As a professional blogger, I see a lot of different blogs, both small business and corporate. Some are good, some are terrible. Some are informative and engaging, some are daily commercials, some are stilted and formal. I can spot the blogs written by people who are passionate about their work, knowledgeable about their field, or exploring new knowledge.
I can also spot the ones that are written by marketing professionals, committees, and the legal department.
Blogging tends to make corporate types a little nervous
It’s not that I have anything against marketers (I’ve been one for over 16 years). And I don’t have anything against lawyers. (Committees, on the other hand. . .)
The problem is blogging has a different writing style, a different flow. In blogging, you don’t worry about being technically accurate, covering every contingency, option, variation, divergence, modification, and refinement, you just have to be right.
But the blogs I see by marketers, lawyers, and committees don’t have that spark. Everything is written like a legal brief, or it uses all the proper product/service names, instead of what customers actually call it. Or it has that lowest common denominator feel of the committee, where every phrase is scrutinized, and meetings are filled with statements like “should we say ‘rediscover’ or ‘redefine?’” and then discussed heatedly for 30 minutes. (“Why can’t we say ‘rediscover or redefine?’” “But what about people who have not discovered or defined it in the first place?”)
Marketing Copywriting and Legal Writing Are Not Good Blog Writing
Blogging is informal. It’s written like people speak. It has punch, emotion, spark, verve. Sentences start with “and.” Or appear incomplete. While grammar is (and should be) used, people are a little more loose with some of the grammar rules. That’s not to say a blogger gets to write like an illiterate scribbler. But rather, they don’t need to march in lockstep with the grammar rules our 7th grade teacher drummed into us.
A good blog has to capture the attention of the person reading it. It has to be well-written and interesting. Too often, corporate blogs are stiff, formal, and uninteresting. They’re literary yawn-fests that seem to want to drive away readers, not bring them in.
I recently read a pro athlete’s blog that was hosted on his team’s website. And I could tell right away — see how I just started that sentence with ‘and?’ — that he didn’t write it. Or at least he didn’t have the final edit. That’s because the author or editor didn’t use team nicknames, and they made sure to include sponsor names.
“We’ve been working hard at the Sheinhardt Wig Company Indianapolis Beagles Practice Facility all week, and are looking forward to facing the Cincinnati Rough Riders on Sunday at 4:00 p.m.”
BLEAH! The only people who refer to anything by their sponsors’ names are marketers and race car drivers. The only people who refer to a team by their full name in an informal setting are marketers. Given that this particular athlete is not known for his eloquence, I could only assume this had been edited heavily, and not just for grammar.
While I’m not a big fan of misspelled words, poor grammar, and text speak, I do think writers should be given their own voice, and not edited to sound like some marketer’s idea of what they think it should be.
Basically, if you want to be a successful blogger, you need to learn to write like a real person. Loosen up the tie, disband the committee, unclench, and start to write like a real person. When you have an urge to fix something to as required by the marketing copy user’s guide, kill it.
Learn to write how people talk, and you’ll start to figure out how people read. And then they’ll start reading what you have to say.
Photo: St. Stev (Flickr)
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There’s a bit of debate about whether or not to hire ghost writers for a business blog or, as I like to call them, “phost writers“. And while I understand the arguments against it, especially those focusing on transparency and sincerity, I think the people making them don’t have a firm understanding of the amount of time that goes into writing a good blog post.
