Posted By Emily Warn on May 22, 2013
Rand Fishkin (CEO of SEOmoz) is a soulful voice of social media marketing, an advocate for being who you are as a way to find and—yes—love your following. For his do’s and don’ts on building a personal brand, click through his presentation “How to Earn Traffic Without Selling Your Soul.”
But turn to the soul sisters of Two Pens to learn how to write content that realizes Rand’s advice: If you express your authentic self, if your words convey your personality and passions, people will listen and kibbutz—whether you’re tweeting, posting, pinning, or scooping.
In other words, finding your social media voice is about finding your passion and focusing on that in social media. Here are some tips to get you started. (more…)
Category: Blogging |
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Posted By Cynthia Hartwig on May 20, 2013
Don’t just use the word “dance.” Put your brain through its paces and make your writing strut, rhumba, rock or cha-cha. Photo copyright 2012 Cynthia Hartwig
When you’re pressed for time, it’s hard to write well. But believe it or not, it’s okay to write as fast as you can, churning out boring, repetitive, and overwritten drafts. Putting words on a page is always the most difficult part. It’s easy to revise them if you know these seven editing tips. They’ll keep you from torpedoing your deadline and boring the reader. (more…)
Category: Blogging, Business Writing, Writing 101 |
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Posted By Emily Warn on May 17, 2013
If you want to find the pinch point between what your target audience wants to hear and what you have to say, try on their shoes and walk around for a while. Photo copyright 2013 Cynthia Hartwig
Guest blogger Michael Shilling writes for Microsoft’s MSN Music and now for Two Pens. Welcome Michael! He is the author of the novel Rock Bottom (Little, Brown and Company, 2009) and numerous short stories.
Communicating is about connecting, yet the number one mistake that social media content producers and creators make is that they treat themselves, not their readers, as their audience. They use jargon only they understand, make references only they will get, and speak in a voice that is clever for clever’s sake. Ultimately, they look inward, not outward, connecting only with themselves and missing out on countless opportunities to grow their brand, their products, their bottom line.
Yes, that’s the pep talk. Now, here are a few questions to entertain and pass along to the people in charge of your social media to get your company audience-centric: (more…)
Category: Blogging, Business Writing |
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Posted By Cynthia Hartwig on May 13, 2013
Here, @lifeasbros tells us he is looking for an inanimate girl who can make dinner and presumably won’t correct his grammar.
Am I the only one who grinds my teeth at grammar mistakes involving that vs. who? This error crops up all over Twitter and Facebook, and a lot of e-books that haven’t been proofed by a copyeditor.
Did you notice the telltale phrase in my second sentence: “that haven’t been proofed by a copyeditor?” It’s a pointer to help you learn the simple solution. That refers to inanimate e-books not (presumably) animate copyeditors. (more…)
Category: Blogging, Business Writing, Grammar & Usage |
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Posted By Cynthia Hartwig on May 8, 2013
One is the Loneliest Number in Any Design Brief
A creative or design brief has to reduce all the things that could be said into the ONE SINGLE THING that is most important. Lots of product managers and marketing managers and client types try to wangle two or even three (!!!) points into the brief, as if more is better. It’s not a pig in a poke.
One is the loneliest number because it’s darned hard to reduce all the things that could be said to the one that will make a difference.
Go ahead. Listen to the song. One main thing is all you get to say in any communication.
Category: Blogging, Business Writing |
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Posted By Emily Warn on May 1, 2013
Don’t sacrifice the beauty of your writing to publishing like crazy. Photo copyright 2013 Cynthia Hartwig
If you Google the question about how frequently you should post, the answer is about two to three times per week. But many blog advice columnists forget one thing. I’ll tell you what it is in a second, but first let me explain why their general recommendation makes sense.
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Category: Blogging |
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Posted By Cynthia Hartwig on April 23, 2013
Photo copyright 2013 Cynthia Hartwig Museum of Textile Art, Oaxaca, Mexico
Nobody likes a creative review that sends people back to the drawing board. Having to come up with new ideas cost money and plays havoc with your schedule, but a few misplaced words can piss people off. Negative creative reviews, though, are a necessary evil and there’s a real art to doing them compassionately and respectfully. Here are my best recommendations, honed from 35 years as a creative director, for how to say no in order to get to yes.
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Category: Business Writing |
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Posted By Emily Warn on April 16, 2013
People who post on Facebook incessantly make us crazy. The only voodoo necessary is to learn how to set your notifications to please you, not them. Photo Copyright 2013 Cynthia Hartwig
I’m not talking about the dings, bells, crickets, or tickety-tocks which can drive you crazy when incoming emails or texts arrive on your cell phone. I’m talking about Notifications on Facebook. If you set them up to your liking, they’ll help you hang out with friends and family rather than with all those people you friended but can’t remember why or where.
Even though Notifications can simplify your life, Facebook makes it less than simple to configure them. I’ll walk you through the steps to define:
- Which friends’ activities you want to be notified about
- Where you want to receive notifications (Facebook vs. email)
- What you want to be notified about (posts, events, Likes, shares, etc.)
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Category: Facebook |
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Posted By Cynthia Hartwig on April 12, 2013
From the earliest days of pictographs and cuneiform tablets, writers have tried to communicate ideas quickly and visually.Writing content for social media is no different. Photo copyright 2013 Cynthia Hartwig
For those of you who are just starting out, I’ve put together a short list of the most effective tactics for writing content that gets read and followed on social media.
1. Strong Verbs and Nouns Rule.
The rules of good writing apply to writing content on Twitter and Facebook and every other social network as much as they do to fiction, nonfiction, and essays. Strip out adjectives and adverbs and you’ll save the reader’s time. By making your writing muscular and active, you will drive social narratives forward the same way you do when telling a story. (more…)
Category: Blogging, Business Writing |
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Posted By Emily Warn on April 4, 2013
Need a 144-character laugh or bit of wisdom when a triple non-fat won’t get you through the day? Hundreds of thousands of people do. They’re tuning in to influentials whose Twitter quotation machines boost their followings while threatening to turn Twitter into a bloated Bartlett’s.
Here’s a quote from Sarah-Jayne Gratton (@grattongirl) that makes me glad I’m an insomniac:
“Pay attention to your dreams – God’s angels often speak directly to our hearts when we are asleep.”
As of March 30th, @grattongirl had 513, 624 followers and 108,643 tweets. How do I know? I followed her after buying her book Follow Me! Creating a Personal Brand with Twitter. It’s worth reading so imagine my surprise, when I discovered that on a weekly basis she delivers oodles of quotations meant to elicit a yogic “ahhhhh!” (more…)
Category: Twitter |
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