Category Archives: Writing

Where’s your bite?

Content marketing, Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

I’m no design expert but it struck me the other day while looking at my phone, how brilliant the Apple logo is. Yes, it’s obviously an apple – I told you I was no expert – but it’s the bite out of the apple that is the really clever bit.

There are all sorts of stories, myths and legends weaving around the web as to why the ‘bite’ is there. According to one media report some think it’s a play on ‘byte’, others relate it to the famous code breaker Alan Turing who apparently died by eating a poisoned apple. The truth is likely to be the more prosaic suggestion that the designer just saw it as a great way of differentiating the logo from a cherry.

AppleHowever it got there, the bite makes what would be a rather routine outline of an apple into something far more interesting. It suggests movement, action, even intrigue.

My point?

Writing can use the same trick to liven up a piece that might otherwise get lost although this time the ‘bite’ could be humour, creative language, a great picture to accompany the piece, or even an Unconvential. Grammar. Approach.

Next time you write something, take a moment to step back and ask yourself, “Where’s the bite?”

Good communications goes down the pan

Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

I’m a great believer in celebrating good examples of communication wherever you find it. So I’d like to apologise to my fellow rail passengers on the 14.58 train from Peterborough to Norwich last Sunday afternoon for hanging around the train WC with my camera phone.

Fear not dear reader, there are no prurient revelations to be confessed here; my motives were driven purely by professional interest as a communicator.

Lifting the lid in the said WC – in itself a hygienically challenging feat – I came across this great message which made me chuckle.

IMG_1431[1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So why is it a piece of great communication? I think there are two reasons:

  • Well targeted – can’t argue with its relevance for everyone who uses the WC
  • Amusing – it has a serious message well balanced with a bit of humour. It can be hard to get the tone right when you want to introduce a touch of levity, but I reckon this gets it just right.

Not bad for toilet humour…

Clickbait might hook you a fish or two but is it a price worth paying?

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

Clickbait. A pejorative term for those blog/article headlines that you just can’t resist clicking on. We’ve all been there, or rather clicked on them and been reeled in. Some firms are making a lot of money focusing on this style of content – Taboola and Outbrain to name a couple.

Generally it’s for content aimed at the consumer market and involves a celebrity or two, but increasingly clickbait seems to be plying its trade in the b2b world.

Man with fish

LinkedIn for example, is littered with ‘clickbaity’ type headlines and seems to be getting more so every day:

  • Why I’m quitting social media
  • Why quitting your job today will be the best thing you ever do

In days gone by of course, clickbait used to be called a headline. And there is nothing wrong with a good headline of course – in fact, a good headline is essential. There’s no point in writing a well thought out blog/article and sticking a bland title on top – a bit like wrapping a great Christmas present in brown paper…(I had to shoehorn one Christmas reference in).

When is a headline not a headline
The risk is that the more sensational the headline – the more clickbaity it is – the higher the risk of disappointing the reader if the content doesn’t live up to its billing. In the clickbait world it almost never does but it’s done its work and the advertisers are happy. As a business though that sort of engagement is of no use and, if anything, could do more to damage your brand.

But, if you really like clickbait, and in these fallow days before everyone clears off on their holiday break, perhaps invest a few minutes perusing Onion’s ClickHole for some irresistible clickbait (that may, or may not, be made up)…go on, you know you want to.

Have a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I tell stories therefore I am (a content marketer)

Content marketing, Talking to your customers, Writing

According to the Content Marketing Institute (and you just know something has arrived when it gets big enough to have its own institute). Content marketing is defined as:

“A marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

I’m not sure how content (ahem) I am with that definition. Here’s maybe one that’s a bit less wordy from Scribewise:

“The creation and distribution of journalistic, audience-focused content that helps people do their jobs or live their lives.”

But maybe, it can be even simpler:

“Stories that interest/excite your customers.”

NewspaperMake it interesting
That’s mine so feel free to shoot it down. But it captures the key tenet of content marketing as I see it that whatever you’re writing, filming, recording etc, and wherever you publish it be it on a website, an online newsletter, or a social media platform for example, it must appeal to the interests of your customers.

The advertorial – now more commonly badged as native advertising – is a great example of content marketing. In days gone by it was pretty bad (scarcely much more than an advert), but most businesses seems to have cottoned on to the importance of making it a really audience focused piece (i.e. make it interesting) where the hard sell is impossible to detect. After all, what’s the point in paying for something that no one reads?

Nothing new
Most people who’ve worked in public relations for any length of time will scoff at the idea that content marketing is something new; they’ll say (alright, I’ll include me too) that we’ve been coming up with interesting content ideas for businesses for years that work to exploit themes and topics that will interest the customer without resorting to an overt sales pitch (journalists have long been great filters for what makes good content marketing and what doesn’t).

Quite true. The excitement now of course is that those journalistic gatekeepers can’t get in the way of all the new communication routes to the customer that technology has introduced. The danger is forgetting that an easier route to market doesn’t mean any less effort should be made in making the product that we take to market (in this case the content) something that our target customers really want to read, watch, or listen to.

To boldly go…grammar rules are there to be broken

Social media, Talking to your customers, Talking to your employees, Writing

Nurse: “Would you like me to gently prop you up?”
Elderly patient: “My dear, try never to split your infinitives.”

BlackboardSplit infinitives. Does anyone care anymore? Well, yes, lots of people do care and I’m not knocking them. Having said that, language changes and evolves, and so should our interpretation of the rules.

 

A pedant’s obsession with rooting out split infinitives for example, seems unnecessary particularly when a re- write would sound, well;

Nurse: “Would you like me to prop you up, but gently?”

…clumsy.

It’s important to know what’s wrong and what’s right, but good writing can exploit that knowledge to flout the rules and create interest. The point being: Rules. Are. There. To. Be. Broken. Sometimes.

And, another thing, who said you can’t start a sentence (or a paragraph) with a conjunction? But just make sure you don’t overdo it.