Tipsheets
Tricks and techniques for improving your writing and communications
Become a Better Writer
- Reality check: Do you know who I think I am?
- Rate yourself as a writer: Do you have the skills and knowledge you need to write copy that gets read? Grade yourself with this handy tool
- Rate your writing skills: New tool lets you score, improve and track your writing skills
- Five ways to improve your team’s writing skills: So your writers can’t write? Join the club. How to help struggling communicators
- Recession-proof your writing career: Write copy that sells — products, programs, plans and positions
- Don’t practice AKK: ‘All known knowledge’ obscures rather than reveals
Think Like a Reader
- Better you than me: Want more Twitter followers? Stop talking about yourself
- Pull the trigger: Create an environment for your message
- Seek higher authority: Move readers to act
- Lead with the benefits: To increase reader interest, focus on reader’s needs first, then follow up with your organization’s offer
Build a Solid Structure
- Mark time: Try a chronological structure
- Feature-style story structure increases readership: Inverted-pyramid stories take a beating in studies and trends
- Try a feature lead: Take a tip from Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns and make your copy more creative
- Template your story: Create fill-in-the-blanks story forms
Cut Through the Clutter
- Say no more: Write a message statement in 23 words or less
- Snip your sentences: How long is too long?
- Make your copy clear and concise: The easier your story is to read, the more people will read it
Take the ‘Numb’ Out of Numbers
- Take the ‘numb’ out of numbers: What’s $700 billion like?
Make Your Copy More Creative
- ‘I like the profit margin on storytelling’: Chick-fil-A president admires another company’s marketing approach
- Rhyme for reason: If Bill Radke can do it, you can too
- ‘Spank those naughty little oxidants’: Creative communications from London
- Notes from New York: Write with your eraser
- Kindle your creativity: ‘He was a human nail’
- One or 1,001?: Why ‘one individual trumps the masses’
- Find a poster person: Put a face on your message
- Alphabet scoop: Create acronyms that help readers retain information
- Captivate your audience: Three ways to make your copy more creative
- Try a feature lead: Take a tip from Silver Anvil Award-winning campaigns and make your copy more creative
- Resurrect a cliché: Rewrite your least favorite buzz phrase
Write Advanced PR Copy
- Don’t give up on traditional media: Newspapers still set the media agenda, Pew study says
- Write a world-class release: Steal these six techniques from Silver Anvil-winning campaigns
Write for the Web
- Left is right: Visitors spend more than twice as long looking at the left side of your Web page
- Do a number on your followers: Want your message to go viral? Use digits
- Best intranets 2010: Mobile sites and social features dominate Jakob Nielsen’s annual list of top internal Websites
- Write the most important piece of copy on your web page: Summary blurbs may be the only things site visitors read
Get the Word Out With Social Media
- Get your share on Facebook: Three scientific ways to get your fans to spread the word
- Time it right: When will you get the most action on Twitter?
Write better display copy
- Call me: Reach readers with callouts
Plan Powerful Publications
- Revitalize your publication: A step-by-step look at one magazine makeover
Open the Creativity Toolbox
- Top trends 2010: What to look for next, from Trendwatching.com
- Model the masters: Want to improve your communications? Find a mentor in your favorite publications and Websites
Build an Approval Process That Doesn’t Drive You Nuts
-
Perform communication triage: Allocate your efforts based on the benefit to the organization
- What does ‘niggling’ cost your company? Develop a business case for reining in approvals
- Develop an approval process that doesn’t drive you nuts: How to run the review process so it doesn’t run you
- ‘The shark is down’: Most approval processes just don’t work day-to-day
Develop Bottom-line Communications
- Share, share, share Purina Cat Chow offers a case study on bringing home the bottom line
Draw a crowd to your chapter workshop
- Northern Exposure: How to produce a chapter workshop that sells out and earns a profit
