I worked with Phil from Brand iD mid 2011 to develop some SEO focused copy for his new website. Phil wanted to create a website that was really spot on with its message and I think we achieved that. It looks great and I think the words are pretty good too. (Bias? Me? Never!)

Have a read through the site and get in touch with Phil if you’re after an expert brand creator.

Thanks to Tonto Digital for the referral!

Well, this project wasn’t just released, but I just stumbled upon it (does that count?).

I wrote the MPS Architects website copy mid last year just after our big trip to New Zealand! Ahhh memories. This was a really interesting project to write and I learned so much about architecture, design and planning. It was great to work with a really organised client too – it makes my job a lot easier.

Thanks very much to Clue Design for the referral!

I’ve always wanted to be a reviewer. Getting to see cool new shows and performances really appeals to me. Not to mention the free tickets and random goodies. So recently when I was asked by Everguide to do a review of a new contemporary dance show, I jumped at it. I knew I would love it but I didn’t know how ‘the man’ would react. Luckily for me he enjoyed it just as much as I did. Head on over to the Everguide page to read the full review.

(Image credit: Strut Dance)

Around the start of the year we got a mass email from our rental agency. We don’t get them that often so when they arrive I’m already a little anxious. The company we rent for is a large, national chain and they probably have hundreds of properties on their local books. Now, this email started off pleasantly enough, wishing us a happy new year. You know, the usual small talk opening. But what came next really threw me.

In the following two paragraphs the writer of the email launched into a tirade about the state of some tenants’ lawns. The bulk of the email was an ultimatum that if you didn’t keep your lawn green, mowed every three weeks and weed free, you’d be kicked to the curb. Somewhere in amongst the vitriol she said “Thanks” to the tenants who were doing a good job, but those few words were literally sandwiched between threats.

I felt belittled, angry and annoyed after getting this 100 word onslaught. I know that my partner felt the same. We’d been attacked, even though we were doing everything we could to keep our lawn green.

This got me thinking about the dangers of using mass email to address a problem like patchy green lawn amongst renters. Some people, I decided, are doing mass emailing really wrong.

Here are four things to keep in mind when you’re communicating to a large group of people.

1. Do not use mass email to do battle with a few people
If you have an issue with a small group of people, send an email or letter to them directly and individually. Don’t send a mass email to a large group of people when the issue concerns a minority. It’s offensive to the majority and it will backfire because you will look petty.

2. The message you intend isn’t always the message people will receive
How your readers will comprehend your email will differ based on limitless factors. They may be having a bad day, they may have had a bad experience dealing with you in the past or the email may have arrived at a bad time. You never really know how someone will take an email, especially if it doesn’t address an issue specific to them. I know that I took the email from our property manager personally, and I was offended. I know, that her intention (probably) wasn’t to offend me. Yet this was the outcome. Different words trigger different emotions and associations as Amanda Gangon said in her article Do your words scare people away? Stick to the facts and try to be neutral.

3. Don’t write an email when you’re feeling emotional
I guess our property manager was having a bad day when she wrote the email. She might have driven around to a few properties and seen several lawns looking a little brown. I bet when she returned to the office she was really fired up. This emotion is the perfect excuse to leave the mass emailing until tomorrow. Never, ever write an email when you’re fired up. Take some time and think about what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. Devise a plan of attack. Draft up an email, sure, but don’t send it.

4. Business communication directly affects your business
Never assume that the language you use in a simple, throwaway email will not affect your business. The language, your tone and how well you articulate your stance on issues will greatly affect perception. Many businesses have style guides that dictate the type of language to be used when communicating with customers. They are important, especially for larger businesses with several offices and thousands of clients. Eisla Sebastian has it spot on when she wrote “Without a communication style guide your employees may be transmitting offensive messages or muddled messages to your clients and to each other, which can impact your company productivity and profitability.”

How you communicate affects so many different facets of your business. Get it right and you can create brand loyalty and longevity. Get it wrong and you’re digging your own grave.

Last week I attended a really insightful webinar lead by a very clever lady. Sarah Mitchell from Global Copywriting spoke about content marketing and how businesses can use it to grow. If you’re interested in promoting and developing your business I really suggest you have a look through the presentation – it gave me lots of great ideas and sparked this post.

Sarah mentioned something that I’ve been mulling over for a while. She talked about businesses having a post and hope attitude to the information they put online. They produce some form of content but they don’t tell anyone about it. It sounded really familiar because I do it all the time. To me, self-promotion has always been a little….ewww.

Bragging is bad

When I was younger it was drilled into me that bragging was not good thing. It was something you didn’t do. It wasn’t an attractive quality in a person. If you bragged you’d never have any friends because you were up yourself.

Over the years you learn to stifle the desire to shout about your successes. You get so good at stifling that pretty soon no one really knows what you actually do or how good you are at it.

After years of stifling, I had an epiphany. Self-promotion does not necessarily equal bragging. Here’s why.

A person brags to feed their ego. They want to let you know how great they are.

A person self promotes to help others. They want to let you know they have experience doing or creating something that may help make your life or business better.

One is self-serving. The other serves a purpose.

What stops us from self-promoting?

In the end, it all boils down to fear. We worry about what our peers may think of us. We worry about sending the right message. We worry that no one will be interested in what we’re doing. This fear blinds us to the fact that even the smallest bit of self-promotion is a good thing.

Baby steps to self-promotion

For anyone averse to self-promotion, I suggest starting with some simple baby steps.

1. Share some successes with your social media stream. Twitter, Facebook, Linked In – it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got followers, you need to connect with them.
2. Be confident. Talk about your business with confidence. You work hard and it’s ok to let people know about it.
3. Don’t promote everything. This is a surefire way to turn people off. If you won a big contract or recently finished a project, let people know. Let them know what your goals were and how you used your skills to achieve them.
4. Fine-tune your elevator pitch. Make sure you can articulate what it is you do and why you do it better than anyone else. This will come in really handy as more people start to ask about what you do.
5. Start believing in yourself. A lot of us have a big issue with self-belief. If you’re doing what you love you need to start believing in it or you’ll never be successful.

I have no doubt that there are many ridiculously creative people out there that I will never connect with, which is a real shame. Unfortunately, these days if you don’t actively promote yourself, a lot of people will never know you exist. That’s just the nature of the Internet. My advice is to start small and get over the initial embarrassment/fear that a lot of us have about self-promotion. If you want to start really small, just tell me one of your recent successes. I’d love to hear all about it!

Wordish has really grown in leaps and bounds this year. While my priority at the beginning of the year was to put up a simple site that explained what I do and gave potential clients the ability to contact me, it’s really become evident that I need to create a site that lets me share things easily. So we (Tony and I) will be working on a new Wordish website, with the finished branding and everything, over the next few months. I’ve been trawling around the ‘net for inspiration for the new site and I wanted to share some quick thoughts about sites that I like, and why I like them. I’d love to hear from you if you have any site recommendations to share.

1. Second and Park. I just can’t rave enough about this site. It’s simple, well laid out and makes you want to read the content – which is the best kind of praise for a content writer’s website.
2. Global Copywriting. Sarah is one of my business blogging idols! She updates her blog with relevant information frequently and she’s really good and drawing readers to her site. While I write lots of blog posts for clients each month, I have a tendency to put my own writing on the back burner. I’m hoping I’ll be able to develop better blog posting habits over the next few months.
3. Dossier. I adore the Dossier Studio website. Simple, fresh, it tells you what you need to know without mucking about.

I’ve noticed a bit of a theme with all the sites I’ve bookmarked for inspiration. I tend to like white space and pretty typographical elements. Perhaps this is a good place to start?

I must apologise for not mentioning Brown Beagle Software sooner! I actually created the web copy for Alex’s company back at the start of the year.  It’s really great to work alongside clients that have a clear idea of what they want. It makes the task of getting to know them (and their vision) a lot easier!  Brown Beagle are experts at Ruby on Rails development so if you need a whiz (or two) to help you with your next development have a chat to Alex.

I just read a great blog post by Malcolm Davison over at Writing for the Web about how web content writers really need to think about how we design the flow of content on a page. I know when I write a website the overall design (including the graphic design) is a big consideration. As a web writer, my goal is to create a cascade of information that’s in harmony with the elements that surround it (images, navigation, advertising etc). Figuring this out helps me to decide how to structure my text.

Here are my thoughts:

• People are hunting for information when they get to a site. More often than not they’re not there by chance. They need to find the right information immediately or they’re gone.
• Headings work really well. They break up text into smaller chunks which makes it easier for people to read.
• The opening paragraph needs to be spot on. It needs to entice readers to read on. If it’s blah your visitor will click on to the next site.
• Lists are great. Especially short and succinct ones.
• Big words are a turn off and they don’t make you look smart.
• Proofread your text and get rid of unnecessary words.
• A website content style guide is a good thing. Sally Bagshaw wrote a great post about creating a style guide over at SNOBS. Putting a plan in place that covers how you handle content will save time and confusion -  especially if you’re not the only one handling it.

For me, I think one of the fun parts about my job is finding fun ways of presenting information. I’d love to know what other content writers think too. What works for you? What hasn’t worked?

Wordish recently finished a few pages of copy for the brand spanking new Trendsetter Homes website which was built by our friends at Hub Creative. It’s always awesome to write about companies that create wonderful things, in this case it’s stunning houses. It makes our job so much easier! Best of luck to Trendsetter!

Amber Naslund wrote a great post today about the expectation a lot of people have about getting things for free on the Internet. It’s well worth the read if you have a few spare minutes.

I definitely agree with her and my own personal opinion is that people have been expecting free stuff online since Google (with GMail and Docs etc) came to the fore. The Google suite of products are fantastic, easily accessible tools that the average user doesn’t have to pay a cent for and unfortunately I think people just expect everything else to be that good and that free. Information and experience is a commodity, isn’t it?

(img credit)