Be Productive While Having a Beer (or Two)

Five o’clock on Friday afternoon, it’s been a good day. Most of the items on your daily to-do list have been crossed out. However, you’re getting your usual late afternoon second (or third?) wind. Your brain is still clicking. You could put in a few more hours of work.

Then a thought rears up in your mind, or is it a little devil on the shoulder? Wouldn’t a glass of beer or wine taste good right about now? Yes, it would. It would be especially good with that pimento cheese in the refrigerator. What to do, what to do…

The beauty of a home office, the refrigerator is just steps away. But now you’re torn: stop working (it is the weekend after all) or relax with your favorite refreshing brew while getting a bit more done.

You can have it all. There are plenty of productive tasks you can do while enjoying a beverage. Or two.

Thank you cards. You send thank you cards, don’t you? No, it’s not passé. Take a sip and shop online for handmade cards. Etsy’s a good place to start.

Addresses. Save time later by hunting down the addresses you’ll need for those thank you cards. But don’t write the cards. No no no. No permanent writing is allowed right now.

Read. Expand your mind by reading blogs and websites outside your niche. If you’re a blogger, jot down post ideas. Take notes. Doodle. Get inspired. Make connections between random ideas.

Listen. Listen to podcasts. I like catching up on NPR shows I’ve missed, like Fresh Air or This American Life. What do you like?

Tidy up. While you’re listening to the podcast, clean and organize your desk. Clutter has such bad juju. Clean your dusty computer screen and crumby keyboard. But move your beer first. A tipped over beverage can lead to a short-circuited keyboard. It’s not important why I know this. While you’re at it, does the floor need a sweep?

Organize. Start your to-do list for next week. Jot down some of your big ideas for the future.

Tweet. Twitter’s great for conversation and random reading. Find an interesting hashtag to search and read. But please, no drunk tweeting. Stop after two beers. You’ll thank me later.

Emails. If you really want to be productive, draft emails you need to send, but don’t enter the email address into the To field and don’t even think about sending them.

Inbox. Power through your inbox. Delete the crap. Skim or read the newsletters. Mark things to read later.

Play. Exercise your creative muscle. Write in your journal. Make a visionboard (oops, I just lost half the crowd). Or do whatever creative hobby you practice.

Draft. Draft articles, reports, letters or blog posts about productive things you can do while having a beer with pimento cheese and crackers. Edit and publish later.

What productive work-related things do you do while you’re enjoying a beverage?

Personal Creativity Tips from Disney

I used to silently wish I was creative. I assumed I wasn’t. Creative was for other people, not me. Silly girl. Where was Walt Disney when I needed him?

Gert Garman, Global Creative Development Manager for Disney, visited my local Triangle chapter of the American Marketing Association last week to share Disney’s secrets to innovation. At Disney the prevailing philosophy is “everyone’s creative.” They believe their ability to tap into that creativity is their competitive advantage.

It took me a long time to come to the same conclusion, but I finally wised up. Yes, I’m creative. Heck, I make my living as a writer; I’m at least somewhat creative. But if you had asked me whether I’d be writing for a living five years ago, I’d say, oh no, that’s not practical, I’m not that creative. Here’s the truth: we’re all creative; some people just tap into and leverage their creativity better than others. I’m still working on that.

I’ve been thinking about creativity a lot because it’s ASAE’s Innovation Talks Week in the association management world. I’ve written two blog posts recently for one of my clients, Avectra, about Innovation Week and Disney’s secrets to a creative and innovative culture. Enough with organizations, now it’s time to delve into personal creativity.

Shall we play a game?

Most of us were conditioned by our education, parents or society to tone down our creative bent. Art and music, although recognized as important for our development, weren’t serious subjects. You had to do things “just so” or “according to procedure.” You tried to fit in and, sadly, not fly your freak flag. Maybe that’s why I became a restaurant manager after college. Although I had to comply with budgets, corporate procedures and regulations, I could also express my whole self more than I probably could have in other environments.

Play, games and exercise help get the mind’s juices flowing. Someone recently told me they have a dartboard in their office; when they’re stuck, they start playing and soon their mind is churning. No wonder start-up companies make a big deal about game rooms and exercise facilities – it works! When will the rest of America figure that out?

Creative space

Gert also suggested we create an area to brainstorm and capture our ideas. Many of my friends swear by their whiteboards. Several ASAE staff painted their walls with IdeaPaint.

Did you ever notice that the offices and cubicles of graphic designers are always full of personal, beautiful and interesting items? My offices at work were always spartan. Now I surround myself with things I like to look at that make me feel good, including a dog and cat for playtime.

Don’t forget music. I like listening to a mix of music, familiar but mostly unfamiliar, so I usually tune into the local college station or listen to the jazz or classical stations if the college station isn’t doing it for me.

Disney tips to creativity

Here’s a list of tips from Gert that will help release your inner Creative.

  • Dedicated idea notebook

Capture ideas as they occur. Keep notepads on your desk, in your purse, next to your bed and in your car. Use the recorder on your cell phone. Gert even writes on shower walls with an erasable marker.

  • Thinking that makes sense

Our senses wake up our brain, so go out and literally smell the roses. Listen, really listen to the sounds around you. Look at textures. Touch stuff. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, tells her readers to go on Artist Dates, weekly solo field trips where for a few hours you explore and feed your senses.

  • Take risks

Fail forward so you can learn and grow. Stretch your comfort zone. Don’t listen to nay-sayers. Disney was told many times he’d fail.

  • Reward yourself

Finish the draft, have a beer or a piece of expensive cheese, whatever rocks you. And if you manage others, recognize and reward their creative efforts too.

  • Ha Ha to A-Ha!

Play, laugh, be silly and let go.

  • Ask questions

Gert’s favorite is to ask “why” three times. I can imagine doing this in an office where “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is the knee-jerk answer. The first and second answers to “Why?” are usually the lame party line. By the third you’ll start getting to the real truth.

  • Bend the rules

Ask for forgiveness later. I’ve always liked the stealth approach to innovation. Good luck with that!

  • Network and collaborate

This might be my favorite. Surround yourself with a diverse selection of people who have different perspectives and lives than you. Become more interesting because of the people around you. The more diversity around you, the richer your life will be.

I’d add one more: read widely. Look for random interesting well-written blogs to add to your Reader, or smart people from different professions to add to your Twitter follows. If you want to learn more about “fully owning our innate creative spirit again,” then you must read Patti Digh’s Creative is a Verb: If You’re Alive You’re Creative. It’s a beautifully illustrated book full of thoughtful prose, poems, quotes and exercises.

Now go on out there and dance this mess around!

The Most Interesting Brand Spokesman in the World

Every time The Most Interesting Man in the World advertisements for Dos Equis beer come on TV, we stop talking mid-sentence and listen. We can’t get enough of him. We love that guy.

Everyone loves that guy. Since Dos Equis first introduced the campaign, their U.S. sales have increased 22%, while other imported beer sales fell 4%. The Dos Equis Facebook page has 1.6 million fans. I’m telling you, it’s the Man.

Dos Equis is going after the same market as all the other gargantuan domestic and imported beer brands: young guys. Not me and not the middle-aged guy watching TV with me. So why are we so captivated?

The commercial’s unexpected sophistication and wit gets our attention. Its smooth music and vintage video clips and photos add a hip yet classic feel, distinguishing the campaign from the other frat-boy brands.

And there’s the Man himself. I may not want a relationship with him, but I’d sure like to spend an afternoon on his boat followed by dinner and dancing. Come on ladies, you know that’s true.

What young guy wouldn’t aspire to be like him? He has what they want: a life full of experiences that sets him apart from other men. The Man is a great example of aspirational marketing.

Good stories capture our imagination by making an emotional connection. In the Most Interesting Man in the Word campaign we meet a worldly character with an air of mystery and authority, sort of an Ernest Hemingway meets Sean Connery. We get a peek at his jet-setting life of adventure and are teased with just enough to make us want to know the rest of his story.

As if the fictional Man wasn’t interesting enough, the actor who plays him, Jonathan Goldsmith, has also led an autobiography worthy life: “rescuing a stranded climber on Mt. Whitney, saving a drowning girl in Malibu, sailing the high seas with his friend Fernando Lamas.”

The witty commentary accompanying the Man’s exploits takes Chuck Norris-isms to a more cosmopolitan level:

  • “Running in place will never get you the same results as running from a lion.”
  • “At museums he is allowed to touch the art.”
  • “The police often question him, just because they find him interesting.”
  • My favorite, on manscaping: “I have no idea what this is.”

The Man’s parting line is recitable: “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, my friends.” Many viewers think, “Hey, I don’t always drink beer either, I should give Dos Equis a try.” Brilliant.

The money question: do the ads compel the viewer to take action? The sales figures say yes, and I also have personal proof. Someone I know, not a young guy (sorry, honey), occasionally strays from his usual brand and brings home a six-pack of Dos Equis.

Get to Know Your Customer: An Alternative to Vulcan Mind Melds

I get my ideas for articles and blog posts by thinking about readers. Yes, you, you’re always in my thoughts. I think about how I can help you solve a problem or make your job (or life) a little bit easier. Or I aim to share something interesting and valuable.

When I begin work on a copywriting project, I also think about the ultimate readers — my client’s customers, prospects or members. I can’t communicate effectively to them unless I first get to know them. If only I had Vulcan mind meld skills, this part of my job would be a lot easier. Instead I rely on consultation with my client and lots of research and reading.

Studying customers is only the beginning, but let’s stop there for a moment. What if you’re on your own without a marketing vice president or a freelance writer, what do you do? Like me, you must completely understand your customers before you can determine how best to communicate with them.

I’ll share with you some of the questions I usually have; perhaps they’ll help you create a list of your own.

First, create a descriptive profile for each type of customer (or member) you serve. Heck, give each one a name too. If your customers are businesses, the profile will include characteristics that a consumer profile wouldn’t, and vice versa. Here are some suggestions to start, but you’ll end up with others specific to your business:

  • Location
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Employment status
  • Marital or family status
  • Interests and hobbies
  • Lifestyle
  • Purchasing history
  • Memberships
  • Career stage
  • Position in organization
  • Role in purchasing process
  • Place in conversion process
  • Educational background
  • Comfort with technology

The most interesting part of customer research comes next – the big meaty questions. Again, these will vary depending on your business. Since I usually work in the business-to-business sector, my questions have that slant.

  • What are your customer’s biggest problems at work?
  • What keeps her up at night worrying and stressing?
  • What does she fear?
  • What annoys her? What frustrates her?
  • What would make her life and job much easier?
  • What does she yearn for?
  • Why does she have these problems? Why aren’t these problems solved yet? What are the obstacles to solving them?
  • How do prospects like her usually find you?
  • What type of questions do your prospects and customers frequently ask your sales, social media and customer service staff?
  • What do they search for on your website? What search terms bring them there?
  • What hurdles (mental or real) prevent them from taking the next conversion step?

Spend some time where your customers hang out – blogs, forums, Twitter chats, face-to-face meetings, radio shows or podcasts – so you can get a sense of the language they use and their industry’s or profession’s culture.

The whole point of this exercise is to get into your customer’s mind to understand their perspective and needs, so you can connect their desires or worries to a solution you provide.

There are many more questions I must answer before I start writing, but that will be a topic for another post.

A Day at the Tour: Social Media Failure, Outrage & Frustration

If you’re one of my Facebook or Twitter friends, you know I love the Tour de France. You probably also noticed how angry I am about ESPN’s Michael Smith laughing online and during his show, Around the Horn, about two cyclists being hit hard by a car on Sunday during stage 9 of the Tour. You can see how hard in the video shown on Dutch TV. No Dutch is required to know what the commentators are saying.

My friend Danielle Hatfield noticed my anger. She also recognized Smith’s behavior as a social media failure for ESPN. Michael Smith tweets as an ESPN reporter. Whether he knows it or not, he represents ESPN online. Danielle’s post, ESPN: When Your Brand Representatives Become a Liability, dives into this further.

How it all began

Here are the tweets Smith sent out to the world on Monday. They have been deleted from his Twitter account. My earlier screen captures can be seen on Danielle’s blog:

  • “For real, am I wrong for laughing at that Tour de France crash? Can’t get over the driver speeding off as if he didn’t know he hit someone!”
  • “I’m sorry that crash is hilarious. Every. Time.”
  • “It had been far too long since I’d angered an entire community. Today I’ve managed offend cyclists everywhere. Guess what? It’s still funny.”

That is how a man with 95,713 followers on Twitter replies publicly when he sees a car at high speed hitting two cyclists, one of whom, Johnny Hoogerland, flew through the air, landed in a barb wire fence and got 33 stitches later that night.

Eben Oliver Weiss at Bicycling magazine summed up the situation: “The true courageous athletes are picking themselves up off the pavement after hitting the road at 25 to 35 miles per hour and finishing a 140 mile ride. Not for high paying endorsements or lucrative contracts, but a true love of a sport and the desire to be there for their team mates.”

Why oh why

You’d think ESPN would love those kinds of heroics. How could Smith be so insensitive? His derision is easily explained. Cycling doesn’t “rate” as a sport in his mind and in the mind of many Americans.

  • Cycling is too European, despite American success. American teams and cyclists are some of the best in the world. Over the last several years the Tour of California has become one of cycling’s premier events attracting the world’s best teams.
  • Cycling is boring. Lots of guys ride in a pack all day and then sprint the last 100 yards to the finish. I used to think baseball was boring, until I understood all its nuances. There’s a lot more to cycling than a novice eye picks up: strategy, history, traditions, unwritten rules, points competitions, specialties, personalities, teamwork, athleticism, grit, courage, heroes and villains.

Maybe Smith doesn’t like cyclists in their spandex outfits on expensive bikes taking up the road. Every community has its share of rude holier-than-thou jerks, including cycling. However, most cyclists are drivers too and they are doing their best to safely share the little road they have.

Backlash

Like any community already feeling maligned and misunderstood, the cycling community responded with shock, then anger. Nancy Toby was the first to rally the troops via her blog and Twitter. The story and anger spread. But the Twitter cycling community is small and currently distracted by the Tour. We’re already spending several hours a day watching and reading about the Tour. How much time is left to fight Michael Smith and his bosses at ESPN?

At first Smith lashed out at his critics saying it wasn’t that serious — they should lighten up or go play in traffic. He proceeded to tweet all day, bantering with his followers about the angry losers. A lot of those tweets seemed to have disappeared too. Many of those “losers” were people who had lost loved ones to cycling accidents or been hit by cars themselves.

Eventually at 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, an apology was issued: “I apologize for my insensitive remarks re: the TdF crash. I recognize my comments were inappropriate given the serious nature of the crash.”

ESPN has muzzled him. But does he really understand the callousness of his remarks and the influence they might have on his followers? Many in the cycling community continue to ask for his removal. He seems sure that won’t happen.

WilliamsR24: “All of these people attempting to ruin ur life and ur the jerk? It was a joke. Just like these people attacking u. A joke.”

MrMichael_Smith: “thanks man. believe me i’m good. not gonna succeed.”

Lessons

So what’s the moral of this story besides “don’t be a turd?”

Train your ambassadors. Your ambassadors are anyone on staff who blogs, tweets, comments or communicates on a public platform. People assume your organization condones their behavior. Show them how to communicate, especially to critics; don’t assume they already know.

Be constantly vigilant. If ESPN’s PR staff had monitored Smith’s tweet stream, you can be sure they would have stepped in and said, hey, buddy, cool it. But Smith kept going down the ugly path, egged on by his fans.

Examine your personal brand. Maybe ESPN approves of Smith’s style? Maybe, like Anheuser-Busch and Miller/Coors, ESPN thinks their entire market is 22 year-old men who are obsessed with boobs and balls (the athletic kind, of course) — a market that likes Smith’s brand of humor. But what happens when your personal brand finds it way far beyond your loyal fans? How will it play in the mainstream press? What would your mother think?

Funny how? I like dry humor, dark humor and making fun of people as much as the next person, but I know when it’s gone too far. Even Dennis Miller who skewers people with a scary yet brilliant kind of smug satisfaction knows you must think about the consequences of your humor. When you laugh at a potentially tragic and personal event, like cancer or car accidents, isn’t that crossing a line? I think so, especially when you’re a role model of sorts and your behavior might influence others to have the same cavalier attitude toward life and limb.

Respond sincerely. No one believes Smith’s apology. No one thinks he’s changed his attitude. No one believes ESPN cares. I never had an opinion about ESPN; it was just another sports channel I watched. I was neutral. Now, I’ve lost respect.

Campaigns need many voices or big influence. Does the Twitter cycling community have any real voice or power? I fear it doesn’t unless mainstream journalists or celebrities take up the cause. Lance would have been perfect for this, but he’s compromised and has enough of his own problems. ESPN is betting that after a few days, the passion will die down, the pesky Twitter cyclists will go away and all will be forgotten. That’s a shame. I bet the scorn and distaste for cyclists won’t be forgotten by Smith’s 95,713 followers on Twitter. That’s scary.

Another lost opportunity. Wouldn’t it be something if an influencer did get ESPN’s attention, educated their staff and turned an ugly episode into a positive campaign about road safety or cycling as an affordable and fun way to get and stay fit? Paging Chris Horner!

Update: If you’d like to tell ESPN what you think about Michael Smith’s behavior, go to http://espn.go.com/espn/contact. Thanks!

Phones and Laptops at Conferences: Friends or Enemies?

This morning I was reminded that I spend a lot of my time in a world that’s very different than the world many others live in. Maybe I’m in a bubble.

When the citizens of my world go to an educational session or a conference, we bring our laptops and phones. We take them out, listen and type, tweet or text. This is how we digest information, learn and share.

But not everyone understands our behavior, including many in the association industry — people responsible for providing an effective learning environment for their attendees.

Is it really a question of etiquette?

Yesterday on the ASAE membership listserv an association director expressed his frustration that at a recent panel session 60-80% of the audience were on their phones or laptops. He found it disrespectful. In another session he discovered that some were taking notes but others were using email and Facebook or playing games. Should associations ask people to turn off their phones and laptops during a session?

Another association director likened the use of laptops and phones at conferences to their use at the dinner table or during staff meetings. He suggested that organizers politely ask attendees to turn off all electronic devices so they can better engage and learn. He believes this bad behavior will spread as smartphones proliferate and provide more access to the outside world.

Maybe I’m not the one in the bubble.

It’s not about you; it’s about us, the attendees.

If a speaker or moderator told me to turn off my phone or laptop, my first reaction would be bewilderment. My phone is on silent, why should I turn it off? I’m taking notes on my laptop. What if I want to tweet?

My bewilderment would turn to anger and resentment. How dare you tell me how I should learn? How dare you tell me how I should capture my thoughts and ideas? I’m eyeing the path to the exit door.

Learning and sharing tools.

Why do we use phones and laptops during educational sessions? Here are the positive reasons:

  • We take notes. Writing by hand is not as easy or speedy as it used to be for me. I can type quickly, delete, edit, highlight, bold, italicize and use color fonts on my laptop.
  • We tweet. We share information with those who can’t be here. Some of us might use Facebook instead to do this.
  • We communicate with other attendees. We go to conferences not only to learn but to also meet people and build relationships. We make plans to meet others for lunch, coffee or a beer.
  • We’re live-blogging. We might do this instead of taking notes or to provide a summary of the session to those who can’t attend.
  • We email or text reminders or ideas to ourselves and others.
  • If I’m lucky, I get into a special mindset at educational sessions. It’s professional development so my “work” mind is on. But, because I’m not in my office, I’m stimulated by new surroundings and information, and my mind goes into creative mode. Ideas appear out of nowhere about all kinds of things, sometimes not even related to the session’s topic, but that’s okay. I never want to shut the door to good ideas and I get a lot of them while sitting in sessions.

On the other hand…

Sorry, but there are just as many negative reasons why we’re on our phones and laptops.

  • Your speaker is not compelling. They read their presentation. They’re boring. They’re nervous. They’re selling.
  • We’ve heard it all before. It’s too basic. We’re bored.
  • The presentation isn’t being delivered in a learning style that works for me.
  • My brain is at capacity. It’s late in the day; I just can’t listen any longer.
  • I’m really not interested, but I had to come. I have work I need to get done, emails to check…

What’s in it for you?

Why should you encourage your attendees to pull out their laptops and phones? If you want them to have a rewarding and enjoyable learning experience, let them learn how they wish. If they choose to goof-off, that’s their choice, as long as they’re not bothering anyone. They’re adults wasting their own (or their company’s) money; you’re not their mother.

I suppose you probably spend a lot of money marketing your educational sessions and conference. How would you like free word-of-mouth (or word-of-mouse) marketing? Everyone with a phone or laptop is a potential ambassador of awesomeness if you provide them with an exceptional experience and encourage them to talk about it.

Help them help you. Give your attendees enough wifi, outlets and chargers. If wifi is too expensive at one venue, find another. Hotels and convention centers that don’t provide affordable wifi don’t deserve anyone’s business. It’s time for them to get out of the bubble too.

We all come to conferences from different worlds and perspectives. What works for you may not work for me. Keep that in mind and live and let live.

Writing for the Web: Links, Drinks and Dinks

The cliché people say, “Teach what you know.” I know enough about writing for the web to share it, so here’s part 3 of my series.

But before we get started you should know this: although I know enough about writing for the web, and even do it for a living, I’m still learning. I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about writing, but I’m willing to share what I know.

(Never trust anyone who says they know it all. If they don’t know they don’t know, what else don’t they know?  Hmm…)

In part 1 of this series I gave advice on writing for scanners, not readers, and the importance of headlines and formatting. Part 2 covered the voice of online writing, humor, sarcasm and the final edit.

Spread link love.

Why do online writers include links in their blog posts? They do it to:

  • Provide additional resources for the reader.
  • Reference a credible or authoritative source to back up a statement or to give credit for an idea.
  • Lead readers to related posts on their blogs or elsewhere. Links within a post to other posts on your blog will help your Google ranking.
  • Share the spotlight by linking to (and promoting) the posts of other bloggers. A link to another blog will help increase the other blog’s Google ranking. The link in your post will show up in their stats as an “incoming link.” Spread the love around!

When you share a blog post on Twitter, shorten the URL by using bit.ly, ow.ly or another URL shortener. These services also track clicks on your links so you can see how popular your posts really are.

Encourage comments and conversation.

Blogs are social media because the comment box provides an opportunity for conversation with your readers. You’ll get to know your regular commenters, read and comment on their blogs and follow them on Twitter. Perhaps one day, when you’re in the same city, you’ll meet up in real life for drinks.* That’s how I got to know many of my friends in the association community.

[*This is why I could sneak ‘drinks’ into the title of this post. Do you know how hard it is to find a word related to ‘conversation’ rhyming with ‘links’? Have a better idea for a title? I’m all ears, in the comments. See how I did that? Encouraging you to comment?]

If you do a Google search on “increase blog comments,” you’ll know by the number of results that encouraging comments is a constant challenge for most blogs. Most of us read a post and leave without making a comment. We’ll take the time to share it on Twitter but we won’t leave any trace of ourselves on the post itself. What can a blogger do to change that?

  • End posts with questions that elicit more than yes/no answers.
  • Write about a controversial topic or express an unusual view, i.e., provoke your readers to comment.
  • Solicit reader anecdotes, solutions and examples about the topic.
  • Don’t require registration for commenting. Most comment widgets require a name, email and optional web address – that’s sufficient.
  • Remove barriers to lively conversation. If you have a good spam filter, consider automatic approval of comments; you can always delete a comment if it really gets under your skin and that’s your policy. If you go with automatic approval, make sure you’re notified about new comments by email, in case something questionable gets through your spam filter.
  • Be a good citizen by responding to all authentic comments — the ones that say more than “nice post.” Otherwise you’ll look like you don’t give a hoot about your readers. There’s one exception to this rule which I’ll explain in a little bit.

Defend your blog against trolls and their relatives.

Everyone dreads the negative or angry comment. That’s a risk you take by putting yourself out there in the very public blogosphere. Pressing the Delete button isn’t always the best solution. I wrote a post for the Avectra blog that explains how to deal with negative comments from complainers, critics and trolls: Don’t Let the Haters Get You Down.

Banish the spam man.

The only exception to the “reply to all comments” rule is when a comment looks like link bait – a link embedded in the commenter’s name or inserted in the comment is used as bait to drive up their Google ranking with incoming links and to get people to click back to their website.

You’ll recognize these bottom-dwellers by their obviously spammy content or by the comment’s brevity, smarminess or poor English. Your spam widget should catch most of them, but every now and then one will slip through. To give you a sense of how they’re usually written, here are a few examples from the 68 spam comments dwelling in my spam filter right now:

  • I believe this web site has got very superb written articles articles.
  • Wow Your site is of the chain.
  • Hi my loved one! I want to say that this post is awesome, nice written and include approximately all vital infos. I would like to look more posts like this.

Amusing. It must work for them because they keep doing it. I’ve noticed an uptick in spam comments, especially on posts that were once featured on the WordPress home page. If you suspect a comment is spam or link bait, feel free to delete it; it’s your blog, you’re the boss.

Wow, where did the time go? We didn’t even get to copyright, fair use, Creative Commons and image sourcing. Don’t roll your eyes, this stuff is fun!

Writing for the Web series

Writing for the Online Reader, Part 2

Last week, I shared tips on writing for the web, or, as I affectionately referred to all of us online readers, writing for online monkey minds. Reading on the web is a different experience than reading the printed page. Online reading is informal, interactive and interruptive; it requires a different style of writing. In my monkey mind post I discussed writing for scanners, not readers, and the importance of headlines and formatting.

No matter the medium, you want to hook the reader and get to the point quickly. On the web, it’s even more critical because we feel less loyalty to a web page than we do to a magazine or book we’ve purchased, so we’re apt to click away as soon as you bore us.

Imagine talking to your reader.

The web feels different than a magazine, newspaper or book. We talk back on the web, get replies and have conversations. When you write for the web, use a more conversational voice than you would for the printed page. It’s okay to write in the first person, whereas that would not usually fly in a printed article.

Pay attention to your voice. Using “you” is fine. When I write blog posts, I imagine I’m giving advice, sharing ideas or having a conversation with a friend or colleague. I use “you” throughout my posts because I’m talking to you. I can’t see you, but I imagine you there, listening. This is perfectly healthy.

For organizations, especially in blog posts, don’t always refer to yourself as “we.” It may be appropriate at times, but “we” can sound awfully impersonal. Some readers may even hear it as a royal “we” if they’re in an unforgiving mood. As a reader, I want to connect with a person, the writer, not to a faceless institution represented by “we.” It’s far too anonymous and nontransparent.

However, I use “we” frequently when I write about topics that concern my community, for example, when I write for the association community about a membership issue. That’s an inclusive “we” in the sense that “we’re all in this together.”

Oh, you think you’re funny?

We might be funny to a few people, maybe. If we’re lucky, a dozen or so might get a chuckle from our brand of humor. Humor works online because it’s informal and conversational. A little humor entertains us and keeps us reading. But if you want to get a point across, don’t go overboard with humor unless you’re a comic genius with a humor blog.

Sarcasm, however, doesn’t always translate. I find sarcasm hard to resist because it’s part of my usual schtick. But in real life we use inflection, stress, timing and facial expressions to make our zingers stick. Online, we only have this: 😉 Tread carefully so you don’t unwittingly insult your readers.

I’ve seen writers convey sarcasm by stretching out a word with extra vowels so it reads how it would sound in a sarcastic tone. Others will add a “heh” to their sarcastic remarks, or use sentence fragments to instill the same sense of timing they’d use in real life.

You’re not done yet!

When I’m done with a piece, I use the Find tool to look for instances of passive voice. Passive voice will suck the life out of your writing. I search for the following words (and suffix) and change them where I can: be, was, is, were, are, -ing.

Keep tightening it up. Look for redundancies and unnecessary words and phrases, like “that” or “some.” Does your word order make sense?

When in doubt, look it up. Keep dictionary.com in your bookmark bar so you don’t use the wrong word by mistake. Find grammar resources to help you with those pesky little rules you tend to forget. Don’t worry, this happens to everyone; we forget because our brains are too full.

Here are a few to check out:

Finally, read it out loud. Or at a whisper. How does it sound? Any awkward spots? Jargon? Corporate-speak? Are you bored? You’ll be amazed how well this technique works.

I heard someone say recently on a Twitter chat: “Perfection is the enemy of good.” So true. There’s always something to edit in that final draft. But summon your strength and make it the final final. Click Publish and move on unless you’re chasing a Pulitzer.

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Click it! Click it now!

Next time I’ll get into comments, trolls, copyright, fair use and all that good stuff.

Writing for the Web series