Posted by JulieD on May 28, 2009 under Advertising, Marketing, Writing, online | 
Recently, I was building a new Twitter persona for a business and trying to figure out how to gain exposure.
I started by using Twitter’s search function to find people who were tweeting about the same topic. Then I followed as many as I could find. (I’m continuing to add to the list each day.)
Why?
Well, a lot of Tweeple (that’s Twitter People, in case you haven’t heard) like to follow anyone who follows them. Sure, it makes keeping up with tweets hard, but from a business point of view it makes sense: the more people you follow and are followed by, the more chance there is of someone reading your tweets. If you are targeting your followers through keyword searches, then you have found your audience. And — because of the auto-follow etiquette — they have found you.
After monitoring the profile for a while and manually following people who followed me I quickly realized I needed to automate the process and focus my energies on creating great content.
Dave Taylor has posted an excellent tutorial (with screenshots, hoorah!) taught me how to use TweetLater to handle the automation. TweetLater has other useful tools too, but for now I’m using it to
- auto-follow, and
- send a ‘welcome’ message when people follow the profile, linking back to the business’s website.
I’m scanning tweets and jumping in to conversations, and tweeting whenever the business has some news or a new blog post. I”m also engaging with people who write back to thank me for the welcome message, and many have.
I have started to see increased traffic on the business website with this unobtrusive and, frankly fun form of marketing. It feels collaborative and light-hearted and nothing like “sales”!
Posted by admin on October 15, 2008 under How-To, Writing |
Do you hate to write business letters? Do you spend a lot of time on each email only to receive slow or no responses? Use these six tips to develop a writing style that gets results.
One Letter One Subject
Each letter or email should address one issue only. You can always send another email to talk about a second subject. Keeping to one topic helps the reader absorb your point, and act.
Openers and Enders
Direct Marketing studies show that the most-read sentences in any letter are the first and last sentences (especially if that last sentence is a ‘P.S.’).
Make your purpose clear in the first sentence: “I am writing to share details about the Jones project”.
After that you can introduce background information, but do not start there. People are busy. Tell them what they are going to read about, in the first sentence.
Recap your purpose at the end of the letter, and use the last sentence to ask for an action: “Please let me know by Friday…”.
Bullet Points
Use bullet points to catch the reader’s eye as she is skimming down the page (between the first and last sentences).
- Bullet points catch the eye
- They summarize the details
- Use sentence fragments to keep them brief
- Use only 3-5 bullet points
Be Informal
Unless you are writing for a scientific journal or your industry has a very formal style (i.e. law), keep your style informal. Use ‘you’ and ‘I’ instead of writing in the passive voice. For example, say “We decided at last week’s meeting to push forward with…” instead of “A meeting was held and it was decided that…”. Conversational language keeps a document livelier-and readers awake.
Keep It Brief
Try to keep documents to one page (or one screen, if email). People will read a short document immediately but put a long one in a ‘to read’ pile. Short communications also force you to keep to the point.
Edit out unnecessary words and repetition.
Don’t repeat yourself (like I just did).
Edit
Always leave time for editing. Re-read every piece of writing before you send it out, even quick emails. Edit out half your words if possible. Seriously.
Don’t rely on your spell-checker. I almost proposed giving a talk on “Sex Tips For Better Business Writing” to my local Chamber of Commerce. Luckily that is one of those errors that leaps off the page, but the spell checker didn’t catch it!
Find someone else to proofread your work or use these copyeditor’s tips: slowly read your work aloud once to make sure there are no missing or incorrect words. Then read the work backwards to look for spelling errors. Reading backwards helps you see typos.
Always carefully check these typo hot-spots check:
- telephone numbers
- zip codes
- names
Also check for ‘smart quotes’ that are turned around the wrong way, and missing punctuation.
—
Use these six tips to develop a clear, concise and correct business writing style. You will endear yourself to busy colleagues, and start to see improved response rates to your communications.
P.S. Contact me if you need a copy editor. (See what I mean about the P.S.?)
Posted by admin on under How-To, Writing |
IF A DOCUMENT is worth writing, it’s worth writing twice.
Although science fiction author Robert Heinlein famously claimed never to rewrite anything, he must be the only successful writer who can make that claim.
If you find it difficult to write well, remember that a first draft is just that. The trick to good writing is to dash off a fast first draft that captures the spirit of what you want to say. Don’t worry about spelling, structure or even perfect grammar. Now leave the piece for as long as possible. Then come back and re-read it.
Is the purpose of the communication clear? Write a sentence at the top that expresses that purpose, then rearrange the meat of your first draft below it. Cut out any repetition and tighten up long sentences. Summarize the main points in a final sentence, then tell the reader what you want them to do (e.g. “Call me with your opinions on this issue”).
If capturing a first draft on paper causes you trouble, try some different ways of marshalling your thoughts: draw a mind-map; make a list of bullet points; dictate your ideas into a voice recorder.
But always try to give yourself time to step away from your first draft and come back to it later. Good writing (and re-writing) takes time. As Pascal said, “This letter is long, because I did not have time to write a short one.”
