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Improve your writing with these easy tips
When people send me something to edit, these are some things I'd change if I found them. I try to make my writing simple and clean, especially since I write mostly for web/digital mediums. After all, K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, silly) is the #1 rule in digital media.
Find good quality, legal images for your website
I've compiled a list of just a few of the places you can look for good quality images that you can use with or without attribution. This list is pretty comprehensive and contains image sites that you may find don't work as well for your particular business.
Get curious and stay curious
How many times a day do you ask yourself or someone else a question about how something works? Or maybe it's a question about whether some idea you have exists.
Do you ever attempt to answer the question for yourself? Is your favourite search engine a regularly visited website?
Is writing a challenge for you? Try these tips!
The internet makes it so easy for just about anyone to become a content publisher, but writing doesn't come easily to everyone. It's a good thing that writing is a skill you can improve with practice - whether you consider yourself to be a writer or not!
Grow your audience with guest blogging
Guest blogging is preparing content that is posted on the blog of a website other than your own. I submit at least one "guest" blog post a month at a minimum as President of the Women's Business Network, because I write the President's Pen which is published at the beginning of each month. I link back to my own site each time, which brings me to the benefits of guest blogging. I occasionally manage to sneak in posts on other sites as well - this is something I want to do more often.
How are you making a difference?
Your work is making a difference for someone. I know it is, because my work makes a difference too. You have stories in what you're doing, even if you don't yet realize it. I bet you tell your stories when you go home in the evenings, or when you're visiting with friends. If you truly don't, then why are you doing what you do?
Stories are a bridge that create a connection. In the telling, you can provide information about what you do, why you do it, the outcomes you anticipate, and the kinds of problems you can help solve.
Don't get caught violating copyright
Copyright laws were established to provide protection for creatives, such as writers, artists, designers, and other disciplines. The laws lay out what the creative's rights are and how they can be assigned. In other words, if you want to use something you don't own, you have to ask permission. It's really no different than asking your neighbour for a cup of flour.
Content creation for highly regulated industries
The most common industries that come to mind with challenges to creating content are those that have strict rules handed down by regulatory bodies, usually because they handle highly confidential, sensitive information: lawyers, accountants and other financial services, government contractors, etc.
What should a brand post during bad news cycles?
Tragedies happen. Deaths are inevitable and high profile people get a lot of attention - and there have been a lot of high profile deaths this year. If you listen to people like me telling you how to manage social media for your business, you're posting regularly - yes, even using tools for automation - and you might end up posting during a time when people are upset about one event or another. There are two common questions: The first is whether you should pause your business feed. The second is whether or not you should comment on said event.
Be original. Be classic. Don't jump on the bandwagon.
Because the bandwagon isn't original or classic. It also gets old pretty fast.
I've started to get meme-fatigued in recent months. I'm also list post fatigued, and how-to post fatigued, and all sorts of other typical kinds of content fatigued. It's not that I never find value in these types of content, because I sometimes do. There's an enormous volume of them out there, though.
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