Freelance Copywriting, marketing and social media tips

Social media is all about conversation and sharing.

The premise is simple:

1. Generate great content
2. People pick it up and share it with others
3. You get more followers, fans and comments

That’s all well and good, but what happens when you’ve been using social media for a while and yet no one is sharing your stuff?

Well, you’ve obviously hit a few barriers because before the above can happen, people have to be able to find your content, they have to read it and then they have to want to share it.

Why is your content being ignored?

First of all, don’t panic. If no one is sharing, all you have to do is rethink how you’re using social media.

Below are 5 scenarios that could hold the answer to why your content isn’t being shared.

1. Trust

If you want people to share your stuff, they have to trust you.

Trust is developed through engaging with people, being open and chatting. If you’re merrily throwing stuff ‘out there’ without taking the time to get to know your followers and fans, it’s hardly surprising they don’t trust you.

2. Caring about your brand

People will only share your stuff if they care about your brand.

How do you get them to care about you? Well, for starters, you can’t make them care. Again, this one comes down to building relationships.

If you are generous with your information, tell them about offers, give away tips or even freebies, you will begin to develop a deeper relationship. They will follow you more closely and tell their friends to do the same.

3. Don’t be boring

No one wants to read something that’s boring, so they certainly won’t share it.

If you churn out blog posts, Facebook posts and tweets that are dull, you won’t be engaging with anyone.

Don’t be afraid to inject a bit of humour into your activities. People like to laugh; it makes them feel good. And if you can make someone feel good, guess what? They’ll share your stuff to make their friends feel good too.

4. Passion

Don’t panic, I’m not suggesting you have to get passionate with all your followers and fans.

If you want people to share your information, they have to feel passionate about what you do. This can be done by showing your human side.

Yes, I know that sounds scary, but if they can see you are human, they’ll warm to you. By writing about things you care about, you’ll be sharing your loves with others. And when we write about something we love, our emotion shines through and touches the reader.

5. Building relationships

There’s no getting away from it, if you want to engage people you have to build relationships.

Setting up your social media portfolio one day, and expecting great results the next, isn’t going to work.

Social media is something you have to work at.

You must listen, engage, chat and debate with your fans and followers to find out what they really want. If you put out information they’re not interested in, they’re not going to share it.

Create a strategy

If you’re in business and want to leverage the power of social media, you must have a strategy in place.

‘Doing’ social media properly is going to take time and effort, so you must make sure it pays off.

Your social media strategy should encourage engagement and prevent PR nightmares.

The most important thing to remember is that social media isn’t a form of advertising. Consumers are far cannier these days and won’t easily be fooled by expensive adverts. As a company, you have to use social media to engage with them and provide them with useful information.

The time has come to move on from yesterday’s market methods. Today, you must listen to your customers, find out what they want and provide it for them. In fact, you have to exceed their expectations.

Marketing is tough as there are more companies chasing a diminishing amount of cash. Today you have stand apart from you competitors and social media will help you do that.

Over to you

Are you successfully using social media?

Leave a comment below and share your experiences.

Writing a press release is one thing, making sure it gets read is entirely different.

In the good old days (really, were they good?), you would create your press release and then send it to a few editors of local newspapers and magazines.

The fate of your press release was in their hands – if they liked it, they printed it. If they didn’t, it was consigned to the bin, never to be seen again.

Today, things are a bit different. Now you can distribute your press release to various online services, re-post it on news websites, include it in your own blog and email marketing. Not only that, if people like what they read, they can share it with others.

Before you start jumping round the room with glee, even if you publish it online, your press release will only be seen if it shows up in the search engine results. If you don’t pay close attention to the rules of SEO, you might as well take your chances and send out your press release the old fashioned way.

6 ways to make your press release visible

As a writer, it is up to you to give your press release as much chance as possible to be seen. The following 6 tips will help you achieve this:

1. Keywords

In the online world, there’s no getting away from keyword research. Think about the words and phrases people are most likely to use to search for you.

For example, if you’re a coffee shop in Ipswich, using ‘coffee shop’ is a bit too generic (and you’ll have hot competition to rank well). Choose 2 or 3 keyword phrases that are highly specific to your business. For example, ‘Barney’s coffee shop Ipswich’ includes the company name, what it is and its location.

2. Headline

The headline you choose will also act as your title tag or page title. Therefore, it is vital your primary keyword phrase and company name appear in it (with your keyword phrase at the beginning).

In the world of SEO, it is your title tag that Google reads first because it tells it what your content is about.

3. Short and powerful

Staying with your headline for the moment, Google only displays 65 characters in the title tag (including spaces) so your headline should be no longer than this. Of course, that is easier said than done. Normal practice suggests that a headline between 60 – 80 characters is acceptable, but your keyword phrase must be at the beginning.

4. First paragraph

As you already know, the first paragraph of your press release is vitally important. It should contain the most important and relevant information. Therefore, your primary keyword phrase must appear in the first paragraph.

5. Hyperlinks

The beauty of online press releases is that you can include hyperlinks. By linking your keyword phrase back to your website, you are telling Google that it is a website that contains highly relevant copy. And Google loves that.

6. Newsworthy

This one doesn’t have anything to do with SEO, but it is still very relevant.

Your press release has to be newsworthy. Unlike the old fashioned printed press release, when yours appears online, it’s there forever.

So, if you put something out there that is a thinly veiled advert, you could be seriously damaging your company’s reputation.

One thing you have to remember is that no matter how well you SEO your press release, results won’t happen overnight. Have patience and eventually you will see your press release being picked up in the search results.

Being online, it will remain visible forever, providing you with a potential source of traffic for a long time to come.

As a freelance copywriter I spend a lot of time educating potential clients of the value of what I do.

Granted, some may already understand the added value I will bring to their company, but others have just been told they should use a copywriter without really understanding why.

A copywriter can obviously write great marketing copy, but they bring more than that to the table. Because they are not part of your company, they can see your products and services from your customers’ point of view.

That might not sound much, but what it means is that they can write benefits led copy that will resonate with your reader.

Where’s this going?

Well, the other day I came across a job advert. It was advertising a fairly junior position, looking for someone with the following skills:

• Copywriting
• PR
• Events
• Social media

That is an awful lot of skills. My question is can someone really be an expert in all of these fields to make sure the company achieves the results it wants?

As a copywriter, I can certainly create eye-catching copy that sells. But as for being a PR guru, events expert or a social media expert..?

Granted, I use social media in my business – but I wouldn’t profess to be an expert at it. I dabble in PR for my own purposes – but I don’t have the connections or expertise required to call myself a PR guru. As for events, to be honest I’d be hopeless at that.

Devaluing skills

I can understand why businesses today want to find people who are able to perform multiple tasks. For a start, they only have one salary to pay rather than four.

But lumping together these very different skill sets into one role, in my opinion, devalues the professional copywriters, PR people, events and social media experts out there.

To master all of these disciplines takes time and experience.

They may think they are being rather canny creating such a complex and multidiscipline role, but in reality they are heading for a fall.

By not bringing in experts in each field (either on permanent contracts or on a freelance basis), the company is running the very real risk of not being represented well in any of the fields.

• Its copy won’t resonate with the reader or sell
• Its PR efforts are unlikely to generate the coverage they want or need
• Its events won’t shine
• Its social media activities won’t generate the buzz they’re looking for

Much of the problem stems from the company not understanding the value and importance of each of these fields.

Yes, we can all write, but writing copy that resonates with the reader, sells to them and with SEO in mind is a tall order.

As with PR, most people can put together a press release, but how many understand how to place it? How many people understand the nuances of getting a company in front of the people it wants to impress and attract?

Most of us dabble in Facebook and Twitter, but how many people understand how to engage with people, how to combine the power of the social media sphere (blogs, Facebook, Twitter and forums) to get the most out of it.

How many people could organise a truly stunning event?

When you look at it that way, you begin to understand the true value of each skill set.

Have your say

If you are a copywriter, PR, event organiser or social media person, what is your take on this?

Do you think it’s possible to find all these skills within one person?

Leave a comment below and let’s get a debate started.

Creating eye-catching, interesting and relevant copy is not easy.

Whether you write your own in-house, or you hire in a professional copywriter, your copy has to address your reader directly and really sell the benefits of your product or service.

Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve got some stonking copy written. Your website looks amazing and has all the latest social gadgets and gizmos. Your brochures look slick and really grab attention. Even your emails are pretty snazzy.

But you’ve got a problem.

Despite all that, your conversions are really low. Your phone isn’t ringing and rather than your inbox being full of leads, it’s full of junk mail from companies trying to sell you Viagra.

What’s gone wrong?

Your CTA is AWOL

The most probable cause is your Call to Action (CTA), or rather lack of one.

There is an argument that states that your customers are intelligent and will therefore know what you want them to do.

Granted, they are most probably intelligent, but that doesn’t mean they will make contact with you. If you want that to happen, you have to tell them that’s what you want them to do.

A clear, commanding and effective Call to Action is the crowning glory of your copy.

1. Relevant

The first thing to remember is that your CTA must be relevant to your business.

If you want them to sign up for a newsletter, tell them and provide a link so they can do it easily. If you want them to call you, tell them and give them your phone number.

2. Commanding and clear

Don’t make them hunt round your copy for your CTA because they won’t bother. Make sure it stands out and is commanding.

Adding a line such as “It would be really nice, if it’s not too much bother, to hear from you. So if you have time, we’d be grateful if you could perhaps call us at a time that’s convenient to you” is not going to inspire them to pick up the phone.

“Call us on xxxxx”, “register now by clicking here”, “Email us today on xxxx@xxxxx for more information”.

Be commanding and tell them exactly what you want them to do.

3. Make it part of your copy

Your CTA doesn’t have to be left to the end of your web page, brochure or email. You can dot them liberally throughout the text. But make sure they fit the context.

If you randomly add one halfway through a text section it’s going to jar and leave your reader confused. Make sure the content immediately before your CTA leads up to it so it’s a natural progression.

4. Make it visible

You can make your CTA stand out by placing it in bold text and having it as a paragraph on its own. As I mentioned above, don’t feel as though you have to wait until the end before adding it.

If the content allows, add them in several locations so they are always visible to your reader. That way, as soon as they’ve decided they want to make contact, they can without having to hunt round for your details.

The best Calls to Action are:

• Clear
• Simple
• Commanding

Be bold and tell your reader what you want them to do.

Over to you

Take a look at your marketing materials.

Do they all have clear CTAs? If not amend them quickly. If you don’t have a CTA, you’re unlikely to get great conversions.

A (not so) quiet revolution in marketing has been taking place over the last few years.

Customers are showing they enjoy doing business with companies that have a strong social media presence. They enjoy buying from people they like, know and trust.

What’s the fastest way to generate relationships like those?

Through your Facebook presence.

With over 750 million active users, Facebook has become the place to be in business. In fact, customers are beginning to expect you to have a presence on this phenomenal social media platform.

Because of this, many business have set up pages but without the in depth knowledge they need to leverage them fully.

The Facebook Success Summit 2011

If you’re a regular here on Freelance Copywriter’s Blog, you’ll know I’m a huge fan of SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Facebook is evolving into a one-stop resource for people’s communication needs with new features such as:

• Cleaner pages
• Users being given more control over their news feed
• Emails when someone comments on your page
• iFrame instead of static FBML
• The ability to offer deals to people checking in on mobile devices
• The ability to make Skype calls

It is becoming more and more important to master it if you want to fully utilise it for your business.

Therefore, SocialMediaExaminer have announced their forthcoming Facebook Success Summit 2011.

Due to start on 5^th October (running for the entire month) it will help you discover how to attract and engage quality customers with Facebook.  With help and advice from 19 Facebook pros, it is an essential summit for anyone serious about leveraging the power of Facebook for business.

For more information, check out this post on SocialMediaExaminer – Is Your Business Maximising Facebook?

There is a short video there to tell you a bit more about it.