TashWord
Tash is a professional writer who loves helping people communicate clearly and effectively.
There are great quotes around. Some of them can be very inspiring or lead you to new ideas that can change your life.
I think we all come across great sayings, lyrics, words that make us think. Yet it is so easy to forget them in the everyday or hear so many at once that the wisdom doesn’t have the opportunity to really sink in.
As I am watching the twitter feed for PBEvent, I can see many nuggets of information and wisdom that are great and worth taking note of.
For example…
Final roadblock – the comparison trap. If you’re compelled to compare, compare yourself now to when you started. Not to others. Darren Rowse
How do we do what we were born to do?, asks @ClareBowditch. We Begin. Carly Findlay
The best businesses and blogs solve a problem in the world. ProbloggerEvent
I am trying to write down those that really stand out to me – which is sometimes a challenge to keep up with the feed speed and write. But it is obvious that getting information solely through the twitterverse is limited in two ways.
For one thing, it is going past so fast that I can assess something is important and/or useful but not really process it.
The other is that there is no background context. This means I may be missing part of the point, of course but also that there is less opportunity to absorb the bigger picture and get my own ideas sparked by little things said.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m loving the technology that allows us to share in the event despite not being there! Twitter is live and awesome, virtual recordings later, it’s all good!
And I often shares tidbits of information when I attend a conference, webinar or whatever, too as it helps me cement ideas and I like to share. And I figure tidbits are better than nothing.
So how can we maximise these bits of stuff we’re getting via tweets or quote websites and the like?
Please share your ideas and how you learn from others in the comments below – I want to learn rather than get overwhelmed or miss the very points I notice!
So some ideas from me to get us started…
Have you ever followed a live feed for an event?
How did it go? Did you learn enough to make it a worthwhile experience?
* image courtesy of 123rf
If you keep on an eye on the blogging community in Australia, it would have been a bit hard to miss the fact the Problogger event is on this weekend.
In fact, #PBEvent has already started trending on Twitter and the event hasn’t started yet!
Speaking for myself, I’m now getting itchy feet about not being there. I loved it last year and am sure this year would have been even better.
For one thing, this year there are 3 sessions on most of the time (mind you it was hard enough to decide between two at times last year!) and I would have loved catching up with some people from last year.
And I simply hate missing out on things, lol!
However, it just wasn’t possible for me this year due to family commitments, especially as the travelling would put me so much further away.
There are many blog posts around at the moment about preparing for and getting the most out of PBEvent, so I thought I’d write a post for those of us itching to go but staying at home this weekend.
These are just my ideas and if you can add to the list, please do in the comments below as I want the best non-event I can get!
There will also be related hashtags as each session will have its own – I guess the trending hashtags list will give us a clue on the day!
[Tweet “Watch #PBEvent on Twitter this weekend to learn a LOT about blogging!”]
◊ Yes, this is an affiliate link. However, I suggest this because I know how great the event was last year. If I help cover my costs through an affiliate link, it helps my blog keep going and it doesn’t cost you anymore than if you bought a ticket directly. And it’s all done through Problogger so I never see any of your details.
I don’t watch politics for fun. In fact, I don’t like politics very much at all and I often find their behaviour childish. Childish in a way I wouldn’t tolerate from any actual children…
Yet I am going to write a blog post inspired by a politician and Saturday’s election. It is mainly about their communications so no need to hide from another political statement!
Earlier this week, I went to a number of websites to find out more about the smaller parties. Namely because I can’t bring myself to vote for either major party this year – blocking refugees asking for help is simply wrong.
On each site, I looked at their policy ideas and details on their candidate in my area.
Based on reviewing a few sites covering the same basic idea (ie what the political party stands for and why we should vote for them), here are some useful website tips for us all:
Remember how I couldn’t find information about my local candidate above? I found a media release about him and some others in his party which my local candidate had replied to in the comments.
There is both good and bad to be learned from those comments…
His first comment was long. Maybe a third of a page without paragraph breaks long (lack of structure may be due to the software, which is on the party not him, so I’ll give him a pass there!) It started with a lot of impressive words strung into a sentence or two that made absolutely no sense. Instantly I had no faith in him and no desire to vote for him.
The lesson – make sure anyone representing your business online can write reasonably well or do it for them. A genuine message is better than trying to impress readers.
However, I will give him credit for answering multiple people’s questions to the media release. Responding to comments and questions showed enthusiasm and passion, and listening to people is a precious commodity when it comes to politicians.
Yes, some of those answers were long winded and were nice ways of fobbing off hard questions but he was trying.
The lesson – respond to people online to build rapport, show your personality and gain another opportunity to explain your purpose or skills. Remember, people may see this rather than your carefully crafted profile – especially if a link is faulty!
Have you come across examples where a politician or political party has communicated well or poorly?
Maybe some of the above examples have inspired you to check your own website with a different perspective. If so, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below…
While I am not going to vote for a party just because they did the best job with their website, being able to easily understand the party does influence my choices.
Just like as a business owner or consumer I am not going to buy something just because you have the prettiest website, but I am more likely to trust you (and thus give you my money!) if your site is professional, simple to use and inoffensive.
But based purely on my descriptions of their websites, who would you vote for from the above examples?
Personally the first site I mentioned would get my vote – their summaries and easy-to-navigate site made it easy.
On the other hand, there is a lot of skill, strategy and knowledge that goes into running a good blog. And a lot of different measures for deciding if a blog is successful, or not.
So what do you know about blogging?
What do you want to know about blogging?
This isn’t a trick question I can give you an answer to.
I do think it is important to know why you are blogging (or thinking of blogging).
If you know why, you can make your blog suit that purpose and you have something to measure your success against.
For instance, if your aim is to build awareness of topic X, you can decide if 10 targeted readers is enough or if you need thousands of readers a week. Whereas if your aim is to blog to build a habit of writing 200 words a day, a look at your post dates is an easy measure of your success.
I recently read a post by Rhianna which lists what she knows about blogging. It isn’t a technical list of how long posts should be, the best post frequency or choosing great titles, but a more basic list of what she knows about herself and her blogging purpose.
Like the Cheshire Cat said, how will you ever know you have arrived if you don’t know where you are going?
In a business context, I think this becomes even more important as time blogging could be spent elsewhere for perhaps greater profit – how do you know the blog is ‘working’ and worth the effort if you don’t know what it is meant to achieve for your business?
Even if you hire someone like me to help write or edit your blog posts, you need to know the purpose of your blog to assess it’s worth. And give direction to the writer.
So in the comments below, let me know why you blog. Or put in your ideas of maybe why you blog to help form your final answer and see if that changes how you blog.
* Images courtesy of 123rfFor myself and for clients, I have often had an editor question whether I will provide an editorial (or article) rather than an advertorial. It’s almost insulting.
I say almost because I understand why an editor wants that reassurance.
It’s insulting because I wouldn’t ever pass an advertorial off as an article. I just wouldn’t. It is unprofessional for one thing and I would hate it as a reader so don’t do it as a writer/publisher.
Silly, I know, but I also assume others would not offer an article or editorial when planning to provide an advertorial.
This week, I was shown my silliness in believing that.
I read a guest post on a blog to find it was part advertorial. And the first part was advertorial to make it worse.
It flavoured how I felt about the post as I read the rest of it – I was suspicious because I was just waiting for the next sell instead of the next piece of information.
Let’s use this guest post as an example of advertorial.
It was a bullet list of tips related to a service offered by the guest poster. The topic and introduction did their job, bullet point one was a very generic statement without explanation.
The second bullet point was a sales pitch. “[This] is paramount. If you haven’t done it, I would be happy to help you”
It did not teach me anything, nor entertain.
A subsequent point included her business. Using your own business in examples is fine, and can be an effective way to put your name into an article. However, she did it as an explanation, not an example. And included a boast about her success in that area.
It probably would have come off as a clumsy example if the earlier point hadn’t been blatantly promoting her services.
In short, an advertorial is an ad disguised as an informative article.
A good article (or editorial or technical piece or whatever name a particular site or magazine calls it) is basically the sort of article you want to read.
It will
It’s what I aim at in every blog post and article I write – I want to help people write and communicate well.
Is it the sort of writing you prefer to read?
Do you ever read an entire advertorial?
Filling in the account details on a website form today I was reminded of how difficult things can be when someone assumes knowledge.
Yes, we all KNOW that if you assume you make an ass out of u and me. But that doesn’t stop many of us making assumptions that we shouldn’t.
And I suspect that online forms is one area where people just get a form put together quickly without really thinking about making the form easy to use and highly effective.
Today, I was faced with two boxes under the title ‘Your name’.
So I had to figure out if they wanted Tash then Hughes or Hughes then Tash, or maybe Tash Hughes and the second box shouldn’t have been there at all.
It was obvious to the person creating the form what they wanted, but not so obvious to me, the paying client.
With just a little more effort on their part, the form could have been better labelled or set out and thus been much simpler to use.
I reread a blog post recently that gave a perfect example of how a simple form impressed a potential client – and a vague form (that was also hard to find) turned that client away from the business.
A poor form can be that serious – people may not be patient enough to work through the issues so you could lose a customer. And possibly earn some bad comments elsewhere.
There are many ways to simplify a form, whether it is an order form, contact form or an online survey/feedback form. And what works with one form may not work well with a different form, so there is no simple answer for making your forms effective.
However, here are some generic tips to help you keep your forms simple:
Got any questions about making your forms simpler and effective? Why not ask below as a comment, or send me an email?
* If you are using a form with one box per letter (usually only for printed forms), this tip becomes use one label per obvious group of boxes.
Image of form courtesy of Love SantaWriting an eBook appeals to many people, but not so many have done it. Is it something you have been thinking of doing?
The following eBook tips come from a ProBlogger webinar I participated in at the end of July. They look short and simple but there is a wealth of information there if you take the time to think about them.
What challenges have you faced when thinking about, planning or writing an eBook?
So I’ve posted about poor template use and given some tips on maximising your use of templates.
But maybe you’re wondering what sorts of templates you could use in the first place. Or whether it is worth the effort to prepare a template.
Templates are great for
Ok, that’s as easy as answering ‘what letters can we use in our business?’
There are many different things that can be put into a template for improved efficiency and branding. So this list is a sample to get you thinking of what can be changed in your business.
What other templates have you used that have made your business life a bit simpler and easier?
Using a template can be a great tool – it saves time, ensures important details are included and builds consistency.
But for best results, each use of a template needs to be tailored to the purpose. Just copying it as is looks lazy and can lead to embarrassing mistakes.
That means, if you use a template…
My advice for templates is to always start with the base document.
So if you have a template for competition terms, always use the original template rather than taking last month’s terms and updating them.
It is so easy to miss one field if you update an existing document, leaving a mistake that at best makes you look silly and at worst could have legal or customer service issues for you.
If you find that you are adjusting a lot of the common text, create a new version of the base template to use.
If you find you are often changing text around certain fields, make some of that text variable, too. It doesn’t have to be a blank space, you can provide two alternative sets of words (eg ‘All winners are’ or ‘the winner is’) as part of the template.
A template should be a ‘living document’ in that it is regularly reviewed and adjusted for each use. The first version can be useful but by using it, improvements often become apparent as it is used in different situations.
For documents with very sensitive content (such as legal implications) or to be used by many people of varying skills, consider setting up the document so non-variable text can’t be edited.
Do you have any other suggestions for maximising the use of templates in business?
Recent Comments