Reflections on "Content is the only advertising left"

Here’s a thought I ran across recently on the internet—“Content is the only advertising left.” What is this talking about? This is referring to the social media revolution and the explosion of blogging as a way to market a business.

I can see this explosion as I see the Craigslist ads that ask for highly skilled writers to write articles about ______ industry in 500 words for $20 or less per article. Businesses are hearing about how blogs can bring in business and they want that, but they may underestimate the time it takes a writer unfamiliar with the industry to gather all the needed information to make an article! They think it should be easy! Well, it would be easy, if the writer had all the expert knowledge of the industry. However, an industry insider is going to want to do their industry work business and may not have quite enough time to put together a witty blog post. (But if they were to take the time to start brainstorming some articles that represent their particular expertise, then they could probably improve over time.)

It’s pretty obvious when businesses don’t really want to put the resources into a quality blog. Firstly, the topics they choose are dumb. Secondly, the content is lifeless. Thirdly, the writing is bad.

What does it really take to have a quality blog for a business? The best blogs I’ve seen are ones that:

• Give answers to common problems
• Give away some trade secrets that help the customer help themselves, either with diagnosis or easy fixes.
• Tell the customer how to spot unscrupulous businesses in the industry and explain exactly why the offending practice is wrong
• Share a slice of life in a way that is both engaging and non-offensive (This is good for attracting people to the industry.)
• Divulge useful details of that slice of life without compromising sensitive personal information

What do the worst business blogs do? They:

• Make it seem like everything is a mystery--job security by obscurity
• Make it seem that the customer is not smart enough or not careful enough to do anything and only an expert is qualified enough (Seriously? If the customer thought that, why would they be reading blogs? They are reading because they consider themselves smart enough to educate themselves about their problem as much as possible!)
• Give the reader no real information that can help them help themselves
• Only contain text that markets the business (too self-satisfied) as a badly disguised forum for disseminating press releases (You think readers can’t tell? What, are you stupid?) or trumpeting corporate goals (Why should the reader care?)
• Burst with corporate rhetoric, jargon, and legalese disclaimers (permeated with covering-our-butt fear)
• Make all their employees comment on the blog, whether they have anything good to say or not
• Do not respond to real commenter questions and problems
• Do not look outside their own business at what the competitors do (self-absorbed)
• Bash their competitors (insulting)
• Bash their customers (insulting)

Have I seen good business blogs complain and yet be successful? Yes. When I see these complaints, they usually come in a situation when the expert is having to redo correctly some job that a previous idiot has made a blazing mess of out of ignorance and incompetence. These kinds of posts succeed and build trust with the reader when they show pictures/diagrams of the badly done job before and explain exactly what is wrong with it and then tell what is needed to do it done right. The right amount of moral indignation is needed. Just enough to communicate the bad previous job, but not too much to turn off the reader and make them think the writer has a bad attitude. The writer must preserve a good attitude about their own work and pleasure (but not arrogance) about doing their best to fix things. (Good example: The Floor Elf website. After reading everything I could find on this guy's website, I trust him.)

Can a business blog complain about customers? No, not in the strict sense of complaining. It has to be done in an extremely sensitive and professional way. So perhaps “complain” is not the right word. How to share stories of difficult customers:

1. Withhold their name.
2. Explain what the customer wanted.
3. Explain what company policy is so that the reader understands what the rules are and why the writer resisted unreasonable customer demands. Readers may not know what is reasonable or unreasonable behavior.
4. Explain how customer reacted to refusal.
5. Explain how writer felt (keeping it clean and professional) and then how the writer responded.
6. Explain how the interaction continued, how the problem was resolved, how the situation ended.
7. Describe any doubts and questions the writer had about their own part, or any questions they had about the customer’s attitude/behavior.

When I worked as a writing tutor, sometimes I had difficult sessions with certain students that I needed to gain perspective about. So I would talk to my boss about the session afterward in a way that very closely followed the above steps. I did not use names, I explained what happened on both sides, and then we had very fascinating, productive discussions about what I could do better to professionally handle that in the future. When I became a more skilled tutor, the conversations helped me see that I did all I could do within policy. This kind of model works well for business blogging.

What "problem customer" posts are useful for:

• adjusting future customer's expectations
• educating other customer readers about permissible behavior,
• educating customer readers about company policies and the reasons behind them (best when policies are rational and not merely company-serving)
• educating customers about extra services the company can provide in the context of an interesting story
• training future employees
  

Additional thought:
An internal business blog might be a good way for a business to create a corporate culture and spotlight various employees for the good they do. It might also be a good way for employees to communicate methods that worked or them. This ensures that valuable company knowledge base isn’t automatically lost when an employee leaves.