Your English Teacher Taught You Everything You Need to Know About Business Blogs
Why are business blogs started, updated rarely, even abandoned?
What's blocking those words?
Just as atoms are the fundamental components of elements, so do words build the elements of a social media or Web 2.0 public relations and marketing strategy.
No words, no strategy.
I’m wondering if part of what's blocking our words is our English teachers. They taught us, and rightly so, to write essays.
The essay is the basic structure for written communication, whether in academic, political, or public arenas. We introduce our topics, express our theses, develop points to support them through a logical progression of points, then we synthesize our points in a conclusion.
Writing an essay requires thought, reflection, and research. The best essays demonstrate mental athleticism that leaves readers more fit.
An essay takes mental athleticism to write as well.
If you’re thinking “essay” when you’re thinking “business blog post,” no wonder you’re not writing. If you’re running a company, or part of a company's management team, or in a company, you’re undoubtedly exercising your mind plenty. When faced with writing a business blog post, you may feel as if you've already done enough.
You have.
Suggestion: When you think, “Ugh, I gotta write a business blog post,” think, “Just a paragraph. Only a paragraph.”
Your training from your English teachers in writing essays actually prepared you to write expert blog posts.
Got a subject in mind? See the essay you could write about it?
Excise one of the paragraphs.
It’s got a topic sentence, it’s got three examples, and it’s got a concluding sentence. It’s a mini-essay in itself! And only five sentences!
Add a picture? Or a video?
You’ve got yourself a fine blog post.
A paragraph - a blog post - per day?
You’ve not only got a bunch of blog posts, you’ve got an active business blog. That certainly challenges your competition. They may not be up to a paragraph a day. You are.
Paragraph + Picture = Blog Post
Blog posts increase your online exposure.
And exposure increases your contacts, which, as we all know in business, are the atoms by which the element of sales are made.
Let's just say I might know of what I speak when I say this:
Your English teacher would be proud.
I love this post. Too many in the corporate world have a fear of blogging and social media, you provide some good advice for overcoming that inertia.
Posted by: rgeller | January 21, 2009 at 06:12 PM
Thanks for your comment, rgeller. Got a great e-mail from a reader explaining that part of the inertia is fear.
The reader points out that a paragraph seems subject to attack because it's incomplete, either by missing data, or by missing enough depth to ultimately be true.
I've seen long, long, long blog posts and now understand that the writer may be trying to make sure the data support is comprehensive or the "truth" is fully expressed.
For me, the beauty of a business blog is that, like a collage, all the pieces are present - archived - so that, item by item - blog post paragraph by blog post paragraph - the fullness of art and truth can be achieved.
Posted by: Anne Giles Clelland | January 29, 2009 at 08:48 AM