writing lessons from social media

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www.prnewswire.com 1-888-776-0942 Writing Lessons Learned in Social Media Sarah Skerik Vice president, social media PR Newswire August 2011

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How lessons learned in social networks can make messages more effective and improve your writing skills, from spotting story angles to language selection and editing. Read more at: http://wp.me/p16orh-wI

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Page 1: Writing Lessons from Social Media

www.prnewswire.com 1-888-776-0942

Writing Lessons Learned in Social Media

Sarah Skerik

Vice president, social media

PR Newswire

August 2011

Page 2: Writing Lessons from Social Media

www.prnewswire.com 1-888-776-0942

Writing lessons learned in social networks:

Lessons from Networks:• Facebook:

– Be interesting

• Twitter: – Edit relentlessly

• LinkedIn: – It’s about them, not

you

Applying the lessons• Editing• Headline writing • Formatting copy • Story ideas

Page 3: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Facebook: Be interesting

Facebook can be tremendously beneficial to

brands, and can transform into a powerful

means to generate visibility. But the

audience absolutely requires content to be

INTERESTING.

Page 4: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Facebook: Boring = zero reaction

This post on my personal Facebook page about a robbery at my home got zero reaction. Are my friends really this cold hearted? No. They just don’t tolerate boring, rambling, pointless posts. I suspect they are also annoyed by misspellings.

I can’t say that I blame them.

Page 5: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Twitter: Edit relentlessly

Less is more on Twitter. Shorter tweets

often generate better results in terms of

clicks on attached links and re-tweets.

• Keep tweets short: aim for 70 characters/spaces

• Simple ways to convey opinion: a single word (Really?) or punctuation (!)

Page 6: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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The results of editing

Here’s a snapshot of some of the most popular tweets I’ve sent recently, as measured by the number of times people clicked on the links I attached. Most are right about 70 characters long (excluding the link)

Page 7: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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LinkedIn: It’s about them

LinkedIn Groups and Answers sections

enable you to meet and interact with peers

and potential customers. • Focus your interactions on others, not you.• Answer questions directly and honestly.• Share interesting and *relevant* information• Be absolutely transparent about who you are

and the brand you represent.

Page 8: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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A “good answer” on LinkedIn:

While I definitely promoted my brand, I also gave good DIY advice, and was totally upfront about my affiliation with PR Newswire. This answer was selected as a “good answer” by the fellow who posed the question, indicating that it was in fact useful to him.

Page 9: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Applications for the lessons:

The lessons derived from social communications can improve the effectiveness of your messages across the board. Key learnings include:

• The language used in your content plays an important role in attracting audience attention (and response.)

– Popular, recognizable keywords generate better results. Impenetrable jargon doesn’t.

• The lessons in brevity, editing and interest learned in crafting effective social posts also translate to headline writing. Potent tweets and effective headlines are very similar.

– Brevity in headlines is good for search engines, too, and 60 characters is the ideal length.

• Relentless editing is an absolute requirement for effective writing. Delete extraneous language and superfluous ideas.

• Format content for the wired reader: make it easy to scan and share. Use bullets and sub-heads to make content easy for readers to scan, and to highlight phrases that are easy to tweet. 

– (Case in point: the phrase that started this bullet point is 71 characters, and would make a great tweet.)

Page 10: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Conclusion

 The more time you spend in social networks

and the longer you observe what sort of

content sparks conversation, the more finely

tuned your own communications radar

becomes.  Spotting interesting angles and

improving message uptake and stickiness

by using the right language comes easier when

you’ve been immersed in social networks.

Page 11: Writing Lessons from Social Media

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Tell us!

Do you agree, or have tips to share? Tell

us!

Twitter: @prnewswire & @sarahskerik

Beyond PR blog: http://blog.prnewswire.com