The post How to Write Killer Professional Content appeared first on Linguix Blog.
]]>First of all, don’t try to create perfect content. A common problem that unexperienced copywriters and content creators face is the tendency to be perfectionists — this is unnecessary in this context.
As far as the creation of corporate content is concerned, it’s worth saying that individuals usually view it as a business. This fact leads to such delusions as “quantity over quality,” “there is too much info on the web on this subject, let’s try something else,” or “we don’t have any news” and so on. At first, these arguments make some sense, but eventually, they only slow down content-making. As a result, companies waste a lot of time and resources, publications come out rarely, and it doesn’t help to increase the number of customers.
We have another suggestion: as soon as you have an idea for the content — put it into action. This will help you create a draft that can be modified, and then you can analyze the audience’s feedback. In any case, this will be a useful experiment.
There is no need to wait for a highlight or for a reason to write content. Don’t try to make ideal content, because it may be a real waste of time for you. If you don’t manage to reveal the topic by yourself — relax. Your competitors usually try to post more often than you, do not agonize over creating “the masterpiece” and feel free to use cliches.
You should write about what you know. Also, write about things that really burn your heart. It means that even native advertising does not look like advertising.
In general, it means that corporate publications should be of some benefit to the readers. In business, this phenomenon is called “value added.” It is the answer to why people should buy this product or read this article. It is not very difficult to develop content that allows readers to solve their problems or to find answers. In fact, you have to be well-informed.
Before writing the text, try to define your reader. You need “to draw” your reader and be in his shoes. This approach will help you to understand what a person’s interests are. It’s the only way to create “added value”.
For example, there are a lot of articles for business leaders discussing content promotion through our partnering content agency’s blog. We usually deal with the content promotion. Our readers hire employees and make important decisions every day, so we try to answer all their questions concerning content marketing. For example, we tell them how to evaluate the effectiveness of the content.
Our second most important group of readers is marketers and editors engaged in content-making or in managing the process. We provide them with practical advice, statistics and frame their typical mistakes. These tips should be applied when creating content in any area.
The text needs to be logical and structured. The idea shouldn’t jump, and it is essential that the reader understands why he is given such information. This can be easily achieved by just making a plan before writing.
But don’t be too enthusiastic. Don’t go too deeply into details, draft a list of sections in simple shootouts and state the essential facts. This will help you to defeat “the fear of starting from scratch”. Quite often, the most challenging step in writing a text is to begin. But if you have a plan, the text appears by itself.
If there are any facts or figures in the content, they must be checked. An error in the content of the company’s blog or the expert column can seriously affect business and spoil a company’s reputation.
It is therefore essential to check facts and figures, refer to the sources when quoting and give essential links, even if it is a translation from another language. This will help your readers to verify the original statements.
Try to involve experts, if possible. You need to stick to this approach as it helps to avoid problems after publication.
Don’t publish the text immediately after it is written. You will need some time to read it and do some editing. For example, the picture below shows a manuscript written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As you can see, the author of «Crime and Punishment» did not hesitate to make changes. He added a lot of ideas by writing in the margins and crossing things out, and so on. Use this great writer’s approach as a role model on how to create content.
Besides, make some grammar corrections to facilitate language — Content Force is an excellent tool for solving this task.
Also, show the content to experts, managers or partners before it is published. And they can change a lot of things there. Be prepared to go through the whole piece one more time.
We live in the era of information overload. We are continually getting a significant amount of information. It is just impossible to read all the articles and references in social media feeds, so people have to choose. And the main factors affecting the choice of a reader are the heading and the lead.
Here are a few tips to create a high-quality heading:
It’s not enough just to write good text. You have to find your readers. As for the media, this problem is already solved, because they usually have their audience. But the corporate blog is another case — you need to think of involving readers.
You should spend as much time on the content distribution as you do on its creation. In a perfect world, you should develop a micro-strategy of promotion for each piece of content.
To increase the media outreach, it is crucial to choose the publication time and actively spread the reference to the content in thematic communities (e.g., Hacker News, Growth Hackers) and social networks. Remember also to re-post on popular sites — sometimes a re-post from a corporate blog on Medium can bring more readers than the story would have at the website only.
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]]>The post How to Decide What to Write About appeared first on Linguix Blog.
]]>Hustling for attention is hard and doing it for your company’s blog seems even harder but there’s a simple set of tips to be used in case you don’t want to waste time and resources on fruitless blogging.
One of the most frequent excuses for not blogging we hear from tech co’s is “we don’t have anything significant to blog about”. Half of the startups we meet tend to believe that their potential audience is not interested in posts about anything less than graduating from YC.
It’s sort of true as you should not really pose yourself as a top selling company and try to do Apple-like presentations but there’re multiple other ways to produce interesting content. Just look around – there’s a whole world around you and your company to talk about.
You’ve got a nice office – do a blog post about it. This will not only free you of discussing your product while working in dev mode (or even stealth), lifestyle posts give an insight into your company’s life and humanize the image of it. Even a minimalistic setup can attract like-minded folks, potential co-workers, and confederates.
This is exactly what one UX-agency based in Easter Europe did a couple of years ago. They had a nice office so they just went and published a post with multiple pics of it. The piece was in a local language, however, juicy pics of their amazing two-storey workspace made it resonate with design folks around the world including John Maeda who retweeted it to his 400k+ followers. This single post got up to 25k views.
Newcomers face strong competition as they try to enter today’s tech market. Early stage products may be relatively hard to market as they often have much more modest feature set compared to their competitors who don’t waste time bragging about their updates here and there.
This is when it’s a good time to look at your product from the jobs-to-be-done point of view and think of its features that may interest a particular client (or user) groups. You should highlight these features (or even one single feature) and see how your potential clients react.
Kato.im (team-chat for a business that was finally pivoted to Sameroom.io) did this exact thing with their Vim-like hotkeys feature and open source projects. This type of posts is something people can profit from and relate to.
People are obsessed with news, which is why social network newsfeeds are so effective in killing time. And this is also why corporate PR guys are doing their best to publish comments on hot topics from their company’s experts. This tactic is so popular because it is simple yet effective.
If you see something interesting happening in a field that is somehow connected to your business and you feel that you have something to say about it — go for it. You can prepare a comment and pitch it to journalists (there are a number of tools for doing this, such as HARO) or create a blog post or an in-depth column discussing consequences and reasons for the event. In such cases, mentions of your products, services, and experience may be quite relevant.
There are multiple industries where this approach works just fine. For example — information security, where journalists and the public need someone to explain how hacks and cybercrimes become real (here is a classic hack story with the expert’s comments).
You just need to spend half an hour either talking with the journalist or writing a comment or a blog post to become the one who explains to the public what the heck is going on here.
If there is nothing happening out there, and your connections are slow with their comments on a blog post, you can still forgo the necessity of involving other people. Just create a list of something. If you work in a marketing startup, for example, then compose the ultimate list of useful marketing tools, best marketing conferences of the year, or main events that will affect your industry.
This will give readers instant value – they will find out new interesting tools, events, or market insights. All in one place, curated for them – this is something to be grateful for.
Here is an example – the guys at Buffer published a blog post with a selection of 60 marketing tools they use themselves. The piece was so useful that 1.5k people shared it and dozens commented.
Journalists like interviews and expert comments because it is a great opportunity to get first-hand information from an expert. And if they can do it, why can’t you?
Interviews and comments are great content marketing tools in many ways. First of all, if you publish an interview or a comment by a well-known, trusted expert and influencer in a certain field, it immediately boosts the credibility of your blog and company.
Second, the ‘vanity factor’ should not be underestimated. Every human is pleased if his or her opinion or thoughts are considered to be interesting by someone else. And thus, he or she will definitely share a link to your piece containing these opinions and thoughts. Such industry influencers can have thousands of followers across different social networks.
You can also combine these methods and create posts where different experts answer different questions or give their advice (here is an example of how this can look). Ten experts in such a post can lead to dozens of thousands of people reached when they share your link.
So you are killing three birds with one stone — getting great content, building a relationship with industry experts (which is always useful), and maximizing reach.
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]]>The post Conjunctions appeared first on Linguix Blog.
]]>As they sound, conjunctions of idea link ideas. They can be categorized generally as follows:
To add an idea | To show contrast | To give the reason | To give the result |
Typically ‘and’ | Typically ‘but’ | Typically ‘because’ | Typically ‘so’ |
Also, as well, too, in addition, furthermore, moreover | However, despite, in spite of, on the other hand, although, even though, though, in contrast, while, whereas | As, due to, for this reason, since | Therefore, as a result, so that, in order to |
Once again as their name suggests, these conjunctions reveal the time relationship between actions. Typical examples include before, after, then, while, since, as soon as, until etc.
Note how some conjunctions can represent idea or time (while and since are the obvious examples), but the context will usually reveal which.
I came here since I don’t like the other restaurant. (idea)
I have been here since 2pm. (time)
These conjunctions consist of pairs that must not be adapted. Examples:
I will have either the pizza or the pasta.
I like neither milk nor cheese.
Many of the conjunctions listed above are coordinating conjunctions, meaning that they link words or clauses with the same value. Examples:
I ate soup and a sandwich.
I went to see that movie but I didn’t like it.
In these types of conjunctions, the linking word stays in the middle.
Likewise, many of the conjunctions above, along with others including all of the conjunctions that can be used in conditional sentences (if, whether, unless, as long, in case), are subordinating conjunctions, meaning that one action or clause is dependent on the other.
I’ll go to the party if you go.
Richard was fitter than many of his colleagues despite being older.
In these cases, the conjunction can also be used at the beginning, as long as the clauses are inverted and a comma is used.
If you go, I’ll go.
Despite being older, Richard was fitter than many of his colleagues.
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