Four Steps to Writing Copy With Passion

Whether you run your own small business or you're getting the word out about a worthy cause, a little passion goes a long way. If you're getting stuck while writing your next donation appeal, e-mail newsletter, or Facebook post, passion might be what you need.

Ready to write. From Flickr user Rob Pearce.

Here's four steps to adding a little passion to your copy:

1) Get rid of distractions, take a deep breath, and really think about why you got into your business in the first place. What did you what to achieve? Who did you want to help? Write it down. These are the seeds of the story you're going to tell today.

2) Now, ask yourself, "Why should people care?" Why do people need to donate to your cause, buy your product, or tell a friend about it? This is deeply connected to your answers to the first question. When you understand why you care about something, you can understand why everyone else should care.

3) Now that we've covered the whys, now let's get back to the what. What's the goal for the message you're writing today? To let people know about a great new product? To inform your audience about needy children who need help? To thank people for staying loyal to your business? When you understand the message goal, it's easier to write with passion.

4) Now, tie it all together. Explain why you care, tell others why what you care about is important to them, and then ask them to act. This is the root of your message and you use these passionate statements to write the appeal, newsletter, Facebook post, or anything else you're writing today.

Did this work for you? What do you do when you have writers' block? Please share in the comments.

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How to Write Great Tweets

Writing for Twitter isn't rocket science, but there's a method to the 140-character madness.

From Flickr user Danilo Ramos.

Here are a few pointers for writing tweets that make sense, have relevance, and drive retweets and other desired actions.

• Simplify – You only have 140 characters, including your link, to state your message. Don’t cram in too many ideas. You can tweet more than once a day, and send more than one tweet about each piece of content. Stick to one idea per tweet. 
• Don’t over-abbreviate. New people join Twitter every day, and new followers join our feeds every day. Assume that folks won't know all the jargon and make the content accessible. If you need lots of abbreviations, simplify the message. Don’t try to mash 500 words of copy into a single, undecipherable tweet. 
• Use keywords associated with your SEO strategy (i.e. the same ones in your website metadata and your ads), but don’t overuse or insert where they don't make sense. 
• Use #hashtags, but not too many. Hashtags help people find your content on Twitter and also can be used to tag tweets that are part of live Twitter chats or ongoing discussions. They also help you identify trends.

Here’s an example of a tweet with too many hashtags, including one that’s totally irrelevant:

• You should read #WaPo! Great #paper! #news #local #finance #business #sports #food #entertainment #JustinBieber 

This tweet might better portray what we want to say:

• Check out today’s #WaPo. Get the latest #news – local stories, business and finance, sports, entertainment, and food. 

But let’s go one step further – this tweet has a LOT of ideas. Let's treat these ideas separately, like this:

• Check out today’s #WaPo for the latest #local news in DC, MD, and VA. http://wapo.st/MknI4S 

This tweet is more relevant, engaging, and actionable. It simplifies the idea, focuses the intent, gives more details, and provides a link (something actionable) for more information. We’ve also limited ourselves to two hashtags, to make our tweet findable, but still readable.


What's your biggest challenge on Twitter? Let me know.

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Writing Your Own Customer Stories

Since my previous post on story marketing is the one that gets read the most, I figured you all might want to hear more about this concept.

How can you make story marketing work for your business?

Recently, I've been writing some client stories for a client of mine who has a very busy consulting business of her own. Let's call her Florence, or this post is going to use the word "client" far too many times to be readable. Here's how I put together Florence's stories:

photo © 2007 umjanedoan | more info (via: Wylio)

1) We identified the starting point of the client. Where were they when they began working with Florence? What were their challenges?

2) What did Florence do for them? This is the longest part of the client story. We were sure to include details. After all, it's great that Florence has helped so many people, but her prospective clients want to know how she has done that.

3) Where is the client now? Where did the journey end, or is it still going on? How did Florence's work contribute to the clients' success, and how are they still using the framework and guidance she provided to continue to grow?

Once I had this information about Florence's clients, I was able to create a narrative for each one. These stories are helping Florence's web site and printed materials to come alive, and to be relevant to people who are shopping Florence's business. They are also helping her to explain what she does, and to what result even more clearly, better supporting her business development needs.

Homework for you:

Write a client story today. Think about the beginning, middle, and end. Need help? Let me know.