Should Everyone Learn Marketing Skills?
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...
Read MoreDo You Just Happen To Write Items That Matter?
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...
Read MoreWhat Should You Do With Your Lurkers?
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...
Read MoreHow To Get People To Read A 1000-Word Blog Post
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...
Read MoreWhat Do You Do With An Uncomfortable Shoe?
Let me let you in on something: This blog isn’t talking to you. At least, not when I take that tone–the one that tells you things you already know using my trademark insouciant sarcasm. You know the one. The one that opines about whether you should do this, that, or never, ever the other thing. You’re a grown-up; you know what you’re doing, and I’ve no illusions you need me to tell you. I’m talking to them. Those other people–over there–who can...
Read MoreWaiting While Blogging
I’ve said before that I believe the number one quality of every successful blogger is patience. But it’s hard, being patient. People equate patience with waiting, but that’s not what it is, not in blogging, anyway. And the difference is one that determines its success or failure. It doesn’t matter how unique, how extreme, how eclectic, how well branded you are offline, how passionate–it takes time to traverse each level of the blogosphere to whatever spot you seek...
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