Social Media Content Marketing

When I write, I try to do it clearly using words and thoughts which may impress, but my intent is always to enlighten. As a screenwriter, I write what moves me and what I feel will move others. But as a digital content marketing writer for business, I write what moves products . As a digital marketing consultant, I'm often asked to write website content: from the wire frame structure, calls-to-action (CTAs), emails, eBooks, landing pages, and of course blogs. And often there are long debates and discussions about what to include and what to call it and how long or short it should be. Afterwards, I'm often asked to make the copy more ____*(fun, hip, youthful, financial, techy, you fill in the blank). My reaction is always the same. If content is king, then Google is the King's Army. Just like that tense scene in "Captain Philips," I get serious, look the client in the eye and say: "Google. Google is the Captain Now. Google decides." T...

Good news: you created a company page on Facebook for your new business! Bad news? The novelty is gone. Nobody cares anymore. No really. Well I certainly don't, and not  because I'm a cantankerous curmudgeon. It's because I know what will happen when I do. Liking one page means Facebook "thinks" you'd like similar pages, so it's algorithm bombards you with similar page suggestions. And the real reason we "Liked" most pages in the first place is "likely" out of guilt. Friends, exes, work associates, work friends who became exes -- oh who cares! Just click the button and help the person get free publicity and some mojo going. That's just my point: it doesn't help that either. Being social media savvy, I try to explain this to those in my life but it never ends well. (OK the cantankerous curmudgeon plays into it as well). The mistake companies make (be they large or small) is concentrate on sending the page to coworkers,...

I'd bet you can recite your parents home number as fast as your own cell number, but many don't know their spouse's or significant others cell number because it's programmed into their phone. There's no need to remember it, so we don't.   But we do recognize it. Do you answer your phone when you don't recognize the number? Most people don't - perhaps fearing it's an ex or something much worse: a telemarketer. But it might be the doctor's office, your kid's school, or another important caller? So it's not really that we don't recognize the number, it's we don't answer when we don't recognize the area code . I just changed my phone number to feel more part of my new community. OK it really had more to do with avoiding the increasing phone phobia. I was tired of hearing "Sorry. I didn't answer. I didn't recognize the area code. I didn't know it was you." We've reached an age where...

Everyone except writers hate writing. Correction : everyone - especially writers - hate writing. It's an arduous process. We often do it, well frankly, because often we can't find anything else we can do better. And are pleased with the end result. But no one, writer or otherwise, is ever pleased with a bio. Be it theirs or someone else's. Everyone's been there. You get the dreaded email from marketing or HR: "Can you write a few paragraphs about yourself?" Ugh. Great now you need to boil down an entire existence into three paragraphs (space permitting). You avoid it hoping the requester will forget but of course they don't. They pester (I mean politely remind you) so you spend hours on it. Hate it. Bring it home. Hate it more. Then finally you finish. And the results are always the same. "I've done nothing. The End." The reason process is so hard and the results so unrewarding is because most people go about bios the wro...