Category Archives: Writing

Bloggers: Feel Free to Repeat Yourself

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Hedgehog

Big ideas justify repetition

Imagine: After days of writer’s block, you’re suddenly inspired to write a long and insightful blog post. You’ve found the perfect illustration, and your headline is brilliant. You’re crushing it. Then, just before you click the publish button, a small blip of doubt appears on your radar. Somehow, what you’ve written sounds so familiar.

In a flash you remember: you’ve already covered this topic. The words are  different, the examples are new, but the case you’re making is more or less the same.

So what do you do now? As I’ve suggested before, a concern that someone else has already made your point shouldn’t stop you from publishing. But what if the person who made the point was you?

Fear not: There may be very good reasons to publish anyway.

In the right circumstances, there is a strong rationale for repeating yourself. But before we leap blindly into the upside of repetition, let’s consider the downside.

1. You may be subtracting value, not adding it. Once in a while, the first time you express an idea, it’s so well put that any subsequent efforts diminish the impact of the original. If you can’t improve on it or extend it, just link to it.

2. You may be using your desire to repeat yourself as an excuse. You may have other topics or ideas that you know you need to address, but it’s hard work. Going back to your old idea is so much easier. If that’s the case, put it on hold and focus on the new ones. The old one will always be there if you need it.

3. You may lack new ideas. Maybe you need to get out more. If you aren’t actively engaging with your community by reading, asking, and listening, your ideas, old or new, won’t be relevant.

If your urge to repeat yourself survives these three arguments against it, take heart. There are at least three equally compelling arguments in favor of it:

1. If you’ve forgotten what you said before, so has your reader. So say it again. What makes ideas grow on people is repetition. One of the findings of Edelman’s 2011 “Trust Barometer” is, as Krishna De puts it, that “the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe it—59% of respondents will believe the information they receive if they hear it 3 – 5 times.”

Last week, Ardath Albee suggested that even more repetition may be required for maximum retention: “Here’s the dirty little secret about repetition: It takes 5 – 12 repetitions of an idea to make it stick.”

2. You’re not repeating, you’re refining. Most ideas aren’t hermetically sealed packages of eternal truth. Instead, they evolve and grow. The blog format is ideal not only for documenting this growth process, but also for enhancing it through interactions with and feedback from others.

Do all those earlier iterations of an idea in a blog become disposable the moment the latest version is published? Not at all. In fact, for me, one of the glories of the blog format is the way it allows readers to go back and follow the development of an idea over time. In blogs like Joe Pulizzi’s Junta42 blog or Jeff Jarvis’s BuzzMachine, to cite two very different examples, going back to their earliest posts and reading forward through time reveals the detail and depth in their ideas that wouldn’t exist without repetition and reworking.

3. Your idea is so important that it’s all you need. There’s nothing wrong with one-trick ponies if the trick is really good. Long ago, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a short book on Tolstoy called The Hedgehog and the Fox. The title was inspired by an ancient Greek fragment that says “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

The insight Berlin drew from this was that there are two kinds of thinkers. One, the fox, gets his brilliance from the many different ideas he throws out for consideration. The brilliance of the other, the hedgehog, is based on one very big, complex idea that he devotes himself to exploring and explaining. If you’re a hedgehog, repetition is an asset, not a liability.

There are probably more than these three reasons not to fear repetition in your blog posts. If you can add one in the comments here, please do. But otherwise, feel free to paraphrase Walt Whitman and repeat after me:  “Do I repeat myself? Very well then I repeat myself.”

 

Writing, Photography, and the Art of Thinking Visually

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As some of my recent posts suggest, I’m a big fan of adding visual elements to written content, whether with infographics, illustrations, or photos. For the last few weeks, though, I’ve been wondering if I’m not putting too much stress on visual media. The graphic arts are brilliant tools for communication, yes, but words are every bit their match.Camera with "words" in lens

What started me worrying about this matter was a casual comment by Nieman Journalism Lab’s Justin Ellis. In his opening for an article on the quite different subject of photography’s potential to mislead, he made a “painful” admission.  There are times, he wrote, “when photos can tell more of a story than words could ever express.”

Sometimes the urge for a good lead makes you say things you don’t quite mean. But even if Ellis believes his claim, I’m not buying it. Writing can tell a story just as powerfully as a photo. But that’s only true if the writer learns to see and write in a visual way.

One of the reasons a photograph can seem so powerful is that it captures details of an event that many news or business writers might not think pertinent  or appropriate—a facial expression, the relation of people to their surroundings, the sense of place. But writers can see those same details. They just have to recognize their value and put them in their writing.

One writer who does so brilliantly is Steve Coll. Here is his opening paragraph from “The Casbah Coalition” in the April 4th issue of The New Yorker:

The office of the Prime Minister of Tunisia is situated in a three-story white-washed building with an arched Moorish entry. It faces north onto the Casbah, a plaza in the old quarter of Tunis. The view from the Prime Minister’s window is normally serene, taking in a tiled fountain and pruned ficus trees, but, by the afternoon of a day in late February, thousands of citizens had transformed the Casbah into what looked like a squatters’ camp. They had organized a round-the-clock sit-in to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Ghannouchi, and they were joined each weekend by large numbers of like-minded protesters. The fountain was completely covered by tents; ropes hoisted tarps from the trees.

This is visual writing, but it is not simply a snapshot of what the reporter saw. It sandwiches two views together—the ordinary serene picture of the Casbah with an extraordinary chaotic one. It shows the collision of stasis and change, a process of transformation unfolding before our eyes.

I’m not suggesting that writers don’t need or shouldn’t use photographs or other illustrations in their work. Rather, I’m arguing against two dangerous temptations for writers.

First, the simple availability of visual media should not constrain the visual element in our writing. It’s a false choice anyway: I suspect that if you can’t write visually, you won’t be very good at choosing graphics either.

Second, one medium is not inherently superior to the other. They are not categorically different, but lie along a continuum of representational media.

In the end, the key is learning to think with your eyes. The more you do, the better both your writing and the graphics you choose will be.

Improve Your Blog Posts with Nut Graphs

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Photo of a walnut shell

In a typical day, I read all or part of 25 to 30 blog posts on B2B communications and journalism. Often, one or two of those stories will share something special—a new way of looking at a problem, a brilliant insight, or an argument that I find compelling. When that happens, I turn to Delicious to bookmark it for future reference. So far so good.

But all too often at that point, I’m stumped. When I look for the key sentence or paragraph from the post to save with the link, I can’t find it. I may have to cut and paste a few sentences from the beginning, middle, and end of the piece to indicate the main point, or, in the worst cases, write my own summary statement.

In a way, this is a good sign. What it says is that the author’s idea was so good that it still shone through despite the lack of a single statement that encapsulated it. But how many good ideas in other posts have slipped by readers because the authors just couldn’t capture their essence in a few definitive sentences?

What these stories lack is a vital element pioneered by The Wall Street Journal: the nut graph (or graf, if you can stand spelling it that way). As Chip Scanlan defines it in in a superb overview,

“The nut graf tells the reader what the writer is up to; it delivers a promise of the story’s content and message. It’s called the nut graf because, like a nut, it contains the ‘kernel,’ or essential theme, of the story.”

Though the nut graph originates in journalism, it can benefit all business bloggers.  It is designed specifically for an informal approach to writing, one that, like so many blog posts, typically begins with “anecdotal leads that hook the reader.”  (Yes, you’ve just read my nut graph.)

Many writers have been exposed to the 5 Ws of the news-lede approach to news writing, and the related inverted-pyramid structure of news stories. But that approach is wrong for most blog posts, as it is for much journalism. As Scanlan notes, the problem with the news lede/inverted pyramid is that by telling the gist of the story at the very start, it gives the reader “a built-in excuse to stop.”  When the goal of your writing is engagement, though, you want to sell the story to the reader first.

Most business bloggers, I think, get that much. But what they too often don’t get is that you still need to deliver the kernel of your story pretty quickly. In Scanlan’s words,

“At the same time, the nut graf required in every story served the function of the inverted pyramid’s summary lead: providing readers with the gist of the story up high. If they chose to stop, they at least knew the broad outlines of the story. If they chose to continue, however, they knew they would be rewarded with even greater understanding and enjoyment.”

Deciding where to put your nut graph and how much to give away in it are not easy things to do, which is no doubt why many bloggers don’t. But they should.

If you’re not already a “nutsheller,” as experienced nut-graph writers are called, Scanlan’s article can help you become one. The process of crafting a good nut graph will help clarify what you want to achieve in your blog post, and help ensure that you effectively convey it to your reader.

Your Content May Be a Commodity, But You’re Not

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Of all the reasons not to update your blog, post a Tweet, or take part in an online conversation, the most powerful may be the fear that you have nothing new or unique to offer. In a world where everyone’s a publisher, content is a commodity. Any information you have to share has most likely been published elsewhere, and more than once.

But so what? It doesn’t matter if your content is a commodity, as long as you’re not.

To see how content—by which I mean the basic facts and ideas of discourse—has become a commodity, you don’t have to look far. Earlier this week, for instance, Bob Scheier wrote about a company that has automated content production:

“StatSheet of Durham, N.C. has developed software that writes (or, rather, assembles) stories based on statistics from college football and basketball, NASCAR and other sports. Algorithms pick out key facts (the top scorer, in which quarter did the winning team pull ahead, etc.) and stitch them together using a choice of pre-defined phrases.

“If this sounds formulaic and bloodless, it is. Consider this story about a lopsided Ohio State win over North Carolina A&T: Ohio State has already started living up to monumental expectations with a good first game. On November 12th on their home court, the Buckeyes waxed the Aggies, 102-61. The game lacked a lot of drama, with Ohio State up 52-25 at halftime and never letting up.”

Though some might scorn this commoditizing approach to content, I don’t. There are some facts that need only a little algorithmic enhancement to succeed as basic narrative content. And there are plenty of human authors who would be challenged to come up with better copy. That’s what happens when you think the news itself matters more than your perspective on it.

But as Scheier goes on to say, the algorithmic approach leaves a lot of potential value unfulfilled: “It cannot check those facts for accuracy, put them in context, present them in an insightful or delightful way, or learn from them over time to deliver thought leadership.” In other words, it matters who puts the content together, and what personal insight they add to it. The greater value comes from the creators of the content, not the content itself.

I think about this every day when I read the Los Angeles Times. I can get my news content anywhere these days, but I still subscribe. Why? Largely because of columnists like Michael Hiltzik, Steve Lopez, Tim Rutten, David Lazarus, and James Rainey. Their value to me is not in the news or issues that they cover, but the way they cover them, their unique, personal perspectives. They rarely break news stories or raise new issues, but they help me understand them.

Whether you’re blogging or Twittering or commenting, whatever you choose to say has been said before, probably hundreds of times. But that’s OK. It’s not your content but who you are that creates your most meaningful bonds with your readers.

Realizing this about content doesn’t necessarily make it easier to produce. Now you have to know who you are. Is it really your viewpoint, or have you just taken it uncritically from someone else?

The real work in writing posts that people want to read, you may discover, is not finding unique content, but finding your unique perspective, and finding yourself.

Do Personal Passions Make You a Better B2B Blogger?

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It’s a popular tactic among B2B bloggers to look at dry B2B topics through the prism of seemingly unrelated personal enthusiasms. Viewed from a distance, a favorite pop band or children’s book might not seem relevant to B2B marketing and communications. But for lots of B2B bloggers, the logical connection is less important than the personal one. It can be an effective approach, but it’s not without landmines.

You don’t have to look very far to find plenty of examples. Consider, for instance, how these well-known blogs use figures from popular culture to illuminate B2B subjects:

The appeal of this tactic lies partly in the lure of the unexpected. You want a certain amount of weirdness in the comparison. That we can learn something about B2B from IBM is useful but not surprising. But Little Bunny Foo-Foo? Tell us more!

(Too weird or obscure, though, and you’ll lose your audience. While you might be passionate about analytic philosophy or avant-garde classical music, you should probably avoid titles like “What Wittgenstein Can Teach You about Buyer Personas” or “Arnold Schoenberg and the Art of Content Marketing.”)

The key is not to make a comparison just because it’s weird or surprising. The goal, rather, should be to share a personal passion that genuinely informs your understanding of B2B.

Every so often, a personal enthusiasm turns out to shed enough light on a business topic to explore at length, as Brian Halligan and David Meerman Scott have done in their new book,  Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead. But for the most part, bloggers are not seriously recommending the study of downhill skiers or rappers for extended insights into B2B communications. Their aim is instead to connect with readers on a personal level.

On his We Grow Media blog, Dan Blank puts it this way:

I find that my best work comes from observing the world outside of the topic I write about. That is why so many of my posts use music as a metaphor, talk about history, or how personal experiences relate to the shifting role of publishing and media. Look to nature, look to other markets, listen to those who are wise, but outside of your industry.

Blank doesn’t explain how he identifies his “best” work. But I’d guess it’s less about the brilliance of his writing than the personal connections that result from his posts. In the end, that’s the goal of this tactic: the appeal is personal, not logical or empirical. Blank is an expert in B2B media, but would I read him as faithfully if I hadn’t come to feel I know and appreciate him on some personal level? Probably not.

There’s a risk, of course, in drawing comparisons between your personal passions and B2B issues. You may end up simply trivializing your topic as well as your passion. That’s exactly the risk Copyblogger runs in using so frequently the formula “What [insert pop culture topic here] can teach you about [insert B2B topic here].”

Invoking personal passions as a window into B2B can work well, but only if it remains genuinely personal. If it becomes routine or generic, it will just look gimmicky.