Watch What You're Saying -- It Impacts Your Company's Image

I have had the pleasure of working on two entertaining books - Smash and Vanity Circus. I've also talked to other comedic writers. For a while, I did nothing but comedic writing for my blog, but then I shifted a bit toward a lot of information-based marketing. If you don't know what is information-based marketing, it's definitely worth exploring. What I found is that you have to sprinkle the humor lightly when relevant but stick to more serious information on the whole. How did I make such a discovery? Well, I watch my analytics. I had what I'll call Blog 1.0 out there. And after about a year, I noticed the blog stats crashed a bit from 600 average page views down to between 100-200. I found this drop slightly alarming. In the blog 2.0, I began different tactics, mixing up the fun with the valuable content, and then I watched another shift where the stats exploded -- and in one day they jumped up over 80%. What is the lesson? Well, you can sprinkle a little fun here and there; but your entire blog cannot be about your last pizza-eating contest or your contemplative thoughts on the squirrels playing in your backyard ... oh, and maybe toss in something a tiny bit relevant here and there.

Also, there is a fine line between funny and just plain snarky and negative. I'm aware of this one blog where the person openly bashes clients. I can only imagine that the bashed and bruised clients won't have many warm-and-fuzzy feelings about the company. Nasty or snarky or sneering blogs do not attract anything but looky-loos who want to watch the train wreck. So, be careful if you do write humorous blogs to be sure to pack them with valuable information, and if you think nasty sarcasm builds word of mouth or you want to openly bash your customers, maybe that is not good for business. And believe me when I say, everything you put out there defines your company and impacts your image. Word of mouth is powerful! More powerful then any other form of advertising. Positive word of mouth builds business. Just this week alone we had 3-4 new client queries just from word of mouth or reaction to our website, blog and Facebook posts all integrated together. Had I spend my time ranting and raving about my distaste for my customers, it would have had the reverse impact. I know for a fact a newly won client came over after reading a blog I wrote on memoir writing. Can you imagine what she would have felt had I written what a pain in the ass some memoir writers are, and how I can't stand them. How might that have come off? Would she have called me? Probably not. I'm just sayin'.