writing lessons from social media
Post on 21-Oct-2014
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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-wITRANSCRIPT
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Writing Lessons Learned in Social Media
Sarah Skerik
Vice president, social media
PR Newswire
August 2011
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 (!)
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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)
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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