Tag Archives: writing

Five Steps to Better Blogging

Posted on by

There are too many Calvins on the internet!Let’s face it: You’re probably not a writer. You wanted to pound your head against the wall while composing high school essays. You don’t sit down and pour your heart out into your journal every night. You have no aspirations of selling your business and writing a novel.

Then again, being a small business owner means constantly adapting and learning new skills. Good writing is an essential component of your marketing strategy, especially in the online world where the written word is still the fastest, most accessible and affordable way of getting your message to your website visitors.

If you’ve already launched your corporate blog but are having trouble keeping your posts readable and interesting, read on to learn my five tips to improve your writing:

1.    Keep it short.

This is a point I’m still trying to master. In business blogs, I can usually hit the 500-word mark, but in my personal blog, I find it much easier to just let the word-spewing monster inside me run the show. Sometimes you have to do that. Your business blog, where you’re trying to quickly capture readers’ attention and then give them the main idea before they drift away, is not the place.
Moving on….

2.    Edit fearlessly.

A writing instructor once told me that the best way to improve an article or story is to go back and remove 50% of what I had written. This may be a little excessive, but it’s a good number to shoot for. Our human tendency is to keep our fingers moving even when our brain has stopped, and the result is usually a bunch of fluff between the real ideas in a given piece of writing. It’s okay to go ahead and write the fluff, just don’t be afraid to be brutal when editing.

Another writing adage I find helpful: If you can’t figure out a good way to say it, it doesn’t need to be said. After rephrasing a sentence ten times, you might want to step back and ask yourself, “Do I really need this sentence at all?” Usually, the answer will be no.

3.    A bigger word is not a better word.
Therefore, spare your readers’ sensibilities by utilizing your vocabulary judiciously. Really, though, you don’t need to sound smart. Let your expertise and your communication skills shine with prose that a fifth-grader could swallow. That doesn’t mean your concepts should be simple – just say it as directly as possible.

As you trash your dictionary, you might as well trash your thesaurus, too. There’s no reason to fish around for another word that means the same thing as the word you want to use. If a paragraph sounds awkward because you’re using the same word over and over again, condense your ideas.

4.    Be honest.

Clearly, on the internet or anywhere else, you should avoid fabricating information or stretching the truth. But in your blog, honesty means more than that. Readers can go to your main page to get a sense of what you’re selling or the service you offer. Your blog should be a place where they learn what it is about your business that makes it different. They want to read about your real experiences, not just statistics and numbers. In an environment where abstract information is almost unlimited, what your corporate blog should offer is a personal touch.

5.     Write to your audience.

If you’re having trouble getting started on a particular article or blog post, pretend you’re composing a letter to your best friend that happens to be about the subject at hand. Most of us find it impossible to begin an article if we have no idea what kind of context our readers need. The truth is, it’s impossible to know this. Assume an average level of knowledge (ask someone outside of your company if you really can’t get a perspective on this) and just start writing. Keep it conversational by putting yourself back into the letter mindset every few sentences.

If you’re a non-writer, the best way to learn is to just start doing it. Say what’s on your mind, whether it’s a new product idea, the top five misconceptions about your industry, or what you had for lunch yesterday. Before you publish it, try to read it from your audience’s perspective, or recruit an outsider with a critical eye. Finally, don’t forget to proofread and edit thoroughly. Happy writing!

Communicate With Style to Stay Afloat Online

Posted on by

The waters of the internet can be treacherous, so plan your journey carefully.So you’ve decided to push your corporate communications out into the shifting seas of the internet. Whether you’re going out in a rowboat of a Twitter feed or packing the hull of your schooner for a permanent blogging voyage, the most important thing is to do it with style.

There are already hundreds of boats on these waters. Your mastery of style will decide whether your online communications float or are consigned to a watery grave. In the words of the novelist Tom Robbins, “The mere presence of content is not enough… it is style that makes us care.”

The term “style” encompasses many ideas central to the writing craft – voice, personality, point of view and theme. Indeed, if you haven’t done much serious writing, creating online communications for your business could pose a challenge. It requires brevity, clarity and consistency. Then again, if your writing voice is already approachable and human, you’ll win yourself over with readers instantly. You also run the risk of hitting an iceburg.

Take, for example, this public relations blunder that landed in the email inboxes of every Netflix subscriber back in September 2011. Mine started like this:

“Dear Tuula,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation….”

Whoa. I suddenly felt like a jilted lover. My eyes leaped back to the “From” line. Yes, I’d read it correctly. This was from one Reed Hastings, Co-founder and CEO of Netflix – a person I’d never heard of before – and he seemed about to cry.

The letter went on for nearly two pages, explaining that the company had recently made this and that structural change, and why customers felt “we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced… price changes.” (Basically, they had unbundled features of their service, charged more for them separately, and informed users it was an improvement.) When the change was first announced, I’d flinched slightly how they’d phrased the price hike, but now this Hastings guy was making it worse.

Why did this email fail so badly? Timing and damage control blunders aside, the tone and style of this supposed heartfelt communication came way out of left field, bringing the company’s motives into question. My reaction was: Who this guy to write me a “personal” note, unless it was to tell me I’d received a year’s free subscription for being a great customer?

As friend Reed has undoubtedly learned, choosing the appropriate style to use when writing directly to an online audience is tricky. There’s a lot at stake. You want them to like you, but you don’t want them to feel like you’re trying too hard. It’s the same when sharing experience and expertise in your blog – you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about without coming across as a pompous so-and-so.

Luckily, there’s a simple answer to these style questions: Be honest, and be consistent. If all Netflix communication was made to look like it came from Reed Hastings personally, and written in that wide-eyed tone, we would find it odd at first but it would soon be part of a quirky brand image. (“Your movie has been shipped in that lovely red envelope! Get excited for Tuesday! xoxo – Reed”). Honesty, however, would have served Netflix better before it made the pricing changes.

As for your business, the standards are swiftly changing for how much you can expect customers to know about your inner workings. We live in a world of almost unlimited information. The most you can do is stay ahead of the curve and be the source your customers go to first for news about your company. Style can do a lot to signal to customers: Hey, we want you to know us better.

If style is captain of your vessel, voice is the first mate, carrying out the commands that style dictates. A strong, well-defined voice is the bridge between you, the writer, and your audience: It helps readers understand who you are, and it helps you engage them and keep them coming back for more. Your company’s blog may take a slightly different tone of voice than its privacy policy, its annual report, or its training manuals. The important thing is to know your style – that is, who you are as an organization and what your values are.

I call the internet a shifting sea when it comes to communications because the audience is huge but the territory is uncharted. It’s worth spending some time figuring out who you want to read your blog, Twitter feed, etc. If it’s for your employees to know what’s going on in the boss’s head, go ahead and type up some journal entries. Just remember that you can’t control whose eyes find those raw ideas. If you’re courting potential clients, you’ll polish it up a bit – but keep it human. A blog is not the place for sales copy. Successful posts will do well with all audiences, especially those that tell a story or bring some unique aspect of your business to light.

Authorship is another question to answer before you sit down to write (or assign someone to be your ghost writer). Whether the blog contributors are one or many will have a huge impact on style. Some blogs are written by a group of authors, like the official Google blog, which gleans contributions from Google’s entire staff. They manage to keep consistency in tone and style between all those authors, probably with a style guide much like a magazine would have.

Other blogs, like the one I write for Lost Creek Consulting, come from one author. The advantage here is not having to train more than one person in the writing style you choose, and it can be a bit more nuanced and fun. I just found a great blog written by a plastic surgeon who owns his own practice, with lots of great personal rants about things like cosmetic surgery reality shows and the FDA (really, it’s worth reading).

Style is all-embracing, and the more you blog (or Tweet or email), the better feel you’ll have for what fits and what doesn’t. The important thing is to make that original content shine, and don’t try to weigh it down with search terms or selling points. Your product or service will sell itself – and customers will find it! – once they realize that your business ethic is authentic and your organization is run by real people.

Test your style boat for leaks before sending off on its voyage. Have someone – an expert, perhaps – read over your words. Grammatical errors are never good; they create doubts in the reader’s mind about your overall commitment to your message. Ask your test reader to let you know at which point their mind, or mouse, wandered. Keeping your style highly engaging is extra important in the ultra-distracting online environment (That brings up a side note: Always have your links open in a new window or tab. That way your readers can go watch the kitten video, then be back on your blog when you’re done.)

Going online with your corporate communications will expose you to an infinite number of contacts, potential customers and collaborators. Your blog, email list or social media account can be a great asset or risk to your communications strategy, or it could just bob along without gaining much momentum. Success or failure depends on the style with which you guide your communications between the waves.

Content is Back: Why your business’ blog is more important than ever

Posted on by

Earliest known blog post.

Craigslist.org is one of my favorite things on the internet, and maybe in the world. Some people like it for the free couches and missed connections, and so do I, but I also find it useful as a social barometer. This morning, for example, as I skimmed the Portland “writing gigs” section, I saw two ads for underpaid “content mill” writers, and two ads for high-paying online literary rags seeking fiction and poetry.

For the first time in my life, I questioned my decision to follow the non-fiction writing path. Once upon a time, I tried writing for a content mill. I was lured in by the promise of decent payout for effortless work. A content mill is a business that recruits writers to produce SEO (high-keyword) content for less than a cent per word, then turn around and sell it to their clients, probably for much more. Their clients are usually advertisers who want to reach the top of the search rankings, even if it means misleading people to click on a link that has nothing to do with what they were looking for.

It didn’t take me long to realize that to earn any meaningful sum of money as a content monkey, I would have to pump out words at a rate that would make it impossible to put any real thought into what I was writing. In addition, I was contributing to the “fuzz” on the internet that just stands in the way of useful information.

So much for that. The literary life, on the other hand, has a standing reputation for being an underpaid one, and nobody’s trying to trick people into becoming the next Tolstoy. Besides, in this information age, one would think that literature would soon fall by the wayside. We see libraries and bookstores closing down, and kids seem more interested in computer games than adventure novels.

But the tables seem to be turning, thanks in part to the e-reader – Kindle, iPad and the like. Now, when you see someone’s eyes cast down to an electronic screen, it’s not a given that they’re checking Facebook or playing Angry Birds. People are starting to read again, and not just news articles and blogosphere rehashings. Among e-books, fiction still tops the best-seller lists, and literary magazines are gaining traction in the digital world as well. How else could The Rag, a Portland-based e-reader magazine, survive while paying out $150 per short story?

Maybe our obsession with information has finally reached its peak, and Homo digitalus is once again yearning for a little creativity with his morning coffee. For Christmas, I received a years’ subscription to the New Yorker. It’s one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given (no more reading outdated issues swiped from the doctor’s office!) The short story at the end is often the best story, and the most truthful.

I still prefer my reading material to function without battery power, but if others would rather read it onscreen, the New Yorker and many other magazines now have digital editions. Some, like The Rag, are digital-only, and if that’s what pays the bills, I’m all for it. The important part is, literature is back. Real content – not advertiser-dictated content – is back.

What does this mean for companies that want to honestly improve their search rankings by using relevant content? It means they’re making a smart move. Say a do-it-yourself plumber Googles “how to fix leaky bathtub faucet”. The local plumbing company, Burt’s, just so happens to have a blog with a post about how to stop the drip-drip-drip in the night. The DIY-er reads it, fixes it, and remembers Burt’s Plumbing. Six months later, when her kid flushes Mr. Potato Head down the toilet, who’s she going to call? The experts she trusts, of course.

Now, if this person had stumbled upon the E-how.com article, she might still have fixed her tub, but she wouldn’t have connected the experience to anyone she knows. Even if Burt’s had an ad on that site, she would have probably ignored it. On a good corporate blog, on the other hand, the content isn’t there to attract eyes to the ads. The content is, in a sense, the advertisement, but it’s much more than that. It’s a return to why humans invented the written word in the first place – to share information and experiences with each other.

Search Google for "Plumber", and local results appear automatically.

Search engines are becoming smarter all the time, incorporating user feedback and other tools to filter out more of the “fuzzy” content. Google now prioritizes local business listings, meaning that small businesses have a better chance of reaching those who need their services. Keywords still matter, though, and while more is not always better, you do need some for the search engines to recognize you. Posting well written and useful content to your blog is the perfect way to do it.

If they’re craigslist fiends like me, hopefully all the writers in Portland are getting off the content mills today and trying their hand at a little fiction. As for me, I’ll be in my office, working more literary devices into my blog posts.