Help Find the Focus of Your Content With Word Clouds
Last post, I talked about what word clouds are and how they can be used to find the most common words in a given body of text. Check that post out if you want the long version.
Word clouds don’t just create pretty arrangements of words, although they do that, too. You can use word clouds to define what you have written in your business plan, your mission statement or your web page. Take Coca-Cola’s mission statement, for example. Throw it on Wordle.net and this is what you get:
Coca-Cola's Mission Statement from http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/mission_vision_values.html
So, what does this say about Coca-Cola? Read more…
Understanding Word Clouds Using Top 10 Songs from 1981 and 2012
Word clouds seem complex, but the explanation is simple: it’s a visual representation of the words in a given body of text. So if you used the word “business” the most number of times, “business” would be the biggest word in the word cloud.
The more times a word appears, the bigger it is in the cloud. Need an example? Using the combined lyrics from the top 10 songs of 1981, I created this word cloud:
Combine the lyrics from 1982's top 10 songs for a love-heavy word cloud.
Surprise, surprise — Read more…
Tips to Create Effective Press Releases Through Better Writing
Catching a journalist’s attention is tough enough, but don’t catch them with a great hook if there is nothing for them to work with afterward. Once a reader is willing to give your topic a chance, the press release needs to captivate their interest the whole way through. When I worked as a reporter and saw press releases pass through the newsroom daily, I saw many that were poorly written or had left out critical information.
Take plenty of time to get it right, as that extra care to write better press releases will provide the best opportunity for your news to spread. At the very least, there are certain facts that need to make it into your press release, no matter where you are sending it. They are the basic tenets of journalism and I always make sure all of these are answered in every press release I write for a client: Read more…
Critical Components of Effective Press Releases
From Flickr user: NS Newsflash/Jon S
Building buzz for a business starts with there being something to talk about, whether it is what a company does or how it is contributing to the community. Large companies aren’t the only ones that can take advantage of sending out press releases. Even if no local publications pick up a company’s news, the press release can still prove beneficial.
But before delving into creating a press release, there are a couple questions you should ask yourself: Read more…
Blogging Variety is the Spice of Work
Finding the perfect job for me meant trying to find the right mixture of independence, variety, stability and routine. Perhaps these seem contradictory, but having a little of each has made my work life much more enjoyable.
One of the best parts of this job is working on different kinds of writing on a variety of subjects. I create content for a handful of blogs, including this one and a craft blog, both of which are personal projects. For the other blogs, I cover eclectic topics for businesses ranging from fashion to high-end dog products to e-commerce.
Perhaps the time period in which I’ve grown as a writer has lead me to blogging — watching the internet evolve from nothing to the burgeoning (controlled?) chaos it is today. I’m continually amazed at the niche markets people and companies carve out for themselves and I’m ecstatic to be apart of helping them build their businesses up.
My goal since becoming a freelancer is to work with small businesses and that is exactly what blogging and other services have allowed me to do.
Three Business-Focused Podcasts You Should Hear
Whenever I feel like I need a boost, I download a handful of podcasts to get my mind back in the business game. Listening to entrepreneurs discuss their ideas and strategies or hearing an article’s author discuss his latest piece redirects a wandering mind to the task at hand — improving and excelling at your business.
After searching through a few that were less than stellar, I have settled on three podcasts/webcasts that may encourage business owners and managers alike to see their business from a different angle. They certainly encourage me to do so.
- HBR IdeaCast — Produced by staff at Harvard Business Review and hosted by its editors, this podcast regularly interviews contributors of the publication. The topics covered vary, but a couple of my favorites have been “Why Pink May Not Work as a Breast Cancer Brand” and “Finding Profit in a World of Free.”
- PreneurCast: Entrepreneurship, Business, Internet Marketing and Productivity — While each episode starts off a bit slow, the two Australian hosts — author and serial entrepreneur Pete Williams and digital media producer Dom Goucher — provide great ideas, strategies and insight into building and maintaining a business. Not every topic will relate exactly to what you do, but hearing new ideas regularly is rarely a bad place to be.
- BBC Business Daily – More of a business news source than anything else, the topics this podcast covers are interesting and diverse, including the future of German manufacturing and one recent episode titled “Bankers to the Rescue?” For a news update in the international business world, this is a solid source.
Tips for Editing Your Own Writing
Rereading past press releases and promotional copy can cause many to blush in embarrassment as self-edited writing is often rife with errors and awkward sentence structures. Copyediting is it’s own art, but you don’t need to master the craft to ensure your correspondence is clean.
When I edit documents for clients, I catch out-of-place words, inconsistencies and other errors, but there are steps you can take to edit your own day-to-day writing. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when writing just about anything:
1. Let it breathe
The simplest way to catch any errors you make is to finish writing and walk away. Go have lunch, work on a different project or take a short walk outside. Just get your mind off what you wrote for at least 10 minutes, although if time allows, try going a whole day without looking at your writing. With fresh eyes, you will more easily catch the typos, the awkward phrases and anything you may have forgotten.
2. Read it out loud
Speaking what you write will help you find sentences that need improvement, as poorly phrased paragraphs will stand out when spoken aloud. Quietly whisper the words back to yourself to spot any odd sentences. This will also help you catch words that are spelled correctly but do not match the context of the sentence.
3. Go backwards
Start at the end of your document and work your way back to the top, word by word. Removing the flow of each sentence from the equation will help you find errors that you would otherwise just be glossed over. Spell check can’t catch everything!
4. Don’t expect perfection in the first draft
Nobody’s first draft is perfect. A draft’s main purpose is to allow the writer to put down all the ideas swimming in her head, while the rewriting phase is designed to organize and clarify.
5. Stay in the active voice
This is an old adage that remains true. Passive voice is boring and rips the excitement from any sentence. A tell-tale sign of the passive voice is “by,” although passive phrases can exist without it. For more details, review this handout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Shifting my Paradigm: Reporting to Business Writing
My career focus changed this year from being strictly a staff newspaper writer to being a freelancer writer. After more than four years in the news business, future prospects in that direction did not look promising. I had intended to continue pursuing the news industry as my bread and butter while a freelance writer, but I saw the potential for something greater — working with local businesses.
My goal is to help clients better communicate with their customers and stakeholders through clear and professional writing. Some of the services I provide are creating web and ad copy, technical documents, public service announcements, press releases, newsletter content, and business profiles. I can also offer direction for a business to better communicate with media. If you can think it, I can write it.
This week’s articles
One of the company’s I write for on a daily basis is Demand Media Studios, creating content for eHow.com and Local.com. These are a few of the titles I wrote this week.
