Content Mastery Guide

Is what you type today going to hurt you tomorrow?

As Chris Young pointed out in a recent post, the Internet never forgets, and what you do online today may hurt you tomorrow.

Over the next two weeks, I will be rolling out my list of the Top 5 Social Media Writing Sins. Indulging in any of these sins can lessen your credibility and limit the effectiveness of your online writing.

You could lose the respect of someone who was already warming up to you, or fail to capture the attention of a potentially ideal client.

If you're not seeing the results you want from social media, maybe your writing is to blame! Or maybe you've been hesitant to participate in social media because you're concerned about your reputation or your brand.

If you'd like to learn the ins and outs of writing for social media, please join me for my next free Content Mastery Action Day presentation call:

What: How to Socialize Your Writing Without Losing Your Credibility
When: Thursday, February 10th, 2011, 9:30-10:00 a.m. Eastern

Here's what I'll cover on the call:

• The Top 5 Social Media Writing Sins (a review)
• Five social media writing principles that will improve your results and ease your mind
• Online writing tools that will help you with social media

Call-in details and reminders will be sent to all Content Mastery Guide subscribers - please watch your Inbox. Not a subscriber? Sign up here.

As always, Action Club members can access the recording, handout and worksheet from the members-only website after the call.

Content Creation Manifesto #4b - It's all been said before

Last night I was privileged to share the stage with Josh Muirhead of Socialmark Media and Anne Dorsey, Business Librarian at the Barrie Public Library. The topic was "Social Media for Your Business," which attracted more than 40 people. Thanks to everyone who came out to listen and participate!

I was asked to speak about the importance of creating relevant, useful and high-quality online content - a topic I'm certainly passionate about! I decided to share my Content Creation Manifesto, with the addition of this NEW #4:

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Content Creation Manifesto #4b - It's all been said before

There is no need to re-invent the wheel of online content. Yes, someone else has written about your area of expertise. Your ideal clients still need to hear it from you - in fact, you might be the only one they can hear it from because you speak exactly the same language.

START NOW by making a list of topics that are highly relevant to your ideal clients. What do you wish you had known when you were in their shoes? What do they ask you about when you meet? What is your unique way of answering?

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Head back to the Content Creation Manifesto Summary for links to #1-7.

Trackbacks, Reactions and Link Love - How to connect with someone you wrote about in a blog post

On January's Content Mastery Action Day, a member of the Action Club asked, "How do you tell another expert that you've mentioned them in your blog post?"

"Link love" (linking back to someone else's blog or website) is truly a win-win-win proposition. It's also the heart of connective content - the content you don't have to create from scratch.

Your readers win because they read and learn about something they may not have discovered otherwise. Hopefully you've chosen resources and information that relate to your topic, and hopefully that topic is highly relevant to your readers.

The other bloggers win from having new readers. If they've done their own work in producing great content, the right people will be led to follow them. By the way, if that means your reader hires another person instead of you, he or she wasn't the right client for you in the first place.

You win by having richer content for your blog, introducing different perspectives that you and your readers can learn from, and making connections with other experts in your field.

But how do you get the attention of those experts, especially if you've never met or connected online before?

Email, Twitter, trackbacks and tracking

Contact them directly

You can send them a brief email with a link to your post, and let them know you wrote about them. If you are connected via a social network, you can send a direct or private message there as well.

Show up on their screen

There are several ways to show up someone's screen and get their attention, even if you don't have direct access to their email.

• Tweet - I'll usually post an update to Twitter and include the person's Twitter ID (example). If you're posting several tweets about your blog post (as I recommended in a blog post and call about conversation starters), that means two or three more opportunities to connect with that colleague when they see your tweets in their list of "mentions."
• Trackback - If you and the other blogger are both set up to enable trackbacks, you can automatically notify the person and even have YOUR blog post displayed in a special section on their blog! First look on their post for a trackback link (example). Then paste that link into the box in your blog post editor (here are screen shots from Typepad and WordPress).
• Sit back - If the other blogger is monitoring their online mentions, they'll see you. Especially if you type out their full name in your post (versus just linking from some words that describe the topic). For example:
  
  • Google Alerts - When someone has an alert set up for their name, your post will show up in their report. This even works for tweets, though I've noticed it can take a couple of weeks for tweets to show up in my report.
  • Postling - I'm still learning about this service (recommended by Jeff Korhan), but it seems to be another great way for bloggers to monitor who is talking about or linking to them online.
  • Others? - I know there are many other ways to track who is writing about you and your blog. Please leave me a comment about which one you use and what you like about it.

Everyone wins when you link to high-quality content from your blog. Take the win even further by creating or deepening a relationship with the other expert.

Branding Your Writing, Writing Your Brand

"Imagine someone hiring you after falling in love with your writing style, only to find you entirely different in person!" - from Write Your Way to More Clients Online (Part One: Plan Mindfully)

On Thursday's call with choice, the magazine of professional coaching, Publisher Garry Schleifer was doing triple duty - he was my gracious host on the call, he was listening for writing tips for his own content marketing efforts, and he was managing the Facebook fan page where listeners were posting questions.

Pam Strand asked, "What are some tips for keeping [your] writing consistent with your brand?"

I shared that I had spoken earlier this week with a team who were redoing their website. It felt to them like they needed permission to move away from the crisp, professional and utterly generic language of their current site.

While I always encourage people to write with the same language your ideal client would use, it should be natural and authentic for you as well.

Maybe you are a member of your own target market, or maybe you're just looking to attract clients who are a natural fit. But how will you know if you speak the same language if you're trying to sound like someone you're not?

Writing prompt: To match your writing with your brand, consider what you want people to think of when they hear your name, or the name of your business. Look online for examples of others who write in that style. Then practice applying those techniques to your own unique ideas, topics and expertise.

Five Writing Resolutions that are Worth Keeping

Want to write more and better blog posts this year? Then

1. I will plan out my writing time and topics.
2. I will write masterfully, always pausing to step back and ask, "How can I make this even better?"
3. I will read my writing out loud before I send or publish.
4. I will publish more frequently than I'm publishing now, by first getting more consistent, and then gradually increasing.
5. I will share my writing with as many people as possible, in as many places as possible, while always aiming to treat each reader as if they were the only one.

My newest book will help you with all these resolutions, with five sections devoted to how to:

1. Plan Mindfully
2. Write Artfully
3. Edit Skillfully (also see the Style Guide)
4. Publish Consistently
5. Share Widely

Write Your Way to More Clients Online: How to craft captivating content for newsletters, blogs and social media is available from my website, as well as other select retailers.

NEW: Write Your Way to More Clients Online is now also available for your eReader.

A New Daily Blogging Habit - It's not what you think!

If you want to post new content more frequently (I recommend 2-5 times per month), I'm going to suggest that you develop a daily blogging habit.

Stop. Breathe. Don't worry. It's not what you think.

I do NOT want you to post every day. For most people, that's an unrealistic goal, and not necessary for reaping all the benefits of blogging.

It's like I suggested in a previous post, Five Writing Resolutions that are Worth Keeping: To increase your writing frequency, look at how often you're aiming to publish right now. Get solidly consistent with that goal, and then gradually increase your number of posts.

Otherwise, you'll be trying to change too much, too fast, without having these foundational supports in place:

Five Foundational Supports for Your Daily Blogging Habit

1. Blog post calendar - Have at least a rough plan for how you will keep your blog fresh throughout the month. I recommend Charlie Gilkey's planners, available in two versions - free and premium. I just sprung for my second year of premium planners (combined with his Freelancer Workweek planners) and have found it well worth the small investment.
2. Blog post planner - Make use of the feature on Charlie's planner that allows you to group your posts by categories. That way, you can see at a glance that your blog is balanced.
3. Article time - If you're sitting down to start, finish and publish a blog post all at the same time, you're setting yourself up for failure. Instead, devote time to take each post through four stages - brainstorming, drafting, writing and editing - with at least a short breather in between.
4. Idea catcher - Have a place (or many) to capture your new brainstorms wherever you may be, and a set time to transfer those into a draft post where you can proceed through the rest of the stages.
5. Draft posts - Set your blog to save your new posts in "draft" mode by default, and use that space to develop your ideas and polish them for publishing.

A daily blogging habit is a commitment to devote time to your blog. But blogging every day doesn't mean posting every day. It means that no matter what day it is, you have at least one blog post that you're working through the stages of the writing process.

For more detailed guidance on how to use the four writing stages of brainstorming, drafting, writing and editing, please download my free report, Write an Article, Who Me? Yes, You!

Top 10 Reasons We Love Lists

"The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists." - H. Allen Smith, American Journalist

Preparing for next week's call, How to Write a Better List, I stepped back to reflect on why lists are such a popular format for blogs and articles. Here are my conclusions, some of which I wrote in an earlier article, "The Top 10 Reasons to Write a Top 10 List."

As readers we love lists because:

1. Lists are familiar and we know what to expect right off the bat.
2. Even when the topic is serious, we have a positive association with Top 10 lists as a source of entertainment.
3. Lists break information down into digestible chunks that are easy for us to absorb.
4. Lists are easy to skim, helping us get a broad overview of a topic, even when we're busy.
5. Lists are linear, logical and organized - even when we're not. There is something comforting about that.

As writers, we love lists because:

6. Readers love them, so there's a better chance they'll keep reading and read/receive more content from us in the future.
7. Lists provide an instant structure for generating article or topic ideas.
8. Lists help you focus your mind, your topic and your writing.
9. List items can be the foundational material for countless other projects such as other articles, book chapters, entire books, workshops, coaching programs or presentations. 
10. Lists challenge us to think of more ideas in order to come up with the number of points we've promised in the title.

If you want to ensure your lists are effective as they can be, don't miss How to Write a Better List on January 13, 2011. This free call is part of Content Mastery Action Day on January 13, 2011 and is open to all Content Mastery Guide subscribers. For access to the full Action Day, please check out the Content Mastery Action Club.

How to Focus Your Mind, Your Topic and Your Writing

When you first emerge from a productive brainstorming session, it may seem like there will never be enough time to develop all your ideas.

There's a sense of glee and excitement about sharing your topics, and maybe even a little bit of fear that it was the last productive brainstorming you'll ever have.

Mix those feelings together and it becomes tempting to pour every single thought into your very next blog post. The unfortunate result can be a hodgepodge of topics that take the reader on a long, winding journey - if they stay with you that long.

Content marketing is most effective when each piece of content addresses one specific question or challenge that is important to your ideal client.

Here are some tools that will help you focus, long before you sit down to draft, write or edit:

• A current content strategy with the topics that will be most meaningful to your audience - update this regularly with surveys, interviews, metrics and other research techniques
  
• A blog post calendar where you can slot in future post topics (I use and recommend Charlie Gilkey's Blog Post Planner and Calendar)
• Idea catchers for when inspiration strikes, including at least one high-tech or low-tech mobile option for when you're on the go (remember to schedule regular times for transfering ideas from your idea catcher to your blog post calendar)

Here are some tips to help you focus your mind and your topic when it's time to draft, write and edit:

• Use lists either as the main content of your article (e.g., a top 10 list) or as a way of structuring your work (e.g., present one main topic and then list three supporting points) - for more help with lists, join the free call, How to Write a Better List
• Write to one ideal client, imagining they are sitting right across from you
• Keep asking yourself, "what is my point?" - if anything you've written doesn't support your point, save that content for another article
  

So don't try to write the article of a lifetime by pooling together all of your freshest ideas at once. Instead, remember, you have a lifetime to write articles! When you spread your ideas out, they'll be easier for your audience to take in - ensuring a long and healthy exchange of ideas and services.