writing

In the world of social media you can’t automate engagement.

by

social engagement conversationIf you want to understand how social media works, have a look at how you use it in your personal life.

You use it to keep in touch, let people know what’s happening in your life, and keep up with what’s happening in their lives.

It’s like an always-on, totally connected, interactive, multimedia round-robin letter. Best of all, the totality of content created by individuals on social media is comprised not of the original updates, tweets and posts created, but of the feedback and interaction that follows. Write 5 lines of family news and within a few hours you’ll have 20 lines of comments and feedback.

Now look at how companies and organizations use it.

Read the full post…

The geeks have done their part for social media. Now it’s time for the writers.

by

social media writing toolboxWhat do I mean by this?

Let me explain with a story from 1998.That was the year I began to work full-time as an online writer and copywriter.

By that time hundreds of thousands of companies had already launched websites. Generally, they looked reasonably good and worked reasonably well. But the writing was not so good. What many of them did was simply cut and paste text from their old print materials.

They didn’t understand that writing for the web was different. And that was the message I shared with my audience and my clients.

The developers and designers had done their part. But to make websites achieve their potential, these companies needed good writers who understood the medium.

Read the full post…

When to use your copywriting skills, and when not to.

by

copywriter as magicianI receive a lot of email from all kinds of people, including freelance copywriters.

Some are saying hi, some are asking questions, and some want me to do something.

I have no problem receiving the emails. I like to keep in touch with other writers. But I do have a tip for anyone writing to me by email.

When you send me an email, don’t “copywrite” at me.

In other words, don’t use your copywriting skills to try to persuade me to read something or do something.

Strange as it might seem, I can recognize when I’m being “copywritten” at from 50 paces. And I can hit that delete button in about 50 microseconds.

Why is it wrong to use your copywriting skills when writing to an individual by email? Because the context is wrong.

Read the full post…

Web writers: For every great performance, you need to rehearse.

by

web writing practiceWhen you watch a live performance of your favorite play in a theater, you are looking at a performance that has been preceded by weeks or months of rehearsals.

And those rehearsals take place without costumes, without scenery and without the pressure of an audience watching.

The rehearsals allow the actors to get things right, outside of the public eye. There are fewer constraints. There are no downsides to making mistakes, missing lines, and so on. No pressure.

OK. Now let’s consider how we go about writing interior pages on websites.

As an example, let’s assume we are working on the rewrite of an insurance company website. The company offers home insurance, auto insurance, commercial insurance and farm insurance. Each of these areas has an interior page of its own.

Read the full post…

Freelancers: It’s not about what you know, it’s about the message you share.

by

I coach a lot of freelancers, many of them just starting out.

More often than not they are concerned about their level of knowledge, or perceived lack thereof.

In other words, they don’t feel ready to approach prospective prospects, because they feel they need to learn more about their craft first.

“I need to learn more about SEO, and writing emails, and social media, and A/B split testing.”

No, you don’t.

Your value in the eyes of your prospects is not tied to the sum of your knowledge, it is tied to the power of the message you share and the story you tell.

Let me use myself as an example.

Read the full post…

4 Bad habits to avoid when writing web content.

by

web content bad habitsSince the arrival of Google’s Panda update in February of last year content writers have been working hard to do the right thing, and either avoid being mauled by the Panda, or the mend the damage already done.

However, to be sure you doing things right, you not only have to follow best content practices, but also need to avoid some of the bad habits it’s so easy to slip into.

Here are four of those habits.

Bad Habit #1: Making it just good enough

As web content writers we are often under pressure to get more work done, faster. This means we often end up writing just enough text for a page, with a quality that is just good enough.

Read the full post…