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Tweaking

By on April 15, 2012 in Content Strategy

You strive. You stretch to create something of beauty, whether it’s copy, a new product, a customer experience. You show up and do the best you can at any given moment.

However your best efforts are usually improved by Tweaking. Polishing, refining, adding more value, subtracting the unnecessary.

As you write content, copy, headlines, blog posts, emails for today’s environment of Infinite Information, Tweaking allows you to reward your reader’s attention with succinct value.

One Writing Environment To Rule Them All

Byword is a writing ecosystem.

There is the Desktop and Laptop version in the Mac App Store, and there is the iPhone and iPad versions in the iOS App store. All of these instances of Byword on each of your devices can be connected (an important characteristic of an ecosystem) by iCloud or Dropbox.

At first glance that might seem excessive. However great writing requires Tweaking.

Tweaking means capturing great ideas when you have them, and polishing them in stolen moments after they have had an opportunity to ferment [1].

Writing with the full Byword ecosystem in place (synced via iCloud) has allowed me this morning to write email copy by a river, while taking my son to the playground, in a camping chair and in my office. Tweaking one piece of copy on 3 different devices, never missing a beat or losing a word.

For that, I am extremely grateful to Jorge and Ruben from Metaclassy for developing such beautiful and affordable apps. Needless to say this post was written in Markdown on an ecosystem of Byword apps.

If you write content or copy on Apple devices my sincere recommendation is to Tweak your Tweaking by trying out the Byword ecosystem. There are no affiliate links or renumeration received for this post I simply believe the product can help a lot of people.

Image Credit: Byword Press Kit

  1. Creating Great Content: Get Out Of The Way  ↩

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Creating Great Content: Get Out Of The Way

By on October 7, 2011 in Content Strategy

thinking of japan

If you want to lead, if you want to change things or make an impact in your market, you’re going to need Influence.

To have Influence in this highly digital, highly connected world. You are going to need to create content that matters. Emails, blog posts, videos, podcasts, content that moves people and improves their lives.

I’ve discovered a poorly kept secret. It’s a key to creating more meaningful content, more rapidly.

Don’t do anything!

I know that sounds contradictory or even ridiculous.

However more and more I’m finding, it works a charm. If you can outline the content you want to create, and leave it. When you return to finish the creation process, the content will just flow onto the page, camera, mindmap, canvas, whatever.

When I just leave it, sleep on it (preferably). I come back to creating, back to the page (so to speak), the meat of what I’m creating flows out.

Use A Staged Process

With so much opportunity in the our lives it’s easy to feel harried. You might feel you need to get something out fast, or you’ll miss the boat. However if you use a staged approach to content creation, you will create better content and more of it.

Try this 6 step approach.

Outline It > Sleep On It > Chunk It Out > Leave It > Polish It > Publish It

This is very much inline with the technique Ed Dale has taught in The Challenge for the last few years. It sounded so simple that I ignored it. Now with my hand on my heart I’m telling you, it works.

Outline It

Use a mindmap, back of an envelope, Evernote, Simple Note to get down the main points. There should only be 2 or 3.

Don’t force things, just work quickly and dump what’s in your brain, then leave it.

Sleep On It

As I’m sure you know there are many parts to our mind. The mind is often explained as having two parts; the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

When we force ourselves to pump out content on the spot, we don’t give our subconscious mind it’s opportunity to shine. To work on our content in the background, and provide us with the sparks of inspiration, that make OK content into Compelling Content.

When you outline your content and then leave it or sleep on it, your subconscious works away in the background. If you don’t believe me try it.

Try it half a dozen times and you’ll be amazed how much easier it is to complete the blog post, video script, podcast interview, etc once you’ve let it breathe.

Chunk It Out

Now you’ve given your content time to breath, now it’s time to fill in the gaps. I find it valuable to do this rapidly. I use a version of the Pomodoro Technique to keep me focussed and creating with mild urgency.

Not the clenched teeth, slam-this-thing-out panic, that I have done in the past, but with creating with focus and intent.

Leave It

If I can, I then like to leave the content again, even if for an hour. Preferably not a week or a month, just stop and do something else for a little while. Then you can come back to your work with fresh eyes.

Polish It

Without labouring come back to your content, check spelling and grammar (if it’s text), check the details, make sure nothing is missing.

You might be able to write a better headline at this point. If fact I recommend writing a “sacrificial” headline or title early, knowing that a better one will come to you in the Polish stage.

Publish It

You’re done. Publish that sucker.

Support The Process

After you have been doing this for a while you will have a repository of outlines, a workbench on the content you’re working on, and a growing mountain of published work.

You might find it helpful to create a Kanban Wall 1 to track content through the creation process and spot gaps and opportunities.

Kanban Wall For Content

I’d love to hear about your content creation process. What works for you?

I use this process every day. This process, in combination with writing in Markdown, has massively increased my output. But writing in Markdown 2, that’s another story.

One that’s already outlined and ready to write.

  1. Kanban is a lean production system developed by Toyota and popular in Agile Project Management ref ↩

  2. Markdown is a simple web writers language, that’s easy to read and creates perfect html for publishing. It was created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz added to by many smart people. ref ↩

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Content Marketing Trumps Online Ads [Case Studies]

By on October 4, 2011 in Content Strategy
Case studies: Media publisher versus content marketer
Content Marketing Institute

Investing in creating great Content to share on Facebook, on your blog or on any number of online channels, may at first seem expensive. However as these case studies show the return on investment ROI far outweighs online advertising even when it’s highly targeted. 

Case studies: Media publisher versus content marketer



Weight Watchers has a tremendous content marketing operation. It produces high volumes of content about dieting and exercise, most of which avoids any mention of Weight Watchers itself. Let’s compare it with a site like Fitness Magazine, which has similar content for a similar audience.

Fitness likely generates around a $6.50 effective CPM for the ads that it runs, a blended rate for its direct-sold and remnant inventory that is consistent with industry averages. Assuming that three ads are run on each page and that the average visitor visits five pages, Fitness would have an ARPU of about $0.10.


Weight Watchers, on the other hand, does not run ads, but tries to convert visitors into becoming paying customers. Given its $194 price point and a conservative 2 percent conversion assumption, the ARPU for Weight Watchers is $4. What we see here is a 40X ARPU difference between the media publisher and the content marketer.

Other comparisons yield similar results. Linux Magazine is a tech site providing content to programmers and system administrators. Given the higher CPMs in the tech industry, its ARPU likely is around $0.15. Rackspace is a major provider of web hosting, and it has a content marketing operation serving programmer and administrator audiences. At a $100/ month price point and 2 percent conversion, its ARPU is $24, an over 100X difference.


Curbed is a highly successful site providing real estate content with a likely ARPU around $0.15. Redfin provides discounted real estate services and blogs regularly about content relevant to home buyers. On a $300,000 house, Redfin would earn its 1.5 percent, or $4500, putting its ARPU at hundreds of times of Curbed’s even at the most conservative conversion rates.

Read the full article at Why Marketing Will Fund the Future of Content

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An Ancient Communication Device And A Framework For Your Social Media Content Creation?

By on February 24, 2011 in Content Strategy

Call And Response - Social Media Content Strategy

Listen!

It’s an ancient communication device used in Sub Saharan Democracy, Religion and Music and you could employ it today in your Social Media Content Strategy.

The Call And Response device is best known for it’s use in music. Jazz, African Drumming and Classical Orchestral music have all used it’s two part formula.

If you think about a drumming example, one drummer would beat his drum creating a particular phrase of music. Then a second drummer would then respond with a difference phrase resolving the tension created by the first. Musical geniuses like James Brown (aka Soul Brother Number 1) would use this structure in their performance building the crowd up and the backing the tempo down so that the energy of the crescendo could be fully appreciated.

The Call and Response In Social Media Content Strategy

The Call and Response structure lends itself perfectly to engaging your audience with Social Media Content. Whether you are writing a tweet, facebook page update, blog post or sales letter, Call and Response is a framework that cuts through short attention spans and an overflowing buffet of media options.

Contrast allows humans to understand complex concepts rapidly. Think about “Before and After” shots to explain a weight loss product, time lapse illustration of two washing detergents on a TV commercial, a crisp black and white photograph framed by a cream photo matte.

To create compelling tweets, updates and posts break the content you’re trying to communicate into two halves.

  • Problem/Solution,
  • Adversity/Opportunity,
  • Setup/Punchline,
  • Benefit/Call To Action

Create the tension with the first half and release it in the second. For example if you are creating a tweet or micro blog update to promote a wine bar happy hour you might write;

Too much work, too little play? We’ve chilled the wine, dimed the lights and cued the tunes. http://bit.ly/happyhour.

If you’re penning a Status Update for your Facebook Page to drive traffic to a blog post about writing good headlines you might use;

Do your headlines suck? 10 Killer Headline Ideas http://bit.ly/10headlineideas.

If writing a Tumblr quote to share a patch working tip try;

Can’t find the material you need for that last square on your latest patchwork project? Use a different cabinet for each material color and a different drawer for each pattern category.

Still stuck for Social Media Content ideas?

Take a piece of paper and divide it into three. In the first column list the 10 questions our clients most commonly ask and the 10 things they don’t ask but should. Now go back through the list and against each write a call in the second column and an associated response in the third column for each item in the first column.

If you found this post helpful please leave a comment below or share it with your friends.

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