Perhaps you never studied writing and you have never read a book from cover-to-cover since your school days; that does not mean you’re bound to struggle with writing. In fact, studies have shown that reading, albeit a book, article, or glimpsing at a blog can improve a writer’s style ever so slightly. However, after studying writing, there are a few techniques and stylistic choices that can improve your writing on and offline.

Show, Don’t Tell

There’s a golden rule that every writer has been told since they first put pen to page (or, more appropriately, fingertips to keys): “show don’t tell.” Many writers are plagued by this simple phrase because it can often be difficult to grasp the difference between “showing” and “telling”.
Telling means that you are simply writing in a matter-of-fact style (i.e. The ball is red; My business has a large sales and customer service department; We make and develop websites). All of these examples are fine grammatically and they accomplish just what a sentence should – to inform the reader. However, notice the weak nature of these sentences. They lie flat on the page and leave the reader feel nothing more than the movement of their eyes from left to right.

“Showing” is the ability to grasp and maintain the readers attention by giving apt details. A simple way to do this is to think about the subject at hand with all of your senses (i.e. The red rubber ball had a fine, protruding zigzag groove; WEBii’s staff includes a variety of experienced, helpful, and concerned individuals who take pride in their work; Our company develops contemporary, electrifying websites that will place your business at the forefront of the Internet). It’s adjustments like these that will change your sentences into statements, into something you can be proud of and the reader will have enjoyed reading.

Brevity

While “show don’t tell” is the golden rule for any strong piece of writing, brevity is still pivotal to any piece. Blogs, especially, need to be brief (more brief than a fictional story or a book). Some people spend all day sitting at a computer reading whatever’s in front of them for work or pleasure. This can cause bad posture and waning vision. This is the point where proofreading becomes a key component to writing. If you have a difficult time getting to the end of your own piece, then go back and make the necessary corrections. That said, even if you are passionate about your business or cause, you should never make the experience of reading your blog the equivalent to “pulling teeth.” Get to the point, expand with enough detail to either start a discussion or answer a question, and conclude.

The answer may be in its niche market – entertainment.  Afterall, Apple embraced the entertainment culture to a point of growing their company exponentially with iPods, iPhones, and iPads.  Other companies like Verizon are recognizing young lively music loving teens as their target demographic – and one that actually influences and spends money.  So maybe between the music fans, the music venues, and the music-makers – MySpace has a real future.

“It took time for Myspace to wake up. Perhaps too much time. But, this new iteration of the website has dusted off old criticisms and revamped a once industry-leading brand. Where Facebook is clean (almost dull these days) and focused squarely on interaction and making friends, the new Myspace is all about delivering bright, vibrant and viral content, where and how their users want it.” (Website Magazine)

Let’s see how things unfold in the next few months.

• Donate your services to a good cause or have an event that will draw media attention.  Remember to take lots of pictures and video for posting on social media outlets!
• Write expert articles for an industry newsletter as a guest writer or even become a regular columnist.
• Run a comprehensive search of mentions of your company on the web and if you are not linked, ask for one!
• If you’ve received sincere thanks and praise from a client, ask them to post a link to your site on their personal website or profile.
• Be sure you are linked in the directories of all chambers or business organizations you’re a member of.
• Exchange links with business partners and referral partners.  Make sure you are “fans” of one another.

YouTube, like every search engine, uses its own algorithm and delivers unique results… video results.  To access the 125.5 million Americans using YouTube each month, you must have video content on the web.  This doesn’t have to be an elaborate short film by any means– it can be as simple as a slide show, webinar, or a quick infomercial.  If you want to get more creative with your search marketing strategy, try releasing a viral video!

You should use the same principle SEO tactics with YouTube that you would with more tradtional search engines.  When submitting content to YouTube, be sure to sign up for a director’s account.  This will give you more room to describe your business and you’ll also have the capability to put live links in video descriptions.  Video content is a great and relatively easy way to get top-ranking search results, so what are you waiting for?  Grab the video camera and GO!

1960′s: tie-dye, lava lamps, and ouija boards
1970′s: tetherball, pet rocks, and Farrah Faucet hair
1980′s: parachute pants, Rubik’s cube, and Jazzercise
1990′s: Tamagotchi, chat rooms, and spandex
2000′s: Crocs, Hannah Montana, and… social media??

Consider the following (adapted from Erik Qualman’s article, Social Media: Fad or Revolution?):

• By 2010, Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers — 96 percent of them have joined a social network.
• One out of eight couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
• Eighty percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences!
• What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (Web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook daily.
• Wikipedia has more than 13 million articles. Some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica.
• There are more than 200,000,000 blogs.  Fifty-four percent of bloggers post content or tweet daily.
• Years to reach 50 million users: Radio, 38 years; TV, 13 years; Internet, 4 years; iPod, 3 years. Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months; iPhone applications hit 1 billion in nine months.

So… you decide.  Is social media just another fad, or has it completely revolutionized the way people across the globe do business, connect with loved ones, share information, and live their everyday lives?

Need help revving up your company’s presence in the social media world?  WEBii can help!  Contact one of our specialists today to talk about starting a customized social media plan for your business.

How large are your files and how will they affect the performance of your site to those visitors? Do they have a fast enough Internet connection?  Will they likely be viewing your site at work when they might need to mute sound from playing?  Is the primary purpose of your web site to entertain, for brand recognition, or for making sales?  Will a video detract from another key call-to-action?

For many businesses, marketing with online videos and audio is a great tool, but it might be better served on a particular web page instead of your home page, or only on third party web sites like blogs, community forums, Google, and YouTube.  SEO and marketing consultants can often make recommendations in this area that are tailored to your campaign.  Ask WEBii about SEO Marketing Services.

Picking the right medium means you have to be smart. You certainly wouldn’t want your best marketing efforts to call out to a crowd that can’t hear you, do you?

Looking at your various options (and thoroughly examining them) will give you better insight into where you can put your message so that it gets you the most bang for your marketing buck.

Example: You have a creative series of images, all of which need to be seen to fully understand the concept, and you have enough text that you need at least 30 seconds for people to read your whole message. Putting this on a billboard probably won’t work out for you. People only have a few seconds to glance at your billboard ad, and they aren’t really able to piece together a stream of images and text in the short amount of time it takes them to drive by. However, a catchy idea like this would work great on a postcard. Let’s face it, most postcards don’t have the most attention-grabbing images. The ones that do tend to stand out. If your images are strong enough, and your message clear, putting your design on a postcard is likely to be your best bet. Plus you’ll have gotten their attention with your images, and your copy can pull them in and make them want to learn more about your products and services.

Another example … say you have a single captivating image and under ten words in your whole design. This will likely translate better onto a billboard than our last example. With billboards, you have to keep it short and sweet, while still being striking enough so that your audience takes notice. Postcards, brochures and flyers give you the option to add support text to more abstract images that need a bit of explanation, where you can’t do that with billboards. Make sure your message, design and ideas translate into mediums that can actually help your marketing efforts.

Creativity doesn’t have to get lost on mediums, like billboards, and it shouldn’t. You simply have to be careful to make sure you pick the right medium for each message you have.

The moral of today’s quick tip is to make sure you proofread, and proofread, and proofread, and then read it again. Be error free this Wednesday and make a lasting impression.