The Indianapolis social media community is filled with talented writers and bloggers, so every now and then it is fun to do a swap.   Today, Rhoda Israelov is the featured writer here on Business Notes from Roundpeg, and tomorrow, you will be able to find my post on her blog.

“With whom do consumers want to do business?”  Market research overwhelmingly demonstrates the answer, says Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott – “With people like me”.

As a blog content writer offering business blogging assistance to business owners, therefore, my task is clear: On behalf of each business client, it’s to create content to demonstrate to online readers that the company consists of people like them.  That means the people at the business understand and share their customers’ needs and concerns. In other words, the blog content must say to readers, “we’re coming from the same place as you are.”

When friend and fellow blogger Lorraine Ball asked me to share ideas on how I do blog research, I thought of my work at Ivy Tech Community College, where I tutor students, helping them research, organize, and compose their college papers.

How do you conduct blog research

I realized that, while the same basic rules of good writing apply to blog posts as to college essays, the word “research” takes on a much broader meaning when it comes to blogging.

A business marketing blog is much more informal and conversational in tone, of course, than a college research paper, and it’s designed to lead to action on the part of readers.

As a professional ghost blogger, handling a wide variety of topics, I find I can’t rely solely on Google searches any more than I can rely solely on libraries (online or otherwise).  Instead, I pick up ideas from everywhere and everything to keep business blogs full of fresh interesting ideas. An interesting tidbit of information or an interesting similarity or contrast might come from a billboard, a magazine, a comic strip, a song, an inscription, a license plate, a talk show guest’s remark, or a newspaper item. I call it “learning around” for your blog.  If there’s an especially complex or fascinating topic, I might follow the “thread” by doing more serious and traditional “digging” for information..

Some simple rules worth following when it comes to “learning around” for business blogging:

• Always attribute information to the proper source (that part is like college!)
• Use tidbits of information only when you believe that will help the target audience better understand and relate to your subject or better appreciate the unique slant your business has that makes you different from your competitors.

• If you’ve gone off on a pleasant tangent, offering fascinating background information, always come back to your main theme and explain why the information is relative to you and to people just like you.

• Check your facts and statistics, using the most credible resources you can find. If you’re writing about your own experience or methods in business, obviously you can be the authority.  Otherwise, it’s helpful to imagine a reader asking “Sez who?”

As a blog content writer, I’m learning about many different businesses. But what if you’re a business owner composing your own corporate blog posts about what you have to sell, what you know how to do, and why you still love doing it?  How can you keep your own “learning around” excitement going? Just remember your readers – you know, those people just like you? Sure they can find a bunch of new, interesting, and even significant information on their own.

Ah, but here’s the thing: Only someone like you can help them make sense out of it all!