Have you ever had problems explaining an abstract concept to someone in your business or personal life?

Perhaps you were attempting to sell an intangible product or explaining a technique for achieving a personal goal. To your dismay, the person receiving the information was just not getting the point somehow. The explanation you provided made no sense to them.

Enter the analogy.

You have heard of analogies, right? They are a way of comparing an unfamiliar abstract idea with an already known mental image. It’s like painting a picture in the listener’s mind. That’s of course an analogy too, as you may have guessed. I happen to like making analogies; and for more reasons than just explanations.

Analogies are very important in sales and marketing situations. The item or service being offered to the prospect may not fit into their existing knowledge base. The product or service might be entirely new to them. As such, the prospect needs a familiar frame of reference, from which to make the final buying decision.

Let’s take a real life situation.

This morning, I was discussing SEO with a client who was somewhat new to search engines and search engine optimization. Instead of discussing abstract and completely unfamiliar terms such as title tags, keyword phrases, and alt attributes, to name only a few, I used an analogy.

I described SEO as moving furniture into an empty house. The vacant home represented the website as it exists now. Unloaded into the house is the moving van full of furniture and other household items. As with moving house, the heavy lifting has to be completed before you can do anything else. Once the furniture is in the new premises, then curtains, fancy bedspreads, and fine china and silverware can be added. The initial placement is good, but you think that you can make the home even nicer with some changes.

Of course, after examining the results, it’s decided that the sofa would be better suited to another wall, and the kitchen table would be best on the other side of the room. After a number of changes in layout and additions, the final result is much better than before. So too with SEO. As with setting up your home in the best possible manner, SEO takes some experimentation and testing as well.

Sales and marketing aren’t the only way that analogies can be used to aid your business success. Making connections, between seemingly unrelated things, helps to find creative solutions to everyday and long term business problems as well.

What the utilization of analogies and comparisons does is to change the frame of reference and to force thinking in new and interesting ways. If a person is only thinking of the problem in its own terms, the number of possible solutions is very limited. By making analogies, and forced comparisons, the opportunities for new and creative solutions is multiplied many times over.

Use some analogies in your business and everyday life. Not only will your potential and current customers and clients understand your products and services better, so will you. By making comparisons and connections between your business and another known framework, the possibilities for creative thought and ideas increase exponentially.

Let an analogy go to work for you and your business today.

Blog posting errors are rarely discussed in blogging circles. They are a bit of a dirty little secret, you might say.

You know the errors that creep into your blog posts. We all make them at one time or another. Minor blog posting mistakes may be spelling errors; incorrect or misleading photographs; wrong names of people or blogs; links that are missing, don’t work, or go to the wrong blog; or simply neglected pings.

More important blog post problems involve knowingly posting incorrect information; predictions or opinions that turned out differently than claimed or expected; failure to cite and link references to blogs or static websites; or claiming someone else’s ideas as your own in the form of plagiarism. These, of course, are only a few examples of the errors that can creep into your blog postings.

The question then arises as to what to do about the mistake. The all too obvious answer is to return to the problematic post and change history. Sometimes correcting a blog error is acceptable, and even the proper thing to do. For example, any non-working or misdirected links can and should be repaired as a service to the linked blog. If an intended link was overlooked, and missed in the posting, it’s good to return to the post and create the missed link. The cited blogger’s traffic and SEO linking benefits shouldn’t be reduced because someone messed up a link to their blog.

Spelling errors are the source of some controversy among bloggers. While some bloggers believe that spelling errors and typos should be left intact, I see no problem with going back and fixing those proofreading problems. This is especially important if the typo is a misspelling of someone’s name. There is one provision on this recommendation, however. Only the typo can be corrected. No other changes can be made to the post that might change its meaning or intention.

For more serious errors, including incorrect information, the original post must not be altered to change history. Instead, the blogger has a two choices. One option is to make the correction, apology, or retraction in the blog comments section for that post. A second option is to write another post that retracts, corrects, or apologizes for the previous error. The new post should, however, quote the problem area of the previous post, and also link back to the previous post. The link back to the old post is essential.

Posting without crediting sources, or claiming their work as your own, is not acceptable blogging practice. While some would argue that “other bloggers do it”, that is no excuse. Maintaining good blogging technique helps everyone in the blogging community. If bloggers want their writing to receive respect, then proper”>http://www.penmachine.com/techie/corp_weblog_manifesto.html”>proper credit must be given to others. Linking to, and properly citing your sources, is simply good blogging practice. It should be practiced by everyone.

In most cases of blog posting errors, common sense will dictate the proper course of action. If fixing a post or link helps another blogger, then it’s an acceptable blogging practice.

The best idea, of course, is to always proofread your posts before clicking the Publish button.

Not making the error in the first place means it doesn’t have to be corrected.

 

Blogging events are appearing everywhere. As a result, more and more information is being exchanged about the power of business, marketing, public relations, and SEO blogs than ever before. The only problem is attending all of the functions. Not all bloggers have the necessary funds to share in the knowledge available.

Because of money shortages, many bloggers simply don’t go to any or all of the blogging conferences they might enjoy. Instead of mentioning their financial situations, the cash strapped blogger quietly avoids the issue, and stays at home. As a result, more people than the non-attending blogger are the losers.

The bloggers who elect to remain silent about their financial status miss an opportunity to learn more about the strength of blogging. Ideas that the stay at home bloggers possess about starting, building, and enhancing an online business are not shared with others. Everyone loses as some golden information sharing opportunites are lost.

Not only are ideas not shared with everyone, none are returned. After all, blogging concepts are more than a two way street. They are a multi-lane…yes…I know, I’ll say it…superhighway. Instead of free flowing traffic, there are only a few vehicles on the road. Many new entrants are left on the shoulders.

are lost chances to meet and network with peers. Other blog owners are your peers, and also potential business partners, customers, or vendors. Contacts lost by the few are boundless possibilities lost to the entire entire economy. We’re talking big picture stuff here.

Let’s not let any opportunites pass any bloggers left in the slow lane. Instead, share the wealth and sponsor a blogger to a blogging conference.

Find out which bloggers should be attending a blogging event, and offer to sponsor their trip in some way. Airline, train, or bus tickets are helpful for transportation to and from the event. Perhaps, you are driving to the conference. An extra blogging passenger, and incidently spare driver, could make for some pleasant company, and a much more enjoyable journey.

At the event city itself, offering a room or couch to a blogger eases the financial burden of paid accomodation. Sharing a home cooked meal with a hungry blogger can cement a friendship for life.

Businesses can get into the sponsorship act as well. In return for services such as transportation, food, and lodging, a blogger can offer some prominent advertising space on the blog. A mention in posts before, during, and after the event is powerful public relations for the company. If the business also has a business blog (as they should), their bloggers can mention the blogger sponsorship and the event as well.

How about a Sponsor A Blogger campaign, complete with clickable link buttons and a blog. The sponsor and the blogger would become an instant partnership, and share it with the world. Potential business relationships are even likely to follow.

As you can see, the possibilities are limited only by everyone’s imaginations.

Speak out if you want a sponsorship to an event. Potential sponsors should seek out bloggers who have something unique to offer.

Everyone wins in the end.