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Content Writing Mistakes to Avoid Like the Plague

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Mark Byrnes’ cautionary advice is meant for financial advisors, but some of the social media mistakes he’s telling his readers to avoid are warnings all content writers need to hear, and apply to blog posts, newsletters, and even email correspondence.

  • Not being authentic

Content that does not line up well with the firm’s brand or even the advisor’s unique individual brand will most likely be rejected by readers, Byrnes warns.

In your blog or newsletter, we teach at Say It For You, allow people to hear your distinct voice. Got limitations? Those may be precisely what makes you seem real to your readers. 

  • Being too salesy

Rather than boasting about all your own capabilities, put the target market first,  encouraging the audience by asking questions and conducting polls, the author suggests.

The tactic of using questions in titles is one I’ve often suggested to content writers, because often we can help searchers formulate their own questions by presenting one in the blog post or newsletter itself. 

  • Being too long winded

If content rambles on and on, viewers will click away and abandon anything that does not get to the point, Byrnes cautions.

Attempting to cover too much ground in a single blog post or even article, we lose focus, straining readers’ attention span.  Each post, I teach in content creation sessions, should contain a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of the business or practice.  

  • Taking the foot off the gas

Maintain consistency. Creating a steady stream of content takes time and patience. Interviewing other thought leaders and creating strategic alliances are ways to keep the content momentum going, Brynes suggests.

After years of being involved in all aspects of content creation for business owners and professional practitioners, one irony I’ve found is that consistency and frequency are rare phenomema. There’s a tremendous content fall-off rate, with most efforts abandoned months or even weeks after they’re begun. Yet, as online marketing guru Neil Patel stresses, websites that publish regular, high-quality content provide real value to users.

  • Hiding your personal side

Advisors should write about their involvement in community and in fundraising efforts, sharing their passions.

Content can focus on personal anecdotes relating to the owners’ community involvements and even to community happenings and concerns. 

  • Ignoring the trends

What are your clients and prospects doing online and why?  What has changed?

One rule of thumb in content marketing, we know at Say It For You, is to narrow down the target audience.  To be an effective marketing tool for your business, your content must be aimed at a specific segment of the market. Ask yourself : “Who are my readers?  What do they need?  Where are they ‘hanging out’ online?” 

All those “no-nos” listed in Financial Advisor Magazine? Content writers – take heed!.

 

 

 

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In Content Marketing, Hit Anything But the Ball Out of the Park

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“Cliches begin their lives as imaginative expressions and comparisons,” explains Richard Lederer in the Mensa Bulletin. But then, after repeated use, those phrases become trite, hackneyed, and lifeless, he explains.

For example, Lederer reminds content writers, you might hit:

  • the bulls-eye
  • the spot
  • the ball out of the park
  • the nail on the head

But your writing, he cautions, will turn out to be nothing more than “a yawn”. “Our hardworking English language means business,” Lederer reminds us, and we need to think about creating content that has impact without using expressions that are “dead as a doornail”.

Having devoted the last sixteen years of my life to wordsmithing blog posts at Say It For You, I know firsthand that variety can be the spice, not only of life in general, but of content.  Gray Matter, the Elevate blog, explains that the larger your vocabulary, the easier it becomes to break away from old thought patterns. We view our thoughts as shaping our words, but our words shape our thoughts, too. A large vocabulary isn’t for showing off – it should be used to expand your thinking – and that of your readers. There’s o much content out there – being boringly clichéd is a certain path to the bottom of the heap when it comes to engaging readers and converting them to buyers.

In addition to avoiding over-used expressions, content writers need to consider varying sentence length. Brandon Royal, author of The Little Red Writing Book, reminds us that not every sentence needs to be kept short.  Instead, Royal advises writers to weave in short sentences with longer ones. Every so often, he suggests, a “naked” (extremely short) sentence can add a dynamic touch.

“Using clichés is as easy as ABC, one-two-three, pie, falling off a log, and taking candy from a baby,” Lederer admits, but…don’t. It’d be all too simple for online visitors to click away. “The purpose of a blog is to create a more engaging website for your brand,” Indeed .com reminds business owners and candidates alike.

In content marketing, hit your target market, not the ball out of the park!

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Making Your Blog Bed Every Day

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In an interview with AARP Magazine, William McRaven (the Navy Seal admiral who oversaw the Osama Bin Laden raid) talks about the wisdom of doing small things right. “When I was training to become a SEAL, we got inspected every morning. The instructor would invariably pull out a quarter and flip it into the air to see if you’d pulled the blanket and sheet taut enough to make the coin bounce.” The chief petty officer had explained why. “If you can’t even make your bed to exacting standards, how are we ever going to trust you to lead a complex SEAL mission? Learn to do the little things right and you’ll learn to do the big things right.”

Nice to know I’m not the only one who thinks paying attention to detail is important , in my case, referring to the process of creating  marketing content for blogs.

Yes, blogs are supposed to be less formal and more personal in tone than traditional websites. But whenever content is posted in the name of your business (or in the case of Say It For You writers, in the name of a client’s business), the business brand is being “put out there” for all to see.

Formatting of blog content is very, very important, including the appropriate use of:

  • bolding and italics
  • short, concise sentences and paragraphs
  • bullet points and numbered lists
  • white space

Just as an unmade or poorly made bed is a sign of lack of standards and attention to detail, blog content writing “wardrobe malfunctions” convey the kind of message you do not want going to readers. Be fastidious about grammar and spelling errors, avoiding run-on sentences and redundancy. Tighten up those paragraphs, giving them “hospital corner” impact.

True, most readers will merely scan your content and won’t pay very close attention to details like those. Some might, though. Can you afford to have potential customers noticing your lack of care in making your “blog bed”?

 

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Not That “We”, This “We” in Blogging for Business

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In using the pronoun “we” in blog posts, I asserted in a recent newsletter, we keep the blog conversational rather than academic-sounding or overly sales-ey. That isn’t pompous, I wrote – “it just works”. My point was that in conversing with readers through blog content writing, using “we” calls attention to the real people behind the company or practice brand.

One thing for sure is that not everyone agrees. “Cut the word ‘we’ wherever you possibly can,” Joanna Wiebe advises in copyhackers.com, That should apply even to “About Us” page, she says. Why? Your visitors don’t want to hear about you. They want to hear about themselves – about their problems, their needs, their futures.

In a survey by Corporate Visions, more than 47% of respondents said they use we-phrasing deliberately to position themselves as trusted partners. On the other hand, the survey revealed, the audience felt much more strongly that they must take action when you-phrasing was done rather than we-phrasing. Meanwhile, a set of experiments by the Journal of Consumer Research examined messages from banks and a health insurer, concluding that the pronoun “we” doesn’t work if it’s inconsistent with the actual relationship. In other words, if customers don’t expect a congenial relationship with a particular type of company, “we” arouses suspicion. True, existing customers responded favorably to the “we” verbiage.

All this research made we realize that I had been thinking of one type of “we”, while these other articles were referencing another. I like to use the word “we” to refer to the people owning the company or professional practice. The real people behind the “we” pronoun are taking ownership of their opinions and of the particular ways in which they choose to serve their customers. I was not recommending the use of the “we” to mean we-the-owners-and-you-the-customers, in a very fakey and patronizing “Let’s-try-on-these-shoes-shall-we?” way. The “we” to which I was referring describes the business owners/practitioners as the writers of the blog, with the readers remaining the “you”.

Business owners and professionals are the “we” with the ideas, knowledge and experience to share. The online visitors are the “you” receiving the good advice and the answers to their questions.

 

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Business Blogging With Adjectives

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Pay attention to proper spelling and grammar, Joanne Adams says in Grammar, and “people who read your writing will know, without a sliver of doubt, that you are somebody who really knows their $h*t”. One thing Adams thinks we ought to know about adjectives, for example, is that they come in three flavors: absolute, comparative, and superlative. In describing a team of runners, for example, you’d probably describe them all as “quick” (absolute). Two might be “quicker” (comparative) than the others, while one outstanding runner is “quickest” (superlative).

Making comparisons, in fact, is an important function in blogging for business. An effective blog clarifies what sales trainers like to call your “unique value proposition” in terms readers can understand. One excellent way to do that is by making comparisons with things with which readers are already comfortable and familiar. Effective blog posts, we’ve learned at Say It For You, must go from information-dispensing to offering perspective.  Before a reader even has time to ask “So what?” we need to be ready with an answer that makes sense, blogging new knowledge by presenting it in a framework of things readers already know. (Telling me that Moringa leaves are healthy isn’t as powerful as telling me they have four times the calcium of milk.)

“Everything isn’t awesome,” Cristine Struble observes in Fansided. Using one adjective to describe all types of events, experiences and things degrades both the adjective and the object described. Some words can better define an experience, emotion or action better than others. Why use one word over and over when a dictionary is filled with descriptive words? The lesson – when it comes to using adjectives in your blog to describe your products and services, don’t overuse the superlative.

Blogging maven Neil Patel teaches “How to Avoid the Destructive Power of Adjectives in Your Marketing Copy”. In fact, Patel observes, “adjectives are a copywriter’s nightmare. With the right adjectives, you’re persuasive and memorable. With the wrong ones – you lose your readers’ attention, he warns. If you’re trying to paint a picture with words, you need adjectives, Patel admits, but flowery or bombastic words make you sound insincere. Is what you’re offering really second-to-none, state-of-the-art, and unparalleled?

Patel’s practical suggestions:

  1. If the meaning of your sentence doesn’t change when leaving out the adjective, leave it our altogether.
  2. Use stronger nouns if that means you can leave out an adjective.
  3. Avoid adjective modifiers such as “very” and “really” – use specific adjectives.
  4. Offer specific technical details telling the real benefits of the product or service (what pain does using it avoid? )

Business blogging with adjectives can be a good idea, but stick with the absolute and the comparative, never overusing the superlative.

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