When it comes to great writing, less is more. But even if you’re familiar with the mantra to “omit needless words,” tightening your writing is harder that it looks.

Which words should you omit? How can you write more clearly? Danny Rubin, a national news consultant and former television news reporter, demonstrates—with examples—the power of brevity.

There is a common misconception when it comes to writing that is professional in nature that a person must write in a verbose manner to come across as intelligent.

I am sorry. Let me do that again.

People often make a mistake in thinking that writing long-winded sentences with big words makes them appear smart.

Actually, let me try this one more time.

You don’t need to write a lot or use big words to sound smart.

Now, that’s better.

Too often, people write sentences like the one at the top when they should choose version #3. The main culprit, in my view, is the loathsome college essay. Only in college are we forced to write a paper a certain length. We develop strategies that balloon our paragraphs so we can fill out eight, 10 or 12 pages and pick up our gold stars on the way out.

In the real world, most people don’t enjoy reading cover letters, resumes and presentations. It’s extra work and burdensome. Worst of all, trying to write beyond our skill level screams ‘I’m in over my head.’

When you write with brevity, you make your points quickly and shrewdly. You don’t waste words and, in doing so, you don’t waste a person’s time. An employer or hiring manager, for instance, then sees you as sharp and courteous.

The secret to brevity (and, in turn, clarity) is something we are rarely taught growing up and may appear anathema to a professor of English lit:

Write like you are talking to a friend.

Get the rest of Danny Rubin’s wisdom on lifehacker.com

Written by Chris Horton.

This post was born out of a fascinating and revealing conversation our CEO recently had with a business executive of a prominent Minneapolis-area car dealership who absolutely refused to entertain the idea of social media marketing in general, and Twitter in particular.

A marketing director, she was convinced that her fairly expensive ad spend on a local radio station was all their brand needed to reach its target demographic, 18 to 45 year-old men.

Incredulous, our fearless leader tried to explain that such a group was one of the sweet-spots for social media/Twitter marketing (in fact, 70% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18-45; of these, just under half are men). The marketing exec seemed agitated. She would have none of it, and quickly changed the subject.

This experience is not an isolated one. I’ve had numerous conversations with business leaders in the over-30 crowd whose opinion of social media ranges from that of novelty item to utter abomination casting a blight over their well-ordered business universe.

Why does the mere mention of social marketing upset so many executives and business owners, anyway?

Read the full article on socialmediatoday.com

Written by Robert Bruce.

Google’s been pissing people off lately. Panda, Penguin, Parakeet (okay, I made that last one up), who knows what’s next …

Then there are the social networking evangelists whose entire fortunes are deep in Zuckerberg’s asset.
And finally, the faithful content producers, who labor slowly and quietly to build their businesses one thousand words at a time.
It can all seem a bit much to keep up with. SEO isn’t bad. Social networking sites aren’t evil. Content marketing isn’t impossible. But it can feel like it sometimes.
To clear some of this confusion and frustration up for us, I’ve asked Lee Odden to jump on the show and tell us how the smart, systematic integration of search, social, and content can attract an audience … and keep businesses — both large and small — sanely profitable.

In this episode we discuss:

• The 3 phases of a holistic customer attraction plan
• What the changes in search algorithms really mean for online publishers
• How to intelligently plan a content strategy that works
• Why it’s now essential that you become a “holistic” content producer
• 5 content optimization audits you need to perform
• 3 steps to implementing your systematic content plan
• How to scale your content efforts on a limited budget

Listen to what Lee has to say about integrating content, social, and search on www.copyblogger.com

Dragon Dictate and Dragon Naturally Speaking Deliver Awesome Results for Users. Their eNewsletter. Not So Much.

In perhaps the ultimate  irony, I am using Dragon Dictate from Nuance to write this blog post which criticizes their eNewsletters.  I use Dragon Dictate to compose 80 to 90% of everything that I write from blog posts to book content.   So, it does pain me a bit to brand their eNewsletter as mediocre.

Oddly, even though their eNewsletter is a major missed content marketing opportunity, Nuance has a tremendous amount of content available. As an example, they have a wonderful series of YouTube videos that teach you how to get the most out of Dragon  Naturally Speaking, the PC version of their software.  That’s compelling because, although dictation is the most critical component of their software, you can also use Dragon to  search the web, give application commands, find documents, etc.  In addition to the YouTube content, their website actually provides very useful and well organized training tools to get you started and to turn you into an advanced user.

In other words, they have a ton of raw material that could make for an incredibly useful and compelling E-news letter that would be must reading whenever it arrived in your inbox.  Alas, hardly any of that content found its way into their May 2012 eNewsletter.

5 Ways Their Newsletter Misses the Content Marketing Boat

1.  Their email header gives you no information about the content of the eNewsletter itself. For those of us who receive tons of e-mails every day, we need a headline that hits us on the head about why we have to open this e-mail right now.
2.  The eNewsletter itself has no headline that clues us into compelling content to follow. Headlines! We need headlines!
3. 2 of the 3 lead stories are really all about Nuance. The 1st story urges us to buy a Dragon product for our mom if she happens to be a PC user (of course, this newsletters aimed at Mac users).  I’m not sure that moms, generally speaking are the ideal target for Nuance products.The 2nd story asks us to ‘Like’ them on Facebook.  Why?  Well, so they can “keep you up to date on all the latest happening, special deals and offers, and much more.”   Why not offer to tell us how to use our Dragon product more effectively?Finally, the 3rd story is a great case study about a gentleman with Parkinson’s disease who uses Dragon Dictate to stay productive in spite of his illness. This is terrific and inspirational.
4. The newsletter is chock-full of words–more than 800 of them–but  essentially bereft of useful tips on how to use the product.  In fact, the only tip offered is a minor process point that even a casual user would certainly know.  And, that comes three quarters of the way down the newsletter page.
5.  Although the newsletter refers to a number  of useful resources, the reader is forced to click on a link to their website without knowing exactly what help will be available at the end of that link.  In fact, there is great stuff on the Dragon website. But, that’s not obvious from the content of the newsletter.   The newsletter could and should have been chock-full of tips that, in turn, linked to their website, to YouTube, to Facebook, etc.

 Deliver Great Content That’s All About Your Customers

Unlike Lynda Foster’s helpful and inspirational Monday morning newsletter, the Dragon folks make us work way too hard to find nuggets of useful information. Moreover, whereas Lynda’s newsletter is all about her customers and colleagues, the Dragon newsletter is mostly about Dragon.  The good news for entrepreneurs, who are also content marketers, is that you can clobber even large companies by delivering great information that reflects the needs of your target customers.

 Nuance has terrific products that I love and use every day.  If they would create a monthly eNewsletter that’s just as terrific and targeted to the needs of their customers, they would directly benefit both their customers and themselves.

In every generation, there are game-changing advancements that redefine business. From the automobile and television, to the VCR and Internet, the evolution of technology drives our consumptive habits. Today, there are arguably fewer more engrossing, time-consuming habits than that of the world’s current phenomenon, Facebook.While more than 900 million people worldwide have active accounts, few businesses take full advantage of this enormous marketplace. For most, this is not due to a lack of desire—it stems from a lack of knowledge. When industry stalwarts such as Anthony Robbins and Frank Kern sought to leverage Facebook’s tremendous reach and recognized their limited ability for effectively making this happen, they turned to Jennifer Sheahan. Jennifer has cracked the Facebook code and created powerful strategies that are neither complex nor expensive. To affect a veritable Facebook frenzy and drive this powerful, captive audience towards your products and services, of her many strategies, Jennifer recommends beginning with these two.

See on socialmediatoday.com

Lynda McNutt Foster Delivers with Her Weekly Launch List

Lynda  overflows with brains, enthusiasm, creativity, and fun.

So, I wasn’t surprised to find her new weekly newsletter unique in its approach to its recipients. The ‘Launch List’ is a quick read that delivers much-needed Monday morning inspiration. Although it reflects Linda’s positive personality, it’s not all about her. It’s all about her customers, colleagues, and friends.

For example,  the headline of her April 30 newsletter was Will you make time for the people part of profits this week?  The content focused on improving high-level relationships and began:

A high level connection is one that empowers you and the other person.  Fast is slow with people and slow is fast in building empowering relationships. (Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).  Are you trying to be too efficient with people? Try some of these techniques this week to build stronger connections with the people that matter most and who will help you reap profits professionally and personally.

Lynda  then offered quick tips for optimizing relations with your team, your clients, your family, and yourself.  She also included a cool link to a TED talk  by Sherry Turkle that deals with how we make connections through technology.

Each of her newsletters is a quick read.  But, I’ve found that she often forces me to think about things that I could and should be doing better. That then leads me and, I’m sure, dozens and dozens of her readers back to  one of the things that Lynda does for a living.  She teaches leadership and business skills.  In the April 30 newsletter, she does mention a workshop that she’s doing with the appropriate link. But, that comes naturally and at the end of all the great content. Moreover, in many of her newsletters, there is absolutely no self promotion whatsoever.

 6 Lessons We Can Learn from Lynda’s  Launch List

1.  Make sure that your communications with your customers and prospects are all about them–and not all about you.
2.  Develop content that that is so engaging and enjoyable that it becomes must reading whenever it arrives.
3.  Find a way to demonstrate your knowledge and skills–in Lynda’s  case it tends to be about leadership–through the quality of the content that you are delivering.
4.  Don’t be afraid to include meaningful links to other thought-provoking content that reinforces what you yourself are providing.
5.  Make your content easy and fun to read. Lynda writes in short paragraphs with colorful highlights that emphasize important points and just the right amount of graphic images that support her topic.
6.  Let your content reflect your personality. The Launch List certainly reflects Lynda’s  and makes it obvious that she is the kind of person we would surely want to do business with.

I was impressed with Lynda before her new newsletter began to arrive.  Now, I’m blown away and newly inspired to improve my own communications.

Pay  Careful Attention to the Upper Right hand Corner of Google Search Results

If you have recently checked your category’s Google search results, you may well have been as surprised as was when I recently checked  our first page placement in the  ‘content marketing’  topic.

In weeks and months past, text ads would have appeared in the upper right-hand corner. Those ads still appear, but they have been bumped down by a gigantic Google+ area that features 2 content marketing gurus,  Joe Pulizzi and Brian Clark.

Interestingly, the Google+ content has exactly the same prominence as the major sponsored search results that appear above the organic search results. I cannot imagine that advertisers are overly pleased by that.

Happily, Content Marketing Today still appears on the 1st page of search results. Of course, that’s a direct result of picking the right website name early on, having been around since 2007, and posting lots and lots of content about content marketing.  But, our organic search results and those of many other organizations may soon seem less important than any company or individual who is featured in that upper right-hand corner Google+ sweet spot. 

Even worse, Google also encourages you to click through to a follow-up page that shows more individuals and organizations who are active Google+ users. Fortunately, we show up there, too. But, because we haven’t taken Google+ all that seriously, our presence lacks punch and pizazz.

The bottom line seems to be that Google+ must become a key part of our collective content marketing efforts. That’s not necessarily because of its intrinsic merits, but because of the way Google is leveraging its omnipotent control of upper right-hand corner of the search results page. Your search terms may not yet show that upper right-hand Google+ content, but I’m guessing that we’ll soon find it everywhere.
Yikes!

Written by Adam Dachis.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while.” ~ Steve Jobs.

It’s compelling to believe there’s a route to true creative thinking, and there are certainly ways to help yourself engage, but many times a great idea will just feel like it came from a simple realization and you won’t know exactly why.

While there are certainly more creative people than me, when I’ve had my moments they’ve often been this way. I think I’m able to look at things more creatively because I’ve done so many different things in my life and enjoy exploring what I don’t know.

My first few jobs were mowing lawns and working at a grocery store before I started working in offices. After mowing lawns for awhile I started to see how much work went into making everything the way it is in the world, and how all work contributes to the whole. And through the many different jobs that followed, I noticed similarities in most everything I did.

See full story on lifehacker.com

Written by Geoffrey James.

With inbound marketing, the customer comes to you, but you still have to move the opportunity forward.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of “inbound marketing”–the concept that you should attract prospective customers by offering useful (on a website, for instance).

Inbound marketing is contrasted with outbound (or traditional) marketing, in which you “buy, beg, or bug your way in” via paid advertisements, press releases, and cold calling.

While inbound marketing can be more effective than outbound marketing, most companies implement it in a way that it doesn’t work well.

The biggest issue: bad timing.

See full article on www.inc.com

Rethink Your Content Marketing by Aiming at Billions of Buyers on the Move

For those of us who been around computing since the early days of PCs, the consumer move to mobile devices and away from desktop and even laptop computers is astonishing–and maybe a little terrifying.

Smartphones Soar

First, smartphones such as the Blackberry, Nokia, and iPhone entered the picture. But, as recently as 2007 total smartphone sales were only 122 million. Alex Cocotas of BI Intelligence predicts that annual smartphone sales will hit 1.5 billion units by 2016. That’s 10X growth in less than 10 years.

Tablets Triumph

In the first year of its existence, 1981, the IBM PC sold 100,000 units. Most of those buyers were geeks or leading-edge business users. Apple’s new iPad sold 3 million units in its first weekend and more than 50 million units since the introduction of the first iPad just 2 years ago.

As Tim Bajarin reported in Techland.Time.com in April of 2012:

While the iPod and even the iPhone have been groundbreaking in their own right, it is perhaps Apple’s iPad tablet that may have the most profound impact on the world of personal computing since it is the first computer that is truly portable and easy to carry with you everywhere you go. Yes, the iPhone and smartphones are more portable, but because of their small screens, their computing capabilities are limited. But with their larger screens, the iPad and similar tablets deliver much of the power of a laptop (minus the keyboard) and almost as much flexibility as you can get from bigger portable computers — but in a much smaller package.

IPad users still include geeks and business types but they’re just as likely to include your six-year-old and your grandmother. When I visited our local Apple store, the average customer was a senior citizen who really wanted to learn how to use their iPad effectively. Of course, they all seemed to be carrying iPhones, too. You can bet that their mobile devices will soon–or may already have displaced their PCs.

Social Media Goes Mobile

In research released April 13, 2012, eMarketer predicted a massive shift to mobile devices:

… by 2014, 33.3% of the U.S. population will visit social networking sites using their mobile phones at least once per month. That’s up from 18.7% at the end of 2011. Most of those visits are expected to go to Facebook. In fact, eMarketer estimates that the number of mobile Facebook users in the U.S. will jump from 49.4 million at the end of 2011 to 93.9 million in 2014… In other words, not only will people consume more content via mobile devices in the coming years, but they’ll find much of that content through mobile social networking activities.

IPad and Its Mobile Cousins to the Information Rescue

The iPad, iPhone and their competitive cousins are what we really want from our information devices. They turn on immediately. They’re super responsive. They connect easily to the Internet. They are both powerful and portable. And, perhaps best of all, they don’t rely on a resource hog of an operating system that hangs up when you most need it.

For those of us who do a lot of writing, building complex spreadsheets or other very sophisticated applications, we will probably have to hang on to our desktop or laptop computers. But for many of you and, most importantly, for many of your customers, the use of computing devices is primarily:

• to connect and communicate wherever we are whenever we want
• to consume information via the Internet, including e-mail, news, web-based content
• to get our social media fix
• to consume locally based information from word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, etc.
• to write a e-mail or text messages
• to listen to music, watch videos, watch TV or movies
• to play games
• to research purchases.
• to shop online
• to pick a local retailer so we can buy right now.

We can do all of that with an increasingly rich and robust set of mobile computing devices that include not only the iPad, the Kindle Fire, Android tablets but the iPhone, Blackberry, Android smartphones.

That means that just when you thought it was safe to go back into the content marketing water, you will have to do substantial rethinking. But I think it’s more a matter of adjustment than a dramatic change in your approach to your customers.

How to Take Advantage of This Content Marketing Mobile Inflection Point

You are almost certainly using the Internet as a primary content marketing weapon.  And, it is probably delivering significant a better results than many of your traditional advertising and marketing practices. Now, begin to think slightly differently as your customers go mobile for much of the information they consume.

• Make sure that your website is fully readable on the most important mobile devices which would include the iPhone, the Android, and the iPad. That may mean giving up Flash. At a minimum, it’s critical that any flash on your website takes a secondary rather than a primary role on your home and on your landing pages.
• Consider working with a developer to create an iPhone or an iPad app that will take advantage of the unique capabilities of these two pervasive computing devices.  In particular, think about how the touchscreen might improve your users interaction with your content.
• Get social with Facebook, Twitter or other applications that can reach out to your customers with special offers while they’re on the move and in a buying mood.  
• Provide special offers, coupons, or dedicated discounts that mobile users can bring with them directly on their smart phone or iPad.  Don’t make them print something out if they can to show it to you on their mobile device.

We are at the beginning of a fundamental transformation in the way that we all consume information. Our customers and their computers are on the move as never before.  Just as you may have tried to reach traveling prospects with billboard ads on the highway, now it’s time to make sure that you’re connecting with them on the virtual highway.

The good news is that, unlike driving a Corvette on Route 66, your prospects can slow down to pay attention to what you have to say. Just make sure that the new mobile information you’re providing is still relevant and compelling as all good content marketing must be.