This chap was talking about context and content in 2009. Catch up, yo.
Content is one part of a two part problem for marketers. The other is context. Context is about relevance, accuracy and timeliness. It’s about communicating the right content to the right people at the right time. Web 2.0 means marketers need to engage with customers and build enduring relationships with them.
“Web 2.0.” Cutesy.
Posted in contentstrategy, web
For those of you that don’t use your language skills to manipulate delicate minds, features and benefits is a technique used to describe products. Features describe its attributes and benefits demonstrate how it will change the life of the soon-to-be customer.
For years we’ve been told to sell the benefits, not the features. Don’t sell the mattress, sell the good night’s sleep. People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.
But digital marketing has changed the rules and given the consumer an opportunity to click away as soon as they smell bullshit. As a result we need to write subtler benefits or, just sell the features.
Before you get all SEO’d out of your eyeballs think about how new visitors will experience your site. Fixing usability problems also helps SEO:
Keep links out of body copy
Readers can only fully process a sentence once they’ve reached the end. Smacking a link in the middle puts a roadblock in the way of clarity and entices them to click away from your site.
Notice how content has become the byword for stuff on a website? There’s a simple explanation; it’s the same shit sliced differently.
For years digital media types have been creating new words to resell old ideas to existing clients:
Moving forward = vague description of actually doing work.
Low hanging fruit = the least amount of work completed for the same money.
Social Media Evangelists = out of work journalists.
Continue reading
According to the Yahoo Style Guide, effective web copy should score 60 or higher on the Flesch Reading Ease Test and be targeted at those with a reading age between 11 and 14.
Reading and actual age is different. Writers targeting 11 to 14 year old readers might like to disable their cookies and move to Santa Rosa Island.
Crap social media efforts fall into two categories: Ritalin Crash and The Corpse. Ritalin Crash fills the world with sporadic bursts of activity and The Corpse sets up a million profiles before leaving them as lifeless tokens to a long lost enthusiasm.
Avoid this with a daily routine:
Write your blog. Ok, it’ll take more than 10 minutes to write a whole post but adding to the idea pile or banking time will get the job done. Also, it doesn’t have to be brilliant, think of it as a monolog rather than Shakespeare’s second coming.
Comment on blogs. Look up blogs in your field through Blogcatalog or Technorati and comment. Participating in conversations will, in turn, build readers for your blog.
Posted in social media
Thanks for stopping by.
As you read this I’m abusing my gluteus maximus and dodging logging trucks while cycling south on the US highway 101. I’ll be back behind a computer, working and admiring my cycling tan in July. Check out my Twitter if you fancy sharing tips on how to make a meal out of roadkill: twitter.com/anna_cook
Posted in Uncategorized
Not all people in yoga wear are heading to the studio. Or have indeed ever practiced yoga.
The person you knocked that smiled and said sorry? They actually wish your children had cancer.
Drivers are angry. Cyclists are angry. Pedestrians don’t give a shit because they own this goddam city.
There is no right answer to the best defence during a bear/cougar/skunk attack. There are however, a squadillion theories.
A flax, goji, matcha, quinoa and milk thistle smoothie makes you fart more than it mops up your free radicals.
Talk to people every day. Real ones. With Faces.
Develop personal relationships with your clients. Don’t get caught calling them dad.
Wash, dress and leave the house everyday. This is crucial to remaining part of the species.
Do not watch porn, squeeze blackheads or listen to Barry Manilow. Just because nobody will catch you does not make it ok.
Posted in Uncategorized
Sometimes copywriting is so ass simple that it makes me want to use my degree for roach paper. It only really boils down to two things – getting people to read your stuff and getting people to act on your stuff.
Writing in rhythms helps to produce easy-to-read copy so your audience actually gets to the end of the sentence without wondering into their subconscious wearing an adult diaper.
For today, getting people to act on your words is your own damn problem.
Where to find rhythms in writing
Posted in Uncategorized
