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Effective Communication

What is your Blog Voice

Create Your Blog Voice for Your Business

Many businesses start blogs without a real plan. After all, it’s easy to do – you just need to start writing. But actually, there’s some serious planning involved and one of the major decisions to make is  your blog voice.

Just like you need consistent, clear messaging in the rest of your business, a good blog has a clear and consistent voice that is communicated on every page.

Consistency helps you create a brand and this is what builds trust with your audience. More importantly, you need a blog that is not a copy of anyone else but a true reflection of who you are and how you want to show up to your audience.

The Elements of a Blog Voice

What does ‘blog voice’ mean? It sounds simple but it’s made up of a number of different elements including personality, beliefs, tone, style, and type of content. Some questions to ask include:

  • Is your blog going to be strictly factual or opinionated? (are you going to be a technician/teacher or a thought-leader)
  • What values will it speak to?
  • Is the tone going to be casual and friendly or more professional?
  • Are you going to focus on recent news items, write reviews or offer how-to information?

Personality is an especially important consideration because you don’t want your blog to be dull and formal. The human aspect has to come through. It needs to be engaging and speak to emotions as well as giving the reader useful and relevant information.

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weight lifter struggling with heavy weights on shoulder

Entrepreneurs – Get the Blogging Weight off Your Shoulders

“Yikes!”  “I don’t have enough time.” or “I don’t know what I will write about!” is what I often hear when people talk about trying to blog on a regular basis. There’s no question about it – blogging takes time. If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner with a daily to-do list as long as your arm, you may feel like you don’t have the time to update your blog. However, it might be your day’s most important task, so don’t skip it. Here are some tips for taking the blogging weight off your shoulders and making blogging what it should be – fun, energizing, and creative.

Find Your Best Time to Write Your Blog Posts

Everybody has certain times of the day when they feel more inspired than others. For example, you might have your best ideas in the mornings just after you wake up. Set aside some time each day during these periods for working on blog posts. Make it part of your schedule and it will become a habit and ideas will flow and when they do, write away.

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Goldilock's oatmeal

Goldilocks and the Three Leaders: How to Communicate Just Right in a Crisis

The need for leadership is at an all-time high these days, and a quick glance at your inbox, the news, or social media will show you there’s no lack of individuals stepping forward to fill the void with commentary and advice. Effective leadership, though, is another story all together.

As someone who has taught communications for over 25 years and who taught Crisis Communication again this semester, I’ve been feeling a bit like a character from one particular story as I’ve listened to different leaders communicate in the media and within various organizations. 

You’re probably familiar with Goldilocks, the judicious heroine of the fairy tale involving three bears. Like Goldilocks trying to find the right oatmeal to eat, I’ve been listening to find the leaders whose communication is “just right.” And like her, I’m finding multiple options that range from too hot to too cold before discovering leaders whose communication is just right.

Communication that’s too hot

Leaders struggle with confidence in the best of times, let alone in a crisis. Uncertainty breeds anxiety for everyone, and leaders are not exempt from this. How aware leaders are about their own thinking about a situation determines their effectiveness at leading others through the crisis with reasoned response rather than panicked reaction.

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Dog listening

The Importance of Having Good Listening Skills

We often think we are communicating effectively and of course, we want people to take action on what we say. So it can be frustrating when we talk and share a message and NOTHING happens.  Crickets…. Most likely, you were doing only half of what needs to be done to effectively communicate- the talking part. Listening is the other half – perhaps the better half – of all communication. Unfortunately, most people rarely receive any formal training for how to do it properly. Improving your listening skills can enhance your professional and personal life. Follow these practical steps towards becoming a better listener, even in challenging situations where it’s most important.

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Cute dog among the photos

Yes, Your Blog Posts Need Images

Cute redhair dachshund is among the photos

Your blog is often the first thing new readers, new prospects, and new clients see of you and your online business and first impressions count. That means you need a well-designed and layout blog, great content, and pictures that draw you in and enhance your content. In other words, yes, your posts need images.

It doesn’t stop there. You want to keep encouraging your readers to come back and read more of your posts. Before that can happen, you need to catch their attention and draw them back in. It takes a while to build a loyal following of readers who will devour anything you write. Images will help draw them in again and again. In other words, yes, your posts need images.

We live in a very social and internet based world. One way to broaden your reach and grow the traffic to your blog is social media. Guess what captures attention on sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. That’s right, it’s images. The images make people click through to read your blog post.

Getting Images

You have two options when it comes to getting images for your blog post. You can use your own pictures, or you can buy photos to use. Your best option for purchasing images is a stock photography site like Istockphoto.com, Depositphoto.com and Pixabay.com  to name a few. You can find both free and paid stock photo sites. Get your images and move on to the next step.

Formatting Images

How you format and size your pictures will depend on a few different things. The first is where and how you are displaying them in your blog post. Next, keep the different social media sites where you’re active in mind. Different sites prefer or convert better with different images sizes. Do a little research and come up with an image for each of your most important social media sites.

Images and SEO

Last but not least, let’s not forget about SEO. The file name and the alt tag are both used to determine what the page (or post) the image is found on is about. Use this to your advantage by including your keywords.

There you have it. Start using images in your posts regularly. Play around with style and things like adding text and titles to your images until you find a winning combination for you, your blog, and your audience.

Questions And Answers Computer Keys Showing Support Knowledge And Wikis

Quick Blog Content Idea: Answer Comments in New Blog Posts

Questions And Answers Computer Keys Showing Support Knowledge And WikisComing up with fresh content ideas for your blog isn’t always easy. Today I have a great new content tip for you and the best part is that some of your post is already written. It’s a bit like getting to skip ahead in line. Perfect for those busy days when your calendar is full but you want to get a blog post published.

Got Questions?

Keep an eye out for questions in comments. Save them, horde them, and when you need a quick post, take that question – copy and paste it into your blog and answer it. That was easy, wasn’t it?

Of course you want to answer your readers right away when you see the comment come up. Go ahead and do that. But keep a mental tab on this question and ask yourself this:

  • Will other people have the same question? (99% of the time the answer will be yes)
  • Is there more I can share on the topic?

If you answer yes to both questions (and most likely you will), then the commenter question qualifies for a follow up blog post. And that’s exactly what it is; a follow up to the original comment question and your answer.

Answer those questions

Start by introducing the topic or question. Share the question and then let your readers know that you wanted to give a more detailed answer, thus the new blog post. Share the answer you gave the reader in the original comment and elaborate as you see fit. That’s it. A quick and easy blog post and for a portion all you had to do was copy and paste.

Format it, add a graphic and you’re ready to hit publish. Rinse and repeat with other questions as they pop up in your comments. Readers love these types of posts because they often had the exact same question, but they were too shy to ask.

Your Personal FAQ section

If you find yourself with quite a few questions, you may even want to make this a new featured category on your blog. It will quickly become a valuable resource to your readers.  You can even answer them all at once (in different blog posts) and schedule them to be published on a certain day.  If you are consistent with this, your readers will know look forward to reading the answers.  You can also do this as a video if you would like just to give people a more personal connection to you as you are answering their questions.

It will save you time in the long run. By being thorough in your answer, it will not only apply to this exact question, but a multitude of related questions. When they pop up in comments, all you have to do is reply with a link to the post. You have created your own personal FAQ section for your blog.

Wasn’t that easy?  So, do you have any questions for me today?

writing-quill

Use Drafts to Get Ahead with your Blogging

I have a quick tip for you today that will come in handy as you’re working on getting ahead on your blogging. It’s using the draft feature. Yes, it’s handy that WordPress and most other blogging platforms have a way to save your posts as drafts so you can continue to work on it over the course of a few days. It’s even better that they usually auto-save for you – at least it is in my case. But there’s another great way to use the draft feature.

You can use drafts to get ahead of the blogging game in several different ways. Let’s start with the most obvious one.

Use Drafts to Work on Your Next Blog Post (or Two)

The most obvious way to use drafts is of course to work on your current blog post until it is ready to publish. But don’t just stop there. If you know you have a busy day tomorrow or later on in the week, go ahead and give yourself a head start by creating a draft and working on it here and there as you can fit it in your busy day. You’ll be glad you did when it comes time to wrap up that particular post.

Use Drafts to Plan Out Your Week

You can also use drafts to plan out your blogging for the week. Let’s say you want to post 5 times per week. Come up with 5 topics and create a draft for each. Then start working on them, making sure you wrap up and publish at least one of the posts on each of your publishing days.

Not only will this keep you on track and show you at a glance what you’ll be blogging about this week, it also allows you to work on multiple posts throughout the week, giving you options when you get stuck on writing one post.

Use Drafts as A Way of Storing Blog Post Ideas

Let’s wrap this up with my favorite way to use the drafts feature. And that’s to use it as storage container for ideas for future blog posts. Here’s how to do it. When you get an idea for a blog post, go ahead and create a draft. Come up with a working title and make a quick note of what your blog post will be about. If you’re feeling ambitious, go ahead and write a quick outline for the post. Then save it as a draft.

Do this anytime you come up with an idea and save them for later. Then whenever you need something to blog about, browse through your drafts and pick one of these. The idea is there and you may even have done some of the writing already. These drafts make for fast blog posts and are just the thing when you’re suffering from writer’s block.

woman jumping out of water 23 on t-shirt

Fun day: 23 reasons why 23 is the greatest number

Thought I would do something fun for today, the 23rd of the month.  Here are some reasons why 23 is the greatest number of all time as stated by www.urbandictionary.com  I changed # 8 to It is Tennis Day because that is important to me (see my blog post on “Why I am addicted to Professional Tennis”) and #12 because, come on, we all need to celebrate International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day.  Enjoy!

Here are 23 Reasons why 23 is the greatest number:   It is…

1. a prime number, as are 2 and 3.
2. Michael Jordan’s number.
3. the NBA record for most consecutive points scored by a single player in a game, done by none other than Michael Jordan.
4. the number of chromosomes in a human sperm or egg.
5. the angle between the earth’s magnetic and rotational axis.
6. the Tropic of Cancer at 23 degrees N Latitude.
7. the Tropic of Capricorn at 23 degrees S Latitude.
8.  Tennis Day
9. the most quoted Psalm in the bible (“The Lord is my  shepherd…”
10. the number of people executed in “A Tale of Two Cities”
11. the smallest number of people for which there is at least a 50% chance that two will share the same birthday.
12. International Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
13. one of the “Lost” numbers on the television show….also the sum of two of the other numbers (8 & 15)and the solution to 42-15-4=23, all of which are also Lost numbers.
14. the number of times Caesar was stabbed in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
15. has been prominently featured in the following: Serendipity, Futurama, Star Wars A New Hope, Monty Python The Life of Brian, Seinfeld, The Big Lebowski, The Matrix Reloaded, and Die Hard III among MANY MANY other movies.
16. the number of flavors Dr. Pepper claims to be a blend of.
17. the number of distinct orientations of Tetris pieces.
18. the sum of U2, the greatest band ever. U is the 21st letter of the alphabet.
19. the number of letters in the latin alphabet.
20. the number of the Illuminati.
21. the letter W in the english alphabet, a letter with 2 points down and 3 points up.
22. the smallest number of integer sided boxes that tile a box such that no two boxes share a common length.
23. the only US president to serve between nonconsecutive terms of another president (23rd president Benjamin Harrison serving between Grover Cleveland’s terms).

It’s time to make that sales call…

dog on the phone talking and calling

Recently, when I polled my audience about what they procrastinated most about in their business, 40% reported that it was making sales calls. Now, I believe I have a good idea why this occurs and it begins with the lack of a strong foundation.

You see, when someone begins a business, it often is because they had a strong passion about something; whether it is baking, or physical training or any one of the many other small business ideas out there. And in the beginning, there is a passion and excitement that is very effective at getting some customers. The business owner thinks “I am on my way because see how easy it was to get customers.”

But passion about your service or product just gets you so far. Once the business is becoming more established, customers begin to look at you a bit more closely. They want to know that you “get them and their needs” and this is where the foundation needs to be solid or your customer’s will lose confidence in you. This is where the fear of sales calls begins to take hold.

Here are 3 areas that you must consider when building your foundation:

  • Who is your target (ideal) audience (and everybody is not an acceptable answer?
  • What is the problem you solve for them (consider what they need and desire)?
  • What is the result you provide?

Answering these questions gives you clarity regarding whom you do your best work with and what you do for them. Knowing this also gives you confidence and language with which to start a conversation with your ideal clients.

And the best sales calls are those that sound like a conversation. And suddenly the phone won’t seem so intimidating.

So go out and engage your ideal clients in sales conversations; after all no business can grow without selling something.