Writing 201: Analyzing the Writing Process

Being a writer, I follow a fairly strict process when writing—the same process that I preach about when teaching clients how to write: Pre-writing: planning and drafting; Reviewing: rewriting and revising; and Finishing: editing, applying mechanics, and formatting. I’ve taught this process to many people (including my children). After all, there is a very good reason: it works!

The Pre-writing phase allows you to identify who you are writing for (your audience) and what you want to say to them; to identify the purpose of your writing, to determine the points you want to make and enumerate them; to begin drafting your ideas based on these points to get your thoughts on paper without restriction. This is where the bulk of your writing can take place.

The Reviewing phase enables you to clarify your draft: to embellish your words, to add more details, to tighten up your text, to clear up any ambiguities, to sequence thoughts better, to ensure your text speaks to your purpose, to delete anything that runs astray, to cut off tangents, to sharpen.

The Finishing phase is where you edit: to employ better words, to fix grammatical infractions, to correct mechanical errors, to change punctuation, to format for clarity and understanding.

Imagine my consternation, then—with a bit of a smile—when I received the following analysis of the process my son em- ploys for writing papers (including email and IM) at university.

In his own words… Read the rest of this entry »

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How Useful Is Your Twitter Stream?

The quality, authenticity, and benefits of Twitter communication are at stake.

The use of Twitter has simply exploded over the past year. As your list of followers grows, so do the amount of tweets, retweets, and direct messages you receive. Most of these tweets are well intended, but how useful are they?

An increasing percentage of the tweets you receive are spam. Twitter is especially vulnerable, given its inherent automation. Anyone can easily follow tens of thousands of people, and then gain a large percentage of followers in return. An easy, ready market for spam from lurid “marketers”.

What does Twitter spam look like? Twitter spam can take many different forms. Legitimate companies spam when they endlessly promote their products through dummy Twitter accounts. These accounts often bear no resemblance to the products they pitch. Con artists attempt to shift your money and to gain your identity through a series of shady financial transactions. You are probably wary of these: “Help me access my dead uncle’s $20 million from a backward third-world country and receive a 15% fee.” Still, a small percent click through.

Many times, spam tweets are sent by members with few followers yet following as many as possible. This should be your first tip off when someone starts to follow you. These people send tweets with blind tiny URLs linked to those click-here-if-you-are-18-years-or-older sites—except that requirement is frequently omitted. These can easily be identified by the busty, cleavage-popping, young lady’s photo on the account.

Then there are the “See how I got 3,000 followers in one afternoon” spammers. Another come-on: “I can show you how to make $1,000,000 by tomorrow afternoon by following this simple method. No, really I can!” Hair removal treatment for women garners a good share of spam tweets. You get the idea.

The quality of tweets. Pear Analytics, a products and services firm based in San Antonio Texas, conducted a study of tweets. Over a two week period last month, they sampled the Twitter stream every 30 minutes from 11 AM to 5 PM for 10 days. They then organized this sampling of 2,000 tweets into six categories:

“Pointless babble”, 40.55%. Described in the study as the “I am eating a sandwich” tweets. These are the kind of tweets that blindly follow Twitter’s original query, “What are you doing now?” Let’s be honest though: who cares? Read the rest of this entry »

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Another Blog for Marketing Communications Professionals

blog.holtz.com/

You’ve found the blog of Shel Holtz, ABC, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. Mr. Holtz has worked in corporate communications since the mid-1970s, online since the mid 1980s and on the Net since 1990. He wrote “Public Relations on the Net,” among other books, manuals and articles. He is available for consulting, speaking, and training engagements.

His information was provided to this STC-Marcom blog by a member of the STC leadership team.

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You no longer control your brand: a Solari Position Paper

You no longer have total control over your brand. The multitude of
convenient social media tools coupled with the ease of distribution,
positive and negative comments about your brand can proliferate at blinding
speeds. For the most part, you are powerless to reactive.

You can, however, be proactive in your approach. Through a well planned
social media strategy, you can influence your community of followers to be
your advocates and to build your brand. How? By engaging your social media
audiences in a compelling way.

Discover more by reading our latest position paper and blog entry entitled
“Influence Your Community by Engaging Them”. Read the posting in Solari’s
“Toward Humanity” blog and leave a comment. Or download a PDF .

Tell us what you think.
Copyright Solari Communications

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Blog, to grow your business: a Solari Position Paper

Do you want to grow your business, engage your customers, enhance your
brand, elevate your reputation, and increase sales?

Blog.

Properly carried out, blogging is good for business. Your blogs can
cultivate a community of customers, prospects, and advocates to help attain
the goals mentioned above. You can discover how in our latest position paper
entitled “Embrace Social Media: Blogging and Microblogging”.

Read the position paper as an entry in Solari’s “Toward Humanity” blog: and leave a comment.

Or download the PDF and click the top link.

Tell us what you think. Your insights are welcome.

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STC Scholarship Opportunity

On April 1st, the STC Technical Editing SIG announced that we were accepting scholarship applications for 2009. The deadline for applying for a $2,000 scholarship has been extended to Sunday, May 10th, 2009. If you intend to submit an application and have not already done so, please go to the STC Technical Editing SIG Web site and apply. There will be one graduate and one undergraduate scholarship awarded.

Co-manager, TE SIG

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To Tweet, or Not to Tweet?

You can’t turn on the radio or read the newspaper without hearing some mention of Twitter, one of the fastest growing social networking sites, allowing short posts comprised of 140 character limits.

The question on everyone’s mind is ‘What is Twitter and why should I care?’
I can’t make your mind up on if you should care, but I can at least provide some insight.

Myths and Mysteries
My first reaction to Twitter was an absolute “NO”. I could see no reason for anyone to know what I was doing at all times. Don’t get me wrong, I love the social networking sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook, but I don’t want everyone knowing what I am doing at all times. That is a whole new level of stalking that I am not ready for. (You CAN end sentences with prepositions. Your teacher was old and lied to you.) But, being too quick to judge, I found out that Twitter does not have to be the ultimate stalking tool. You don’t have to be the self-centered ‘Twit’ who posts about their daily grind!

How Can Twitter Help Me?
As I added valuable friends, which I consider as professionals in my industry and peers whose opinions I trust, I realized that their posts were not a 24hr fest of ‘Naptime over- now it is time for a trip to Half Price Books.’ Ok, so one of you DID post that, but I didn’t mind. Read the rest of this entry »

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The generational effect on social media – Our youngest generation sets the tone while the rest of us struggle to engage

The year you were born has a profound effect on how well you ‘get’ social media, and how comfortable you feel communicating through its numerous channels. The generations—Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y—all perceive and employ social media in markedly different ways. Understanding how these generations grew up sheds light on why this is so.

Baby Boomers. Most Baby Boomers simply don’t get social media. And why should they? Born at least 50 years ago, Boomers grew up when many telephones were shared party lines; when calling long distance required operator assistance and was saved for Sunday afternoons (reserved for the few family members living out of town); when all your friends lived in your neighborhood and you went to their house to talk with them; when television was black and white, had only three stations, and only broadcast during the day; when letters were written regularly; when essay test questions were answered by handwriting in ‘blue books’; where the library was for conducting research; and record players spun 45s of Elvis embodying the breathtaking new sound of rock ’n’ roll. Read the rest of this entry »

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The nut as an effective marketing tool

Immediately impress your clients and prospects with strategic three-dimensional marketing.

“THE NUT” ARRIVED IN THE MAIL, AS IS, without a box, for a deep visual impact (see the photo). The postal carrier was so impressed, she had to stop in and hand it to me personally. Why? Because “the nut” is a coconut!—a three-dimensional fruit sent to gain my attention. And that it did.

Hand-written quotes from numerous famous and influential people cover “the nut”. Karl Schweitzer, president and founder of MobiRez, a client, colleague, and friend, sent me “the nut” to honor our relationship and to make an impression. For him, it was the perfect marketing device.

Consider, for a moment, the effectiveness of your marketing if you sent your version of “the nut” to tightly targeted prospects. It most definitely would be remembered; people would stop to admire and inspect it. It could even become the buzz of the office. On thing is for sure—it would make an impact. Read the rest of this entry »

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