Tag: blogging

Blogging for Clients – My Top Ten Practical Tips

wordpress-265132_1280As I strive for success as an author, my day job as a freelance marketer pays the bills, as it has done reliably for the last 13 years. Unsurprisingly, much of my work revolves around writing – material like websites, newsletters, brochures, articles, white papers and… blogs.

Several people have asked me how I go about blogging for clients, so I thought I’d share some practical tips. As I blog solely for Business to Business (B2B) clients, these tips refer to B2B blogging. Business to Consumer (B2C) blogging, such as, for example, for a retail outlet or a lifestyle service, has many similarities and the same processes will be helpful. But consumers may be seeking a more intimate/personal rather than corporate/professional experience from such a blog.

So, here we are, my practical tips for B2B blogging for clients:

  1. Understand your value: The biggest problem the small or medium-sized business has with a blog is… writing it. A blog is a hungry monster and that well-intentioned weekly post comes around very quickly. Not only that, but if your prospective client is not a confident writer, sitting down to pen a blog post feels a bit like a trip to the dentist – they’ll do anything to avoid it. Good news then. This is why outsourcing the blog is a very appealing prospect for many SME’s. You obviously have to be able to write – but your real value beyond this is that you keep the blogging engine turning over for your client, so they don’t have to.
  2. Get to know your client: Key to blogging successfully for a client is to acquire a good understanding of their business – what they do, who they sell to, why people buy from them, what kind of a company/brand they are, who their competition is – and their industry overall. Understand what’s important to your client, and to their clients or customers.
  3. Variety is the spice: You need to produce a variety of posts which are likely to interest the sort of people your client seeks to engage with. For B2B, this should include industry related stories (see below); news and information related to your client’s product or service offering, background on the company, teams, ethos, corporate social responsibility etc; updates on your client’s engagement and presence (attendance at events, industry awards, networking, partnerships and collaborations etc), thoughts and opinions on the state of the industry, regulations, trends, trading environment etc. You can inject humour and post occasionally on charity fun runs and ice bucket challenges, but keep the lighter stuff under control. You need variety, but don’t sacrifice relevance.
  4. Plan ahead: Weekly posts come round just as quickly for you as they do for your client. But it’s your job to keep them coming. I keep a spreadsheet for each client and I plan 4-6 weeks ahead with posts. Some write themselves quickly, but others require more research and take time to come together. I mark up when we need posts around seasonal topics or events like conferences and exhibitions. The spreadsheet helps me keep track of what topics I’ve covered, what posts are in progress, awaiting client approval, needing images etc. I include a brain-dump section, thoughts and ideas, web links and other stuff I don’t want to forget – material for future posts.
  5. Communicate: A regular touch-point with your client is a must. They’re not offloading their blog to you so they can forget about it. It’s a vital component of their marketing mix and their brand. I would suggest (ideally) weekly or (at least) fortnightly telephone or Skype sessions – 15-20 minutes maximum – to keep the whole show on the road. Worth mentioning here, you need to agree with your client what the process is for approval of your blog posts. Some clients will want to approve each post, where others will take a more relaxed approach. Personally, I prefer to gain client approval for all posts – at least until I’m confident that the messaging, tone etc is in line with their expectations. Even then, I will still request approval for certain types of post.
  6. Go digging: You need to be able to find the grain of a story in an item of industry or general news, then draft a post which conveys some aspect of your client’s ethos or expertise in the context of that news. So do your research. Subscribe to industry news feeds (Twitter is beyond brilliant for this), do your own Google/keyword searches and ‘train’ your client to tell you anything of particular note.
  7. First base only: You need to be subtle and have a light touch; your posts are not sales pitches, they are conversation starters. The purpose of the blog is to communicate your client’s personality and values, not push their products – that will turn readers off in droves. You want people to like your client and perceive a value in what they have to say – to the extent that they choose to read the posts, subscribe, or better still engage. That’s when they’ll start clicking through to your client’s website or picking up the phone.
  8. Stir it up: Go carefully with this until you know what your client is comfortable with, but your blog posts can and should be opinionated and even controversial. It’s emotion that engages people, far more than polish. However, this is not every client’s cup-of-tea, so proceed with caution.
  9. Cross-fertilise: A blog is all very well in isolation, but you can make posts work harder by cross-fertilising other social media channels, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and others. Your corporate posts could also find a more permanent home on your client’s website, or be used in newsletters. Encourage your client to broadcast the blog posts via their own social media profiles too, as well as corporate.  They should also include a link to the blog, or better still, the latest blog post, in their email footer. That way, they will increase the reach of the material and encourage engagement.
  10. Be flexible: As much as you plan ahead, your schedule will get bumped around. The beauty of a blog is that you can see something in the news in the morning, and have a blog post out covering your client’s angle on it by the afternoon. It’s not always like that, but sometimes the opportunity or the material is too good to pass over.

You’ll notice I’ve said nothing about SEO – search engine optimisation.  SEO is a science, even a black art, or at least, that’s what the SEO companies would have you believe. If your client feels strongly about getting smart with keywords and searchability, there are firms who will analyse the internet for them and advise them on the most productive phrasing to include for optimum searchability.

But for many SME’s it’s not rocket science to work out what the most commonly associated words and phrases would be.  Then you can include those most obvious key words and phrases within your blog posts wherever it’s appropriate – but not to excess.  Why? Because the more you try to work the SEO angle, the more stilted and desperate your writing can look.  Readers will come to your client’s blog because you write compelling copy on topics that are of interest to them, not because you repeatedly ram home a list of keywords. But that’s just my opinion and doubtless the fans of extreme SEO will disagree.  There you are, I’m being opinionated and controversial.

I know some people are more intense about blogging, but I suggest to my B2B clients that we aim for one meaty/serious (500+ word) post a week plus no more than a couple of short or quirky posts each month. Analysis has occasionally shown that longer posts (2,000+ words) are better (better in what way, I’m not entirely sure). But I believe if you’ve got something to say and you’re done in 500 words, you should not puff up a post for the fun of it. It disrespects your readers’ time. It’s easy to overwork a readership and, particularly in the case of B2B, one has to remember that readers have many claims on their time.

With a clearly defined brief around a fixed number of posts and a regular communication touchpoint, it’s perfectly feasable to arrive at a fixed fee for delivering a level of blogging activity geared to raising your client’s profile amongst their targeted audience, and enhancing their brand.

Writing courses: A different perspective

Nina MishkinFellow blogger Nina Mishkin had something important to say about my last post.

I love that people comment on my blog posts. I particularly like it when they either disagree with me, or have insights which open up the debate. I’ve received an especially interesting response to my previous post on courses, seminars and other learning opportunities open to novice writers. It’s worth sharing beyond the smaller community that might read comments on posts, so I thought I’d publish it as a post in its own right. It’s from a blogger I greatly admire, Nina Mishkin, who blogs at The Getting Old Blog. Here’s what she said:

In my view, it’s valuable to attend a seminar or two that features agents and publishers describing the process — and hurdles — confronting the would-be published author. It’s also valuable to learn something about self-publishing before setting a foot on that path. But as someone who has taught writing courses — both at the community college and university level — and has written professionally in many commercial genres, I am extremely cynical about the value to the quality of one’s writing of spending time in how-to courses, seminars, workshops and retreats. They may be enjoyable while you’re attending them, but you rarely come away with something you couldn’t find in a how-to book from the library. They consume time and distract you from spending your time actually writing.

The way to write well is to read well… all your life. Read extensively and intensively, with an eye to structure, dialogue, pacing. Note what’s omitted as well as what’s included. If you really enjoy something you’ve read, read it again. More than once. Take it apart in your mind (or in a notebook) to see how it was done. Then try to do it yourself. At first you will be a copy cat. And then you will internalize what you’ve learned; it will become second nature — in the self-editing if not in the first draft. There are many parasitic industries out there, feeding off perceived markets for learning “how.” With writing, the primary “how” is “do.” Sit down every day and do it. And keep reading.

Other people’s blogs are also helpful, principally for the encouragement they offer that you’re not slogging away alone. Blogs by would-be writers who are clearly bad writers are also instructive, in another way. (“That’s awful. Have I been doing something like that? I’d better stop it, right now!”)

Sorry if I’ve stirred up a nest of worms here. I do understand that it may be extremely gratifying to spend, spend, spend on the “products” Julie has so well described. But the spenders should be entirely clear that they are only toeing the sand, not writing.

And, in case you’re interested, here’s my reply:

Nina, this is such an interesting – and well informed – perspective, thank you! I’ve enjoyed the writing courses I’ve participated in – three one-week courses in total. But the value for me has come in many different ways. I have learned, or reinforced, certain technical skills, but that’s perhaps the least of the experience. I’ve also been made to think differently about character and structure. Thence to the wider benefits: I’ve met authors and learned from their insights and experience; I’ve met other people with ambitions to write – and made very special friendships; I’ve built the confidence to try writing in the first place, and keep going when I thought I was losing my way, and I’ve tapped into an imagination I never realised I had. Those are the real benefits. Technique, as you rightly observe, can come from books – both ‘how to’ books, and the simple act of devouring and analysing as much good fiction as you can.

I wasn’t encouraging people to spend, spend, spend on writerly learning – only throwing light on the many available ‘products’. They do help you to think like a writer, but quality is variable and one must tread carefully to obtain good value. It’s easy to take refuge in the excuse that one still has more to learn, rather than to just get on and write, and learn by experience.

I hope you don’t mind, but I think so much of your comment, that I’d like to copy it into a full post – it deserves not to be missed.

We need to talk about… Sex

Note on a tree in a forestBlogging is generally good fun, but with so many blogs seeking an audience it can, even on a good day, be likened to pinning a note to a tree in a forest.  And if that’s the case, then posting on a Friday afternoon is like writing that note in invisible ink. Whatever the world at large was getting up to on Friday afternoon (and the sunny Saturday and Sunday that followed for that matter), you weren’t reading blog posts, were you?

Yes, I committed a social media faux pas when I posted my latest blog last Friday afternoon.  It was the one headed Precision detail in a novel – not just any place but this place about how I used notes and photographs to help me recall places and senses and inject precision detail into my writing.  I’ve been trying different days and times for posting and last week I plumbed the depths – a Friday afternoon ahead of a weekend that teased (the UK at least) with the promise of a little sunshine. Not only that, but I might allow that it wasn’t the most compelling of posts – interesting for some, but hardly challenging, contentious or amusing in the way a properly engaging blog post needs to be.   A double-whammy, for sure. I’m sorry, ok. Mea culpa and all that.

So last Friday afternoon it hit the water with a barely perceptible splash, before sinking without trace over the weekend, with hits in numbingly modest numbers and just one kind soul commenting; a dead body of a post, leaden and dull. Yesterday’s thoughts already half a mile down your blog reader, never to surface.

A few weeks ago, I penned a post on the challenges of writing sex into stories (Marmite Moments: Writing good sex). Strangely (who knew?), it was my most read and commented post of the last year. To be fair, a substantial dose of the credit for that is due to WordPress for offering me a second slot on Freshly Pressed – thanks, Ben! But it did get a few people going and it garnered some great comments and a whole host of new bloggers to connect with – and after all, that’s what makes blogging fun, isn’t it?

So clearly, I need to go back to writing about Marmite.

Or maybe… Sex.

That’s it. Not Marmite. Sex.

So I’ll see what I can do over the next few days, and I’ll be back soon with something to get properly hot around the collar, as it were, about.  Don’t get too excited though – this is still a blog about writing, not a blog about sex. But with the creative juices flowing, I imagine I can find a way to slip in a few sneakily salacious musings.

All in the best possible taste, of course.

A Big Freshly Pressed Thank You

juicedI was lucky enough to be featured again on Freshly Pressed over the weekend – courtesy of my last blog post on Marmite Moments: Writing Good Sex.  So first off, it’s a big thank you to the Freshly Pressed crew for singling me out again. 

Getting Freshly Pressed gives a big boost to little blogs like mine.  Last time, I went from readership in single figures to over 1,400 hits in one day alone, and several hundred new subscribers.  This time, A Writer’s Notepad has seen around 1,200 hits since late Saturday night – and from the last time I know, that’s early days in terms of numbers. 

The biggest delight of all is that so many new people have joined the conversation, by commenting on this post and others.  It’s weirdly fun, to engage with people all over the world, from all sorts of perspectives, and simply share a few lines of comment, empathy or opinion in a warm and social environment.  It’s a bit like a bunch of friends settling down on the flumpy sofas at their favourite coffee house and having a chat – if that’s not too much of a raging cliché these days. 

So my other thank-you is to you.  If you’ve found my blog in the last few days and joined in by commenting, or just followed, or even just popped by to see what’s going on – I thank you! You are what makes blogging… fun.

In case you’re interested, I also have a Facebook author’s page – yes, budding authors can just about get away with this.  So if you’re a friend of Facebook, find your way there and ‘like’ if you will.  There’s a Twitter feed too – both are signposted in the right hand column.  It’s all about writing because that’s my passion. 

I hope you enjoy my novice writer’s journey, my writerly angst and the odd off-piste moment that finds its way on to the blog.  Don’t be shy either – it’s great to get comments and I read and respond to all.

So am I a writer? (Part Two – the question of success)

writingmagcard0001Back in August 2011, I asked the question, ‘So am I a writer?’ here. That was when nobody – nobody at all – was reading my blog. I had scrawled the first (catastrophically rough as it now turns out) 45,000 words of my first ever first draft and written 3 unremarkable short stories, one of which has, astonishingly, been published.

Today, I have produced the completed manuscript of my first novel – that’s 97,000 words give or take – and I have the firm intention to get it out there one way or another.

In the intervening months whilst writing, editing and doggedly refining Singled Out, I’ve continued to earn my living as a business copywriter and marketer.  I deliver blog posts for my clients (for which I am paid); I deliver short promotional vignettes for my clients (for which I am paid); and I deliver a slew of output around sales propositions, products, thought leadership and product/service promotion (for which… yes… you got it). So I will, thank you very much, define myself, however cautiously, as ‘a writer’.   I write, therefore I am… a writer.

Moving on from this, today, a fellow blogger Eli Glasman at his fascinating blog here, gave me pause for thought on defining success or failure as a writer.  It gave me cause to reflect on whether I am – or ever will be – a successful writer.

Here were my thoughts on the matter, commenting on Eli’s blog:

What makes you or I a successful writer? Is it enough simply to write until something – anything – is complete? Must one produce multiple stories, or a novel, or more than one novel? Is it enough that your friends and family love what you write? Is it sufficient to self-publish? Or to be published by an independent? Or do you need the credibility of a mainstream publisher? Do you need sales in the several thousands to consider yourself successful? Do you need an occasional royalty cheque, payment for the odd short story? Is it enough to earn something – anything – from your writing? Or a proportion of your income – one-third, half perhaps? Do you need to be able to live on your writing income? Do you need to be an in-demand speaker at literary events? Would you have to have a place on the bestseller lists? Or a prize – Booker, Costa perhaps? Where does it end?

If you’re one of my writerly blog followers, have you ever considered what would make you classify yourself as a successful writer?  It’s a wholly subjective question.  And the inevitable follow-on question is this: If one isn’t – perhaps by one’s own definition – successful, does that mean one is an unsuccessful or even, heaven forfend, a failed writer?

I don’t believe so.  I might be successful on one level as my freelance work, which is largely writing, supports me.  On another level – in the field of fiction – I can’t own the word successful… YET.

I’m going to brand that perspective on the matter ‘success-in-waiting’.

One Lovely Blog Award!

one-lovely-blogIt’s been wonderful, seeing ‘follows’ on my blog increase so much since I was Freshly Pressed.  Another delightful outcome has been that one of my new follows, Robb Walker/Robert Miller and his blog Shadows and Java has nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award. Thanks Robb, I really appreciate the shout.  Robb’s blog is worth a visit, particularly if you’re into horror, fantasy, science fiction and geekery.  He’s hinting he might participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo too. Go Robb!

The One Lovely Blog Award requires I offer you 7 facts about myself and nominate another 5 recipients.  Robb also offered 5 writing quotes, and since this is a blog about writing, I thought I might try something like that too.

So without further ado:

Seven facts about Julie:

  1. I started writing fiction just over 3 years ago, having put it off long enough.  But I’ve been marketing/copywriting for business for years – mainly for technology companies.  It’s a far cry from psychological storytelling.
  2. My first short story, Singled Out won Writing Magazine’s monthly prize in June 2010 and was printed in the magazine.  Strangely, but only because it’s absolutely the best name for my first novel, I’m recycling that title – but this time for a very different piece of writing.
  3. I don’t eat chocolate.  I love it – I just don’t eat it.
  4. I don’t drink tea.  Yes, that’s right.  I’m a Brit who hates tea.
  5. I’m a paper-crafter. I love playing around with inks, rubber stamps and other crafty stuff, and seeing how much the people I care about enjoy receiving a hand-made card.
  6. I’m left-handed.  Apparently, that means I’m better at divergent thinking – whatever that is.  I’m good at brainstorming, but mind-maps are a mystery to me. Go figure.
  7. Be still my heart. There are only four degrees of separation between me and George Clooney.

Five writing quotes:

  • ‘Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve’ – JK Rowling in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
  • ‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass’ – Anton Chekhov
  • ‘Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings’ – Stephen King
  • ‘He didn’t want to please his readers. He wanted to stretch them until they twanged’ – Martin Amis
  • ‘It would have been nice to have had unicorns’ – Tom Stoppard in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

My five ‘pay it forward’ One Lovely Blog nominations:

Wow… thank you!

sunshine rosesA quick thank you – to the hundreds of people who’ve read, commented on and are now following A Writer’s Notepad; many of you, I assume, as a result of its appearance on Freshly Pressed yesterday.

My sudden but very positive lurch into the world of active blogging and the pleasure of the conversation, has (despite the friendly alert from Ben at Freshly Pressed) taken me somewhat by surprise.  I’ve gone from 10 views on Wednesday to 450 yesterday and 1,000 and counting today.  I know that’s small-potatoes by the standard of many blogs, but it’s manna from heaven to me (oops, cliché alert). I’m doing my best to keep up with your wonderful, encouraging comments and over the weekend I will take a read through all your blogs too.

It’s worth mentioning, I also have a Facebook author’s page (optimism… optimism…), so if you’re a Facebooker,  find your way there and ‘like’ it if you will. There’s a Twitter feed too.  Both are signposted in the right hand column.

For would-be writers, you might like to know I curate a ScoopIt page (also called A Writer’s Notepad) with tips and advice for writers sourced from across the internet.  It’s building up to be quite a resource.

So, fellow bloggers – writers, would-be writers and all who have something to say and the words to say it with – thank you for engaging with me through A Writer’s Notepad and opening up the blogosphere and drawing me in.

Freshly Pressed – and Juiced about it!

juicedHey, this is fun.  I found out yesterday that my last post, One word at a time, is to be featured on Freshly Pressed.

I began blogging two years ago whilst in the early stages of writing my first novel.  I thought it would be good to have a web presence that wasn’t about my work life (that’s my marketing web site) but instead reflected my ambitions to become a writer and my writing journey (I know… I’m sorry, I hate that word too).  It also afforded me a soapbox to grumble in a very Grumpy Old Woman-ish sort of a way about the language I love and the way it gets corrupted. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem with language evolving for an altered cultural landscape.  What I dislike is lazy language.

For two years I’ve been pinning my posts to a tree in the middle of a forest.  Every now and again, someone has wandered past and enjoyed a read, but mostly, ants have chewed at the paper and rain has washed away the ink.  To be fair, I’ve done little to boost my follower numbers – until now – I’ve been too busy trying to finish my first novel.  That’s my excuse, m’lud, and I stand by it.

But by a strange and synergistic coincidence in the very week that I finally declare Singled Out to be a finished manuscript, I get Freshly Pressed.  So I’m juiced! And now that my 97,000 fledgling words are almost ready to fly (yes, another few hundred evaporated on the advice of one of my Beta readers), I promise to be a better blogger in future.

And if by chance you’re a reader who stumbled upon my tree in the forest as a result of Freshly Pressed, do take a moment to say Hi!