing! 

Ghost blogging, as I brought out in The Don't-Do-It-Yourself-Trend Hits Clothing And Blogging, is part of a broader trend on the part of business owners to focus their own time on making and selling products or on doing consulting with their clients.  Of necessity, the business owner delegates marketing functions, especially writing, to hired professionals. The reality is exactly as Swofford advises, except substitute "customers" for "lovers". He says, "If you ignore them too long, they may not stick around". Business blogging is all about attracting new customers and clients.  Ghost bloggers make it possible to do that without neglecting service to existing customers. As a professional ghost blogger, I have the satisfaction of helping my business owner clients "have their cake and eat it too"!

In the Indianapolis Business Journal a couple of weeks ago, a small item caught my eye, "Vaunted Program Hits Turbulence". Apparently Ball State University's entrepreneurship program hadn't made the list in the U.S. News & World Report 2007 rankings of graduate programs in business, while its undergraduate program was taken down a couple of ranking notches.  Meanwhile, Indiana University's entrepreneurship undergrad program shot up to second place in the rankings, and its graduate program up to sixth.

Rod Davis, interim dean of Ball State's Miller College of Business, had this to say about his school's slide in U.S. News & World Report:  "Rankings in themselves are an inexact science."  This might sound to you like a "sour grapes" sort of reaction, but I must say that remark rings all too true with me, based on my experience with a different kind of ranking.

Blogging on the Internet is all about moving up in the rankings. As a professional ghost blogger, what I'm hired to help my clients do is "win" search engine rankings.  That means that when someone is online searching for information about a topic or a product related to your business, you want your blog to be on Page One of Google, Yahoo, or MSN.  Each search engine has its own "algorithms" for judging the merits of blogs and hence how that blog is ranked.

We do know certain things about search engine rankings.  For example, we know there are four general keys to success: posting often, continuing to post, building up "equity" through cumulative posting, and providing original, relevant content. But no one knows of an exact formula that, on any given day, is guaranteed to "win search". As Rod Davis  so aptly (and ruefully) pointed out, "Rankings in themselves are an inexact science."

 

In Financial Planning Magazine, Stephanie Bogan talks to financial planners who are thinking ahead towards retirement and trying to recruit younger planners who can be trained to take over their practices.  Bogan explains that, in any business, there are four distinct roles that must be filled in order for the business to succeed.  It's very rare, she points out, to find any one person who is comfortable and skilled in all four of the following roles:

     Finders develop new business - they're the rainmakers.
     Binders have the presentation skills to consummate the relationship with the new client.
     Minders are relationship managers, and they provide client service.
     Grinders provide the office and administrative services that free up the professional's time.
The point of the article is that these roles require different strengths, and not every recruit is going to be strong in all the areas.  Of Minders and Grinders, for example, Bogan remarks bluntly: "You can try to force them to become rainmakers, but it'll be a bit like trying to teach a pig French - it won't work and it will frustrate the pig."

As a professional ghost blogger working with business owners, I can appreciate the truth in Bogan's insights.  Most entrepreneurs are aware that blogging is fast becoming an indispensable part of any business tool kit. The only problem is that their efforts are devoted to being Finders and Binders (in fact, out of necessity some need to be the Minders and Grinders as well!), with no time left to compose blogs.  In The Bottom Line For Email Is Blogging, I explained that since so many professionals and business owners lack the time and inclination (and sometimes, as my clients readily admit, the talent) to write, that's where a ghost blogger enters the picture - rather, behind the picture!  

 

So you're now a "regular", frequently posting content on your blog.  People searching the Web are starting to find you, because what they're looking for relates to something you know about, something you sell, or a service you provide.  You've got yourself potential customers who are reading about your business or professional practice.  Now it's crunch time - are those readers going to "bounce" away from your blog and keep looking?  It all depends on whether your blog engages their interest.

I just read a wonderful article.  The article wasn't intended for business bloggers, but it provides a great tip for bloggers who want to hold their readers' interest and keep those browsers clicking through to their business' websites to learn more. In the September issue of FPA Practice Management, I found a wonderful article that precisely pertains to my work as professional ghost blogger. (I'm a retired financial planner, you'll recall; in order to keep up my knowledge in that field, I read professional journals and marketing materials about money matters.)  The article's called "You Can Stand Out In A Crowded Market", and it offers wonderful advice for financial planners who want to gain both community recognition and new clients. I think this is great advice for all business bloggers!.  Here's what the article says:

The average investor hears the same messages from every practitioner.  "We provide good client service." "We have a planning process."  "We care about you." All of these are important statements to make, but how are they different?  "The missed step here is thinking hard about what you do differently and then amplifying that in every way possible."  The writer recommends several steps:

a. List the things that you believe make your services different from what everyone else is offering.
b. Methodically work through the list, asking yourself, "So what?"
c. Be tough on yourself in order to get to the real answers to the "So what?" question.
d. Keep only those items that meet the test. 

As I brought out in Pack Light For Air Travel And For Blogs, you need to pack each of your blogs with just enough material to show searchers they're on track to find what they need.  But before including anything in a blog, put it through the "So what?" test.

On the radio talk show "Abdul In The Morning", a caller was railing about political lobbyists, saying the usual things about how big money interests unduly influence lawmakers.  A lively discussion ensured.  I thought Abdul's response related to the world of business blogging: "Lobbyists are professionals", Abdul stated, going on to point out that, just as you would take your car to a mechanic or visit a physician, each of whom has expertise that can be beneficial to you, a lobbyist can provide a useful function.

A lobbyist knows how government works, knows when the time is opportune to visit a legislator, and what approach might be most in tune with each legislator's areas of focus.  And here's what Abdul brought out that I think is so apropos to my work as a professional ghost blogger: "At the end of the day, lobbyists and legislators have the same number of votes as you and I do - ONE!"  Blogging, like lobbying, is simply a tool - a very effective tool -  in getting a message to a target audience.

As I said in my earlier blog, For Songs Or Blogs, Success Proves The Best Silencer Of Critics, business blogging works to drive traffic to websites.  Many business owners would like to get on board with this marketing tool, but simply lack the time to generate the "recency and frequency" that can bring the desired results.  That's where a professional ghost blogger becomes a "lobbyist", bringing experience and expertise to the task of creating the "trade show booth" online.

At the end of the day, each potential customer browsing the web for information about something you sell, something you do, or something you know a lot about, will have one vote (to click to your website or to go on browsing).  Those potential customers find you because of your blog, and can "elect" to move further.  From there, those customers will vote - with their dollars!

The Marketplace is filling up. In "The Commercial Real Estate Quarterly" of the Indianapolis Business Journal, Tom Dickey, Vice President of Duke Realty, explained why.  The housing slump has hurt retail shopping strip centers, and Duke's projects have felt the pinch along with all the other developers.  But, says Dickey, "We're getting retailers to commit and come to our projects even in this down economy, when their numbers might not work out."  And then he went on to explain why:  "They want to save their spot."

Although I'm certainly no expert in the field of real estate, as a professional ghost blogger I really understood the tie-in between Dickey's observation about the retailers and how search engine indexing works for my blogging clients.  Different businesses may each provide content on the Web through blogging.  Those that post blogs more frequently rank higher on Google or other search engines than those businesses that post only occasionally.  Recent blogs rank higher than old content.  But what's so important to understand is that the system values cumulative content.  A business that has blogged for a year will rank higher than a competitor who's just begun to blog.

So, to continue my real estate analogy, blogging has an element to it of building "equity" in a property, saving a spot.  Remember that the whole idea behind business blogging is to move your business' name higher in the rankings on search engines (when someone is online searching for information or product related to your business, you want your name to come up on Page One of the search engine.)

In blogging, recency counts.  Frequency counts.  But now, cumulative blogging - that's what saves your spot!

No, Mensa isn't all about arcane trivia and solving puzzles, as I keep explaining to the high IQ-phobic among my friends.  Mensa can be about - business! In fact, I found a wonderful article on the future of advertising in the August Mensa Bulletin, with commentary that's tailor-made for my efforts in professional ghost blogging as a form of business marketing.

Mensan Richard Yonck cites research showing the average American is bombarded with 3,000 ads every day, which amounts to three ads every single minute.  Yonck explains this number includes all the print ads we view in newspapers and magazines, all the commercials we see on TV or hear on the radio, all the products slipped into prime time dramas and movies, all the billboards and signs, all the logos we see, plus all the ads on web pages.  Obviously, advertising works.  Otherwise, I surmise, corporations wouldn't be spending all those gazillions of dollars on it.

Blogging, along with advertising, is a way of marketing a business.  But, as I brought out in an earlier blog, Blogs and Billboards Strike Only When The Iron Is Hot, blogs sort of reverse the process.  All those 3,000 ads per day are coming out from the advertiser "towards" the customer.  With blogging, a customer is already there online, searching for an answer, a solution, a product, or a service.  If (and only if) what that customer wants relates to something you know about, something you know how to do, or something you sell, and if (and only if) your business has consistently put blogs out there with relevant, recent, and frequent content out there on the web, that customer comes towards you!

In the Mensa Bulletin article, Yonck predicts the future of advertising will be built around information technology, biotechnology, robotics, enabling marketers to tailor make ads for each customer based on our individual preferences.  Meanwhile, blogs are "winning search", bringing buyers and businesses together.

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I always enjoy the omelets at Café Patachou, but a week ago, someone interviewing Patachou owner Martha Hoover served me something even tastier - a wonderful word tidbit about business.  Hoover was discussing what being an entrepreneur means to her:  "We do more than serve breakfast and lunch - we provide jobs and a lifestyle for our employees."  The interviewer, Shawn O'Donaghue of the Central Indiana Women's Business Center, then came up with this wonderful summary:

"Successful business owners understand that the product or service they are selling is the answer to someone's problem."

Wow! That one sentence is so-o-o made-to-order for business blogging and s-o-o apropos to my work as a professional ghost blogger for business.  Here's why I say that:  People are online searching for answers to their problems.  They might need answers to questions they have or solutions for dilemmas they're facing.  Or, they might need a particular kind of service and aren't sure who offers that.  Or maybe they need a product to fill a need they have.  That's when, if you've been consistently blogging, they find you, because your blog post gives them just the information they're looking for. (Remember, they wouldn't be there searching if they didn't need something!) Don't think of it as business blogging; think of it as providing solutions to someone's problem.

So, Martha Hoover, keep serving up those fabulous Patachou omelets. Shawn Donaghue, keep serving up those valuable business tips and word tidbits!  I'll relish them both.

Small business is big stuff around Indiana.  From the Indianapolis Star the other day, I learned that 98% of Indiana employers qualify as "small" by the U.S. Small Business Administration standard of 500 employees or less.  In my work as a professional ghost blogger, I'm dealing mostly with clients at the small end of "small", those with 30 employees down to one-man or one-woman shows. 

One reality of owning a small business is the need to "shout loudly" to get found, and the need to do that on a limited marketing budget.  The "Business Profiles" section of IndyStar a couple of weeks ago urged us to patronize small businesses, saying "You'll get personalized service and quality products while boosting your local economy." Still, many challenges persist for small businesses in this age of stay-home-and-click-to-find-anything.

Those challenges, in essence, are what makes my work as a ghost blogger for business so satisfying.  I actually get to help level the playing field a little, giving my small business owners a chance to compete with bigger guys, "win search", get found, and bring in new customers and clients.  Through providing recent, relevant, and constantly changing content on the Web (and, with my help, doing it frequently), those "little ones" get a chance to be big, not only in the aggregate as part of that 98% of Hoosier businesses, but individually!  At the very least, these small businesses can be bigger than one might imagine based on size alone.  In the blogosphere, you see, small can be beautiful.

Remember the study about motorists noticing billboard ads only when they’re already in the market for that kind of product or service? (See Blogs And Billboards Strike Only When The Iron Is Hot).  Well, stuck in traffic the other day, I found myself being an exception to that rule, and, at the same time, proof of how true it is.  I noticed this billboard for the first time after having passed it every day or so for months.  It was an ad for a home building company that was on the billboard, and it contained only four words: “Crafted, Not Cranked Out”.  Living proof of the rule – I’d never noticed the sign before because I’m not in the market for a new home.  On the other hand, as a professional ghost blogger, I’m always interested in great word tidbits, and this billboard sure qualified.

We’re all used to alliteration in slogans, meaning repeated sounds.  This one used a “C” in “crafted” and “cranked”.  But what makes for a great word tidbit is capturing, in just a couple of words, a number of ideas and then delivering those in an impactful way. These homes, I instantly understood, were carefully and lovingly devised by skilled artisans to be different and unique, in contrast to the “other guys'’” homes that were just cranked out cookie-cutter style. (Remember, I’m getting all this from just four little words!)

I reflected that business blogs and word tidbits are a match made in marketing heaven.  Unlike brochures, client newsletters, “e-zines” (online magazines) and websites, blogs are short and concise, just whetting customers’ appetite. Blogs are more casual and conversational than other marketing pieces.  Don’t get me wrong - good blogs are devised with care (poor grammar and spelling or incorrect information would give readers a bad impression of the business), but they strike a happy medium. In fact, the best blogs aren’t either crafted or cranked out, just comfortably in between!.

 

The “Whale Hunting Women” newsletter outlines a process for women to use when planning big changes in their lives. The first three steps are: Imagine, Investigate, and Invent.  As a professional blogger, I’ve observed different business owners planning to add blogging to their business marketing plan, yet they have no idea what blogging is all about.

In theory, blogging is the most easily-launched marketing tool that a business can use.  Unlike labor-intensive direct mail campaigns or expensive new brochures, ads, and signs, blogs can be started in a few minutes, and, even more appealing, launched without any financial commitment up front.  Before starting the process, the entrepreneur imagines: he/she can just picture them coming - hosts of internet browsers, all looking for information about the very kind of products and services his or her business offers. The owner does some “investigation.”  He/she reads about blogging, perhaps attends a webinar or seminar, and asks friends who own businesses or professional practices about their experiences with business blogging.  On to Step #3: Invent. The owner jots down ideas for the blog, and even writes the very first blog post.  There are so many great ideas to share with all the people who will be clicking on the blog! So far, so great.

But…this is precisely the point at which many business blogging efforts go astray, with lofty dreams and plans ending up in the ditch. The fourth “I” step is Implement.  Even knowing that winning the search and driving business to the website involves frequency of posting blogs, the majority of small business owners, even with the help of their staff and employees, simply cannot spare the time or maintain the discipline of composing and posting blogs frequently enough to make a difference in their marketing results.  As Barbara Weaver Smith, founder of Whale Hunting Women stresses about implementing the plan, “The important part here is to keep moving.”  Business owners who fully understand the difficulty in keeping up “frequency and recency” in business blogging are the ones who hire ghost bloggers.  As a professional ghost blogger, I am there for the fourth “I” – in other words, to implement.

Whether the blogs are written by the business owner or by his or her ghost blogger, the fifth “I’ is the key to the real success of blogging - Integrate.  As Weaver-Smith advises, “Continue to implement your plan until it becomes totally part of your new way of life and work.”  In the case of blogging, even if professional ghost blogging helps my client’s company or professional practice “win the search”, so that the blog’s consistently appearing in a coveted Page One spot on Google, Yahoo, or MSN, there’s work to be done back at the business in order to integrate. That means tracking how many new potential customers “showed up” at the website (or in person at the place of business) just because of the blog.  That means learning exactly who those customers are and whether they fall into the demographic that business is trying to attract.

Barbara Weaver Smith knows “whale hunting” works.  My Say It For You business owner clients know blogging works.  But, before you jump in with both feet to business blogging – remember this: you’ve got to keep an eye on all five “I”s.

In the book “What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging And Podcasting,” Mikal Belicove, ghost blogger and blog strategist, defends the practice of ghost blogging. As I explained in my earlier Say It For You blog, For Songs Or Blogs, Success Proves The Best Silencer Of Critics, most sports figures, music stars, celebrities, and politicians don’t write their own books.  Belicove adds that it’s not only books that are ghost-written; most quotes from CEO’s and company presidents in press releases were never actually uttered by those CEO’s and presidents!

Even though many people are aware that books and speeches and even songs are often not composed by the people to whom they’re attributed, when it comes to employing a professional ghost blogger – some folks feel that takes away the special authenticity blogs have.  Mikal Belicove doesn’t agree with that sentiment for a minute.  Very much in the manner in which I perform Say It For You ghost-blogging services for my clients, Belicove writes and handles the mechanics of posting blogs that contain the client’s thoughts and ideas, not his.  Mikal simply helps them jump-start the process by articulating those thoughts and ideas.  As professional ghost bloggers, we start the process by discussing ideas with the client; the process doesn’t end without the client’s having approved each finished blog post.

Belicove makes one important point in the book that I think is worth emphasizing here: A professional ghost blogger adds a lot more to the mix than just labor.  “He or she provides insight and clarity in taking ideas from a rough format and working them into a post that makes sense and has value.”

Ghost blogging is part of a trend (see The Don't -Do-It-Yourself Trend Hits Clothing and Blogging) on the part of business owners to focus their time making and selling products or doing consulting, delegating marketing functions to others.  “It’s the thoughts and opinions that matter, not the mechanism for getting them into the blopsphere."  My thoughts exactly, Mikal… When Cole Porter sang, “Let’s do it,” he was referring to falling in love.  But if Cole were writing the song today, who knows?  He might have sung, “Lets blog!”

The mayor of New York City proposes putting windmills on city bridges and on rooftops to help supply renewable energy to the city in the form of wind power.  Neighbors worry about having unsightly wind turbines on street corners, but the city’s director of the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability reassured a New York Times reporter that “You can make them (the windmills) so small that people think they’re part of the design.”

Business owners on a budget can learn a useful lesson from Big Apple.  Just like the city of New York, businesses need to generate power – marketing power.  The cost of extensive print advertising and direct mail campaigns can be daunting for businesses struggling to grow market share in today’s economy.  What’s needed is “wind power” to propel new customers and clients to the business without the owner needing to make extensive and inflexible upfront financial commitments.  In business marketing, blogs can serve as the parallel to what New York is calling “eggbeater-like” wind turbine models.  Blogs are small, shorter and more centered around just one idea than e-zines or newsletters.  Like the proposed rooftop mini-turbines, which require less wind force and less set-up time than their standard-sized counterparts, blogs require less of business owners than major advertising and marketing thrusts.

Blogs are informal, friendly, conversational, and, because new material is posted frequently, blog posts tend to be more up-to-the-minute. Blogs can link to other blogs and web sites, turning mini-power into maxi-power, and increasing exposure to the search engines.  As blog expert Denise Wakeman enthuses: “Search engines love blogs!”

Mayor Bloomberg is trying to reduce New York City’s dependence on a power grid that’s caused big blackouts.  He’s thinking small; he’s thinking eggbeaters on the roof. Businesses trying to reduce marketing costs while increasing marketing power might do well to think small, too.  Blogger on the roof, anyone?

A couple of weeks ago, I browsed through an advertising supplement to the Indianapolis Star named “Why 2 Buy Now”.  The supplement contained pages upon pages of information about all kinds of products and services.  Since, at the top of each page, the words “advertising supplement” were prominently displayed, everyone reading the material knew the goal was to get new customers for the businesses who had bought the space.  Nevertheless, because the information about each product or service was so helpful and so well-written, there was no hard-sell “sting" at all to the section.

As a professional ghostwriter of blogs, I couldn’t help finding a parallel here.  When people go online to search for information and click on different blogs or on different websites, they’re aware of the fact that the providers of the information are out to do business.  But as long as the material is valuable and relevant for the searchers, they’re perfectly fine with knowing there’s someone who wants them for a client or customer.  The secret of successful business blogging, I found, is just that - not coming on too strong.  A blog is not an advertisement – you might say it’s an “advertorial”.      

One of the pages in the Indianapolis Star supplement is a perfect example of what I mean.  It was called “Why To Buy A Piano”.  The piece provided some valuable quick tips on the “ABC’s of Piano Shopping”, explaining three basic decisions facing a piano buyer (digital vs. acoustic, upright vs. grand, used vs. new).  But the big lesson to be learned for business blogging comes in the final paragraph of the piece: “You don’t have to make the ultimate piano decision the first time”, it tells us.  “You can choose a piano that will accommodate a child’s entry into the piano world.”

Think about how reassuring that statement might be for a potential piano buyer (“They’re trying to help me, not sell me the most expensive instrument in the store”). Now, think about someone searching the Web for information on a product or service that costs a lot of money (home remodeling, for example), or that is quite complex or scary (think bankruptcy or cosmetic surgery, for example).  If, in your business blog, you can convey the idea that there are different levels of involvement possible, and that “ultimate decisions” need not be made the moment the potential client of customer “steps into” your website, visitors to your blog will be reassured there’s a comfortable place for them – with you!  In other words, before selling them the piano, help visitors to your blog understand "Why To Buy A Piano"!
 

 I never get tired of hearing Dick Wolfsie talk about what makes jokes funny.  (Wolfsie, well-known local TV personality and author, has been studying humor for years and lectures on the subject at the University of Indianapolis.)  As a professional ghost blogger, I find myself revisiting the Wolfsie humor analysis, because jokes and blogs share many of the same characteristics.

To illustrate one important insight about humor, Dick often uses the joke about a man who thinks his wife is losing her hearing. At the end of the joke we learn that he, the husband, is the deaf one. As the story unfolds, the man comes home and keeps calling out to his wife, asking “What’s for dinner?”  Each time he poses the question, he comes closer to where she is standing (he’s testing the distance from which she’ll be able to hear him), yet she offers no response.  Finally, when he’s right there next to her and poses the question for the fifth time, she turns to him and answers, “For the fifth time -  we’re having chicken!”

Is it the surprise element that lends the humor?  That’s only part of the answer. If the punch line had been, “You’re the one that’s deaf, honey!” there’d still be a surprise, but no humor. In order for the joke to be funny, explains Wolfsie, the person listening to the joke or reading the joke has to figure things out!  The laughter is the reward that the listener or reader gives himself for having figured out what the punch line is really saying.  In other words, there’s no joke if the punch line is the proverbial tree falling in the forest.

Blogs are like that, too.  You may do your part, posting new, relevant material online, offering valuable information about your field of expertise.  But for the blog to generate a “bang”, it takes two.  In fact, that’s precisely how business blogging works.  People go online and use search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.) to find information.  They need to know more about something, and that something has to do with what you have, what you know about, or what you know how to do.  Since you’ve provided relevant, up to date content in your blog post, that browser finds you!  Now it’s a blog, and you’ve got yourself a potential client or customer. That individual, just like the person who gets a joke, rewards himself with the information you’ve provided.  She/he “gets it” – and moves on to your website for more, or posts a comment.  Either way, two are now in the game.  Now you can start getting bang for your blog! 

Tuning in to National Public Radio turned out to be a good thing for me to do the other day.  I caught another of those word tidbits that so delight the wordsmith in me. Daniel Gardner, author of a new book, “The Science Of Fear”, was being interviewed by Diane Rehm.  Gardner was expounding on why we fear things we shouldn’t, ironically exposing ourselves to real dangers.  He attributes our irrational fear to the fact that we’re constantly being fed disaster stories by the media.  Our unconscious minds absorb this “parade of improbable negative events”, causing us to overreact to everyday circumstances that statistically hold little real threat. 

And here’s where Daniel Gardner said the eight little words that so completely capture the concept he was trying to present: “We report the rare routinely, and the routine rarely.” To me, effective word tidbits sock us right between the eyes, and that one did it for me.  In fact, the instant I read that particular combination of everyday words, I had an “aha! moment”.  I was able to unify things I already knew, but hadn’t synthesized into any true wisdom. 

Blogging, at its best, should have exactly that effect.  Short by definition, blogs don’t necessarily give online searchers lots of brand new information.  But what your blog should aim to do is capture concepts relating to your business, putting words together in a new way.  Your aim is to bring to the reader a pleasurable and satisfying “Aha!”, making that reader want to know more. (My interest was captured - I went out and bought Daniel Gardner’s book!)  You want to bring the blog reader to your website in order to convert him/ her into a customer or client.

As a professional ghost blogger, the question I would pose to each client is this:  If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you’re passionate about what you sell, what you know, or what you do, what would those words be?  Once you’ve put together the word tidbits, I can “Say It For You”, and blogging for business can begin with a bang!