Blog Your Way to a Footloose and Fancy-Free Flashdance

I’ve no idea what my dearly beloved’s blood alcohol level needs to reach before she hits social critical mass, but she always manages to reach it.

Never in our illustrious history of being together have we ever been to a bar and she not turn into the evening’s social conduit. She’s not one of those types who’s embarrassing, just super social. The only problem is that she always manages to pick on those whose madness borders on the clinical.

Saturday night saw us in Columbus and visiting some biker bar sans bikers. The band were some hideous 80’s throwbacks – not only tune-wise, but also style-wise.

Think Kenny Loggins. Think Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club. Think Kevin Bacon in Footloose.

Ooh….I’ve gotta cut loose – footloose-ah

It didn’t take Steph too long to hone in on some guy with a lazy eye and his wife both in that stage of their lives that had seen too many Saturday nights together in dubious bars. They only had each other, and, as much as Bon Jovi might profess to that being enough for love, it obviously wasn’t for these two. I couldn’t personally work out whether the husband was staring longingly into space or at his wife due to the one eye having a life all of its own, but they seemed to be both enjoying Steph’s company.

On my way back from a smoke break, Steph decided to introduce me. And that’s when the night took a slightly dubious turn. Although, it had been promising to go off the rails after being talked into sampling Jimmy Buffet’s new beer – Landshark – that possibly ranked up there alongside the most taste-neutral of American brews.

It also happened to have one of the greatest marketing slogans ever: “Let the fin begin!”

We only had the one.

Unbeknownst to me, due to the fact that I was getting a taste for the Jaegermeister, the early fifties ginger lunatic woman who Steph was now hugging was letting Steph know that she’d developed a bit of a glad-eye for yours truly. I had no idea about this when she trolled over and starting blabbering inanely. Thankfully I’ve never had a thing for women of a certain age, and I’ve certainly never had a thing for ginger ex-hippies of a certain age.

Steph knew what she’d unleashed. You see, there’s a small but committed niche of the fairer (and I dare say unfairer) sex that go ga-ga over my accent. I know this power has to be wielded wisely. Especially at 2am on a Sunday morning. Sober, nobody has the faintest clue what I’m rattling on about, and drunk nobody cares what I’m rattling on about so long as I keep on rattling. It’s like I’m the British Barry White.

I’ve learned I can say whatever I want and they honestly haven’t got a clue. It causes me a great deal of enjoyment to tell certain people that I train dolphins in my bathtub and teach them to speak French.

But, I must’ve over played my hand a bit on Saturday as the next thing you know the conversation took a somewhat savage turn.

Ginger: “I’m into nature.”
Me: “Oh?”
Ginger: “Yes, I’m a naturist.”
Me: “Really?”
Ginger: “Well more of a nudist really. I like to get nude.”

And at that point she attempted to take her top off in the middle of the bar just as the band started up with the Top Gun classic Danger Zone (song names may have been changed for blogging dramatic effect).

As she wrestled drunkenly with both a tight leather jacket and her sweater, I said I was off outside for a smoke and left her imitating Harry Houdini. Steph and her friends had been watching all along and were quite amused.

Web copy doesn’t always afford you the opportunity to be as parochial, colloquial, or as nuanced as you might think or indeed like. You’re expected to speak relatively formally and informatively. But, just as a good salesman might with a client, there’s plenty of room to mix informal chatter with the brass tack facts.

And that’s one of the things blogs allow you to throw into the mix. They allow you to be more personable and less stuffy than your average site. They allow you to be charming, witty, funny and all those other things that you’d think of when you make a great connection with somebody.

Your blogging voice isn’t quite on a par as having a blogging accent as the voice requires more substance than just sounding alright. Also, if you just wanted people to like your real voice you’d start a podcast. However, should your blogging voice strike the right chord with a select group of individuals, customers or readers, you can guarantee they’ll be eager to get naked for you.

After all, a good blogging voice is all about getting naked for your customers. Go ahead…check out the rest of our digital marketing blog for some further examples!