Welcome!

I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential. Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash

Refer to older posts…

Blogging services

HCI chat

Business Communications

← Older posts
Newer posts →

Help others help you

Published 11 May, 2012 | By TashWord

I do a bit of guest blogging, and I believe it is a mutually rewarding experience if done well. I certainly don’t think the host blogger is doing it all for the sake of guest bloggers as they also benefit from the arrangement.

Maybe the host blogger likes updating the blog without writing much themselves, maybe they like the traffic guest bloggers can bring or maybe they are basing their blog on a team effort to give a broader picture. Whatever the motivation, the host blogger benefits.

Accept posts graciously

Email arriving from a laptopI think it is plain good manners and a strategic decision to be nice to people who offer posts upon request.

Recently, I saw a blog request blog posts through BloggerLinkUp. I looked at the site and the topics covered, decided it was a good fit for me and emailed the blog with a post idea.

The response received left a sour taste in my mouth and I didn’t bother writing a blog post for him. The issues with the email:

  1. he didn’t bother using my name or a greeting of any description
  2. he told me to read his ‘write for us’ page to see the requirements – he didn’t link to it or tell me how to find that page. At a quick look in his site menu and footer, I can’t see any related links so I left the site. It would had been easy to give me a link. It would have been easier to include such a link and requirement in the original request for blog posts
  3. he didn’t use his name to finish the email – it made it all very impersonal and showed no attempt on his part to build a relationship. I no longer felt comfortable with him or his site, and certainly didn’t feel it was somewhere I wanted to regularly contribute posts to
  4. this one is perhaps more personal, but I didn’t like his comment “I would publish your post if it meets the standard of this blog”. I felt he assumed I wasn’t up to the standard rather than assuming I am (sort of ‘capable until proven incapable’ is my usual approach). He didn’t acknowledge the topic I had suggested – who knows if that even met his unstated standards?

So if you want people to provide guest posts for your blog, or articles for your website or newsletter, try to build a relationship with those who offer you their writing – or at least send them a nice email response.

What sort of responses have you received from sending out or offering to write guest blog posts?

Posted in blogging, Business Communications | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Tell others about you

Published 8 May, 2012 | By TashWord

There are two main reasons people visit a website – they want information on a topic or they want information about the business behind the site.

So why do some sites avoid sharing anything about themselves?

Add an about us page to your website and blog

About us page Word ConstructionsAs Chris Lake wrote, an about us page “is surely one of the only true rules of doing business online. I can think of no good reason why you wouldn’t have one.”

An about us page can be very simple but it can make a huge difference to people thinking of doing business with you.

For a stand alone blog, it lets readers know who is writing the posts – for instance, is it a business or an individual, is it by an expert or someone learning the topic, or is the blog focussed on a specific topic or just a collection of ideas.

For a business website, it can build enough credibility for me to do business with you – or not.

How ‘about us’ can build credibility

  1. you are being open and transparent compared to making me wonder why you are hiding things – no name on a website instantly makes me suspicious
  2. providing history shows the business is more than a fly-by-night – if you’ve been in business for a few years, you must have done something right!
  3. explaining how the business began or the passion behind the business will certainly give me a believe in the intent of the business and its owners
  4. introducing team members can give me an idea of what skills are available for me as a potential client
  5. listing values or just writing a personal story can show the company culture

I have an about us page on my website and as part of my blog, even though they are on the same domain, so it is easy for people to read about me and my business. I wonder if I’m brave enough to ask if you have read either of them!

How important is an about us page when you are assessing a potential supplier or service provider?

Posted in blogging, Business Communications, web content | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Repeat annual report content?

Published 3 May, 2012 | By TashWord

Annual report coversMost annual reports contain the same general information year after year.

Whether it is an introduction, history of the business, outlining products, naming directors or key staff, there are sections of an annual report that don’t change much over the years.

Repeat the wording?

The fastest option therefore is to use exactly the same wording in those sections every year, just changing small details as necessary. The freshest option would be to rewrite all those sections.

There are pros and cons to both options, such as:

  1. if you assume most people don’t read annual reports from cover to cover, and probably don’t remember last year’s report in depth anyway, not changing the words would probably escape attention from the majority of people
  2. repeating the wording not only saves you time rewriting the content but also in gathering feedback and approvals on it – it was approved last year so will meet the criteria this year too (if major style changes have occurred, copying old content isn’t an option!)
  3. it looks a bit slack and old to anybody who does notice the wording hasn’t changed
  4. it is easy to make errors when you assume ‘oh it was ok last year so I’ll just skim read this bit’ and miss the reference to ‘our new office’ a year later or forget to update 2012-11 to 2011-12.
  5. content from the annual report can be copied and used elsewhere because it is approved, public information. Updating the content each year is a nice way to update basic information in numerous places so your profile is kept fresh and interesting
  6. depending on how your annual report is presented online, you could end up with what appears to be duplicate content on your site (if four pdfs are all 33% the same, for example, there will be a lot of repetition). Search engines do not like duplicate content and can penalise your site for it
  7. staff can get bored rereading the same words – new content gives them fresh wording to utilise in presentations and on phone calls, too

So what do you think – would you be unhappy getting an annual report that was largely the same as last year’s? Would you even notice?

Posted in Business Communications | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Blog editing policies

Published 3 May, 2012 | By TashWord

The editing of guest blog posts is a perfect example of a blog policy.

It gives the host blog some control over the standard of posts accepted. The host blogger can accept great post ideas and make sure they read well.

Specific policies are more effective

Many blog policies include something like

All guest blog posts may be edited before publishing.

As a potential guest blogger, that makes me nervous. What will they edit? Will they tell me they have edited it before it is published? What if their edits include poor grammar/expression so it looks like I made those mistakes?

As a host blogger, I would feel uncomfortable taking advantage of such a policy and making huge changes to someone else’s post. I would also start to think it would have been easier to write my own post on the topic!

I prefer a more specific policy, such as

Guest blog posts may be edited for spelling and basic grammar.

For full transparency and relationships building, I would add an extra sentence, too:

We will get your approval on any edits other than typo corrections

If you’re submitting guest posts, which blog would you choose if the only difference was in their editing policies?

Posted in blogging, Business Communications | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

How you communicate is important

Published 1 May, 2012 | By TashWord

I spent the weekend camping with 50 Scouts (from 6-year-old Joeys to 17-year-old Venturers). We had a lot of fun, completed many activities and came home exhausted!

With such a diverse age range, not to mention the range of personalities and other abilities, it could be challenging to keep them all involved and engaged.

Change how you present a message

Making the weekend work was a good example of adjusting your communications to suit the audience.

As leaders, we could have said lets learn how to cook in a fire and use a compass. Instead, fitting with our Harry Potter theme, we created choc-orange cauldrons and searched for the Philosophers Stone.

When a little more time was needed to prepare something, I could have asked the kids to wait patiently or run across the oval to burn energy. Instead I said “Sarah and Wil, see if you can run across to the tower and back before anyone can catch you”. They all ran off, had fun and didn’t notice the delay for preparation.

Scout camp sorting hat communicated groups

Communicating via sorting hat

The best example, however, was putting the Scouts into groups for the weekend. Any other time, we might just read out a list of names and leave it at that. This time, each scout was called up to greet the sorting hat and have it decide on their group. Yes it took longer but there were no complaints nor restless kids as they loved the process.

HOW we presented the activities and our messages was important in making the weekend a success – the WHAT was important too but would have been less effective on its own.

Applied to business

A Harry Potter theme and changing ordinary activities into those with exciting names won’t help in most business situations. But the concept of adjusting a message to suit the situation is perfect for anyone, including businesses and websites.

You have a key message you want people to hear, so you may as well present your message in a way that maximises how many people will listen to it.

There are many ways to adjust your presentation, but here are a few to get you started:

  • put it as a question rather than a statement
  • add some humour
  • choose the words and tone to suit – perhaps more formal or casual, simple words or more sophisticated vocabulary
  • use a short and to-the-point version on Twitter but a friendly and more questioning version in Facebook
  • can the background be livened up to catch interest? For example, I’ve printed flyers on blue paper rather than white to put into conference goodie bags

Of course, to tailor your message effectively, you need to understand your audience. On camp, we knew we were talking to active 6 to 17 year-olds who wanted to have fun and be involved. Our techniques wouldn’t have worked so well if we’d had 50 4-year-olds or a group of business men on a team building exercise.

So how well do you know the target audience for your business? Well enough to adjust your message to suit? Well enough to tailor your message for different segments of your audience (e.g. those on Twitter compared to those attending a workshop)?

Posted in Business Communications | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Social media predicts stuff

Published 26 April, 2012 | By TashWord
Grasping at possible future options

Which option will be our future?

I have just read a great article* by Amy Birchall about social media being used to predict the future.

A researcher at Illinois University, Kalev Leetaru, was able to ‘predict’ events such as the Libyan revolution, Osama bin Laden’s location and the Arab spring revolts by monitoring conversations and trends on Twitter. (This made me think of the TV show Person of Interest which is based on a machine predicting the future!)

Extrapolating from that and other observations, the article discusses how social media can be used in many fields to predict things – giving warning to health authorities about epidemics for instance could be very important. Obviously, marketers and advertisers are interested by this as they can predict trends and position themselves accordingly.

It has also pointed out how valuable it can be to target the right (read influential) people can be. The example given was to immunise 96% of people for community immunity – or immunise the most connected 30% for similar results. In business terms, work at promoting yourself to 96% of your market, or to the 30% that influences the rest of the market.

With hash tags and various data monitoring and mining platforms available, it is possible to use social media to research your market and tailor marketing to suit. Have you used social media to decide on a strategy or campaign? Do you think it helped you make good decisions?

 

* I would love to link to the article for you but I can not find it online – Management Today does have a website and lists a number of articles but not this one unfortunately. I could upload a photocopy of the article but that would breach copyright so I won’t!

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools, social media | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Getting procedures used

Published 24 April, 2012 | By TashWord
Procedure for using a stapleless stapler

Short, practical procedures work

If you have gone to the effort of creating some procedures, you want to have your team make use of them.

Let’s face it, many of us have tried putting together an Ikea unit before reading the instructions – often to use them later. But we don’t want that happening to the procedures we spend time on writing to benefit our businesses.

Here are four tips for encouraging use of your procedures:

  1. when presenting them (for instance, if emailing it out to your team), sell the benefits.
    Would you respond better to ‘procedure you must use’ or ‘record sales data quickly’?
  2. lay out each procedure clearly and neatly
    if it looks easy to read and follow, people are much more likely to use procedures  so use the basics of good procedures such as lists rather than paragraphs, decent size fonts and short instructions (‘hit submit’ not ‘use your mouse to click on the submit button’)
  3. make the procedures easy to find
    if you have a shared computer area (intranet or a shared folder somewhere) or a physical shelf or cupboard, put the procedures there so everyone can always access to most recent version. For specific equipment, keep the procedures nearby – I don’t want to have to visit the main office to use the machinery in the workshop. Then make sure procedures are named clearly so it’s easy to find the relevant procedure when it is needed.
  4. keep procedures up to date
    imagine following a procedure that has an old password or refers to an old version of software (especially a major change so steps have changed) – it’s very frustrating. Let people get frustrated with your procedures and they’re less likely to refer to it again. Most updates are quick but if it is a big change and will take time, note that on the existing procedure so at least people know to expect changes and that a new version is coming.

What makes you use any procedures you find helpful?

Posted in Business Communications | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Blog policies

Published 19 April, 2012 | By TashWord

Blog policies (or guidelines) are simply a set of rules that control your blog.

A blog policy does not have to just be for guest bloggers – it is just how your blog operates. If you do accept guest blog posts (regularly or periodically), make a specific section for guest blog policies.

Having policies can

  1. help you make decisions
    For example, if your policy is to be wholly Australian, it is easy to decide against international advertisers
  2. save people asking you questions
    Policies stating you don’t have advertising or guest blog posts mean fewer people will ask if you will accept their ad or post
  3. reduce arguments
    A no profanity policy is all you need to point out after editing the swearing out of someone’s comment or guest blog post
  4. give comfort to someone looking for information about your and your business
    For instance, if you offer lessons to children, I will trust you more to see your blog is family friendly and moderated
  5. add to your professionalism
    A policy shows you have thought about your blog and what it represents.

Have you made decisions about any blogs based on their policies?

Posted in blogging, Business Communications | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Simple words, simple fonts

Published 13 April, 2012 | By TashWord

I often suggest using fewer words to make reading your message simple and easy.

Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence, has added a new form of simplicity to effective communications – simplicity in fonts.

Research has shown that ornate fonts make a task appear to be more time-consuming than the same task written in a clearer, simpler font. An ornate font could actually make your products and services seem slow or tedious, which is obviously not an image you want to promote.

Dooley stated that a simpler font will communicate your message better because it is easier to read and looks easier to read (i.e. is more appealing). Just like a simpler message is easier and more appealing.

What do you think – does a fancy font impact on how you perceive a product or service?

Shorter messages and clearer fonts make writing readable

Which font is clearer?

PS The recommendation is to use a clear font such as Arial for descriptions and instructions.

Posted in Business Communications | Tagged , , | 18 Comments
← Older posts
Newer posts →

Word Constructions | Subscribe | Contact us

Copyright © 2024. All Rights Reserved.