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Join Michelle Baker, the Corporate Writing Pro, and I every other Thursday at 4pm EST for #WrMatters, the only Twitter chat for non-writing professionals to discuss the what, why, and how Writing Matters every day.
Join Michelle Baker, the Corporate Writing Pro, and I every other Thursday at 4pm EST for #WrMatters, the only Twitter chat for non-writing professionals to discuss the what, why, and how Writing Matters every day.
Spotlight On Lessons Learned From Your Very First Marketing Efforts
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on May 14, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 17 comments
You probably don’t think it could possibly be all that fascinating, but I know it will be. Remember all that passion keeping you from doing anything until your slogan was finalized? Remember how painting the entire town with your company colors was doable with just a few thousand fliers and volunteers? Remember the feeling when you got some press? Remember when no one seemed to notice a thing… and then suddenly you were in business? Remember when you just happened to be in the right place at the right time? Remember how long it...
read moreFour Things Inspirational Quotes And Marketing Have In Common
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on May 11, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 0 comments
I am not a fan of The Sappy. Most of those motivating, inspiring, deep-thinking, worldview-simplifying quotes (or misquotes, depending on who you believe) are among The Sappiest, in my book. I have unfollowed every purveyor of Sap in the form of those quotes that I mistakenly followed. If I see one RTed, I immediately check to be sure those kinds of tweets don’t represent the majority of their timeline. So you can imagine the degree of grudge in my grudging acceptance when something clicked inside the moment I saw a “You...
read moreHow To Stop Marketing To People-Like Substances
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on May 3, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 2 comments
Everything you’ve ever learned about marketing your business sets you up for it. Research your customer, you’re taught. Get the stats. Are they male or female? How many are there? Where do they live? Where do they work? How much do they make? You gather all that data and you have… a silhouette. A crowd of silhouettes. Friendly silhouettes, all of a similar shape and size. They fit neatly into any of your carefully tailored contexts. They’re perfect. And with that word–perfect–you begin to run into...
read moreShould Everyone Learn Marketing Skills?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 25, 2012 in LinkedIn, Marketing & Business, Social Media | 12 comments
Marketing is everywhere–no seriously! Learning to use LinkedIn, I realized you can either a) learn to draw positive attention to yourself to make connections that help you land a job or grow your business or b) draw negative attention or (worst of all, it seems) no attention at all to yourself, and thus remain jobless and connectionless (unless you’re a recruiter). In other words, you can either market yourself wisely or market yourself poorly. Either way, you’re marketing. Feeling a little overwhelmed by a network...
read moreBeyond Fear: A Closer Look At Why You’re Writing
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 20, 2012 in Marketing & Business, Writing & Editing | 4 comments
Dedicated creative writers tend to write because they feel compelled to. They “hear voices” in their heads. They have “too much built up inside.” They feel ”something needs to be said.” Often, the need to express themselves with words is as necessary as breathing. But we business writers–who write things like email campaigns, summaries of scientific findings, or monthly reports–are usually writing because a) it’s our job to write these things, b) it’s protocol to write them,...
read moreSelling Without Writing To “You”
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 17, 2012 in Marketing & Business | 5 comments
Your customer’s reaction to what he reads is the only one that matters. The easiest way to get that reaction is to write directly to him. But easiest isn’t always best. You can sometimes get an even more positive reaction from your reader by making every sentence about him–by telling someone else’s story. People are hardwired to love stories. But the stories they love most are not about them. So it may seem to be a non-sequitur that the storytelling technique works so well in marketing, but it’s actually one...
read moreWho To Write To When Everyone’s Reading
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 6, 2012 in Marketing & Business, Writing & Editing, Writing Matters | 0 comments
Yesterday at 4pm EST I co-hosted the first ever Writing Matters Twitter chat–#WrMatters–with Corporate Writing Pro Michelle Baker. We were joined by Michelle Quillin of New England Multimedia and Megan Harris of Megan Writes Media, as well as plenty of lurkers–I’m certain of it. Anyhow, our discussion centered on reaching our audiences. Michelle’s Writer’s Triangle shows audience is affected by the author on one angle and the purpose of the piece on another angle. So basically, its breadth and...
read moreDo You Just Happen To Write Items That Matter?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Apr 2, 2012 in Announcements, Marketing & Business, Social Media, Twitter | 12 comments
In my editing life I meet quality control reviewers, non-profit administration, analysts, business owners, PhD candidates… all writers, willy-nilly. They make life-and-death decisions about entire organizations, determine the significance of scientific findings, catch the eyes of customers, promise value for grant money, and more. And just about all of it has to be recorded in black and white for posterity. It’s the “posterity” part that tends to get writers of all kinds stuck. You understand that impressions matter in...
read moreWhat Should You Do With Your Lurkers?
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 28, 2012 in Marketing & Business, Social Media | 13 comments
After reading Davina Brewer’s article about the puzzle of engaging lurkers, I decided to read up on lurker behavior. I was interested in how to reach out to people you can generally only see as a number, browser type, and national flag in your Analytics screen. I wanted to know what kind of people lurkers are and why. I wanted to know whether we should communicate with lurkers differently than with those who engage with us, and how. Perhaps most importantly, I wanted to know whether we should even be trying to convert lurkers into...
read moreHow To Get People To Read A 1000-Word Blog Post
Posted by Shakirah Dawud on Mar 23, 2012 in Blogging, Social Media | 14 comments
Please welcome Jacqui MacKenzie of marketing agency Straight North, who I met via a circuitous route beginning with Twitter colleague Brad Shorr, also of Straight North. Find out how to keep people’s attention for longer than I can… Hey, where are you going? The Internet has really done a number on people’s attention spans. For writers who create content for the Internet, it’s conventional wisdom to keep the piece short and sweet – especially when it comes to blogging. A typical blog post usually weighs in around 500 words or...
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