The art of writing business blogs

“It is precisely the minds of the first order that will never be specialists. Because their very nature is to make the totality of existence their problem; and this is a subject on which each of them in some way will provide humanity with a new revelation. Because only he can deserve the name of genius who takes the Whole, the Essential, the Universal, as the theme of his achievements, not the one who dedicates his life to explaining some special relationship of things to each other “. – Arthur Schopenhauer, “The Art of Literature”

“We are in an age that assumes that ever-narrowing trends in specialization are logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all seriously responsible communication to be neatly brief. Scientific advances have now discovered that all known cases Biological extinction have been caused by over-specialization, whose concentration of only selected genes sacrifices general adaptability. Therefore, the specialist’s report to specify the brevity is doubtful. Meanwhile, humanity has been deprived of a comprehensive understanding. Specialization has engendered feelings of isolation, futility and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual leaving the responsibility of thought and social action to others. Specialization generates biases that are eventually added as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, it leads to war. ” – Buckminster Fuller, “Synergetics”

What is your job?

We live in an age where people are more likely to ask “What are you doing?” instead of the more appropriate “How are you?” People are expected to specialize. Okay, I’m speaking in general. I am a generalist.

But what if people heeded the advice and warnings of Schopenhauer or Fuller? Is it possible for them to become more fully human? More complete as we say? More a lady or a gentleman, as was the code once?

Bloggers, from what I’ve seen in my years of blogging, tend to be more generalists than specialists, except for some who are both … which means they have broad knowledge and interests, but they also have a thing or two that they know. A lot about.

Business bloggers, ideally, fall into the latter category. They know a lot about your company, service, products, etc., but they also have broadband tuning that allows them to connect with people of all types, types, and interests. After all, a customer or customer should not be expected to know all the fine points of what they are looking to buy, but the seller should know those fine points, but also a good deal on the customer. This is where an understanding of broadband comes in handy.

The business blogger is a specialist AND a generalist. And if not, you may want to remedy the situation, one way or another. The kindest way is to educate them.

If they don’t know the products or services … teach them about them. If you don’t know how to write, how to deal with people, the give and take of the conversation … you have a more difficult problem, but not insurmountable. Only one that may take longer. So when hiring your business bloggers, look for those with decent verbal and social skills first. You can show them the offer in less time.

For everything, there is an experienced blogger

But … should you hire an experienced blogger or a new blogger? Wouldn’t it be better to create your own Frankenstein and have them just say what you want them to say?

My vote is for seasoned bloggers, for a variety of reasons. The first is perhaps best exemplified in this quote also from “The Art of Literature”:

“There are, in the first place, two types of authors: those who write for the subject and those who write to write. While one has had thoughts or experiences that seem worthy of communicating, the others want money; and so they write, for Money. Your thinking is part of the business of writing. You can be recognized by the way you expose your thoughts to the greatest extent possible; then also by the very nature of your thoughts, which are only half-truths, wicked, forced, hesitant; again, by the aversion they usually show to saying something directly, so that they may appear different than they are. Therefore, their writing is deficient in clarity and precision, and it is not long before they give away that his only object in writing is to cover the paper. This happens sometimes with the best authors; occasionally, for example, with Lessing in his Dramaturgy, and even in many of Jean Paul’s romances. The reader perceives this, leave him He throws the book away; because time is precious. The truth is that when an author begins to write to cover the paper, he is misleading the reader; because he writes under the pretext that he has something to say.

Writing for money and reserving copyright is, at bottom, the bane of literature. No one writes anything worth writing, unless he writes entirely for the sake of his subject. What an inestimable blessing it would be if there were few but excellent books in all branches of literature! This can never happen as long as money is earned in writing. It seems as if money is under a curse; for every author degenerates as soon as he begins to put pen to paper in some way for the sake of profit. The best works of the greatest men all come from the time when they had to write for nothing or very little. – “The art of literature”

Seasoned bloggers have often written for years for little or no money. People who say they will blog if you pay them can write what they are told, but in that case why not write it yourself?

The blog and the cane

“The pen is to think what the walking stick is; but you walk more easily when you do not have a cane, and you think most perfectly when you do not have a pen in your hand. It is only when a man begins to grow old that he likes to use a stick and be glad to take your pen. ” – “The art of literature”

Another advantage of hiring experienced bloggers is that you can see where they have been, what they have written on the blog, and know whether or not they can keep writing over time. A new blogger may run out of things to say. Seasoned bloggers are seasoned because they are still writing. You call the others ex-bloggers.

New bloggers may enjoy blogging for a while, but then the youth wanderlust takes hold, and the next thing you know, they’re chasing ghosts. A good seasoned blogger, on the other hand, is woven into the fabric of the blogosphere and is content to make his mark there. And because they are part of the blogosphere, they are not an island, but a constellation or, in some cases, a galaxy. You haven’t hired a single yes, you have potentially hired dozens or hundreds, even thousands of yes. I would venture to say that, in some cases, you may have even won millions of people who said the year. These, of course, are few and far between, but the future is likely to look very different from the past.

And if you get an occasional chorus of denials, count your lucky stars that you have a free feedback mechanism. Your adjustments can be far better than the grunts that led to the change. And all companies change. Only some never learn the reasons why they should have and suffer the consequences of their ignorance.

The question is not yes. Is when. So when you hire someone (or a team of people) to connect your business to the blogosphere, you may want to keep a few of these points in mind. Your blog doesn’t need to be literature, but there’s nothing wrong with having an uplifting, beautifully written body of work associated with your company. Over time, it may be your greatest legacy. Surely, a future Twain, Faulkner or Ogilvy, will take over the enabling of these discovery laboratories. And the world needs more jobs, not less. Choose, act, but act wisely. It is good to be the first. But it is better to be good.