The Day I Decided to Snog the Blog: Wholeheartedly and Without Reservation- by Amber Beren

The medium of a highly personal form of media known as the blog is one in which individuals—corporate, artists, small businesses, freelancers, gurus, conspiracy theorists, and philosophers alike—all work together (or alone) in order to create a space for information dissemination on the ever expanding, quasi-labyrinthine medium known as the internet. This sharing of ideas, merchandise, nuggets of wisdom, and pearls of truth (see big “t”, little “t” argument here) all congregate in order to create a discourse of pansophic understanding concerning any particular number of niche topics.

Bloggers write on any number of things, but some of the most popular topics include: politics, technology, celebrity gossip, fashion, self-help, motherhood, and surprisingly—yes I would posit surprisingly—feminism/alternative female lifestyles (2008’s top 50 most powerful blogs). This got me to thinking, as a soon to be graduating English major with—as some would say—moderate delusions of grandiosity, couldn’t there be a realm of writing that wouldn’t lead me directly into the respectable, bookish, not-so-horrible-but-I-have-way-too-many-creative-ideas-to-just-settle-with-a-way-of-making-money career field?

Shakespeare and the Brand: Why English Majors Understand the Psychology of Branding

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven is thick inlaid with patens of bright gold. There’s not the smallest orb which though beholdst, but in his motion like an angel sings, still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims; such harmony is in immortal souls, but whilst this muddy vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

—Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice, Act V, Scene 1 

T

he way you say something makes a difference in how your message is received. Consider Lorenzo’s words in The Merchant of Venice. He could have said, “Hey Jessie, the stars are hella bright. Check out Mars moving backward.” (That is, if Mars was currently in retrograde motion.) But instead he calls them “patens of bright gold,” and threw in music and angels for good measure. Much classier. I’m sure his words gave Jessica pause, and made her think about just what kind of a man she had lying beside her on that grassy knoll. Or perhaps she went straight on to swooning, with no time for thought. Regardless of which effect his words had, the fact remains that the way Lorenzo tells her to look at the stars influences how Jessica hears him. 

So, what does Shakespeare have to do with the psychology of branding, you ask? All this beautiful speech has got me confused. Relax, I reply. I’m going to explain.

Content Providers

Content Providers work to provide businesses with information in the form of text and graphics.  People hire Content Providers to enhance the professional look and appeal of their websites and print materials.  Often times, organizations feel that they can get by without hiring someone to provide them will quality information.  Usually, these people fall back on their own inferior skill in order to create this content, which sometimes falls short of professional quality.  It is generally the stubbornness of business owners that lead to websites having poor written content, documents having a second-rate look, and manuals looking like an uneducated individual assembled them.  It is for this reason that a Content Provider's job is very important to the business world.  In that same token, a Content Provider's job is recession proof (in theory) for as long as there are businesses and organizations in need of good content to provide to the masses, there will be a need for someone to create it.

Generally, a Content Provider's job involves research and an ability to learn quickly.  More often that not, the content being provided is something that the Content Provider isn’t familiar with or well versed in.  For this reason, a Content Provider must be able to think quickly on their feet.  They must be able to quickly adapt to each new job, which will require them to invest their time and energy in a subject or area that they may not know much about.  In most cases, the information is provided to them by the business or organization that employs them and they are expected to assemble that information into a coherent whole.  The ideal Content Providers are also Technical Writers and they are able to amalgamate their writing and common sense skills to form slick, concise, succinct information for the business world.