Writing on the Web from Patsi Krakoff, The Blog Squad

Big Mistakes in Content Marketing... 6 Tips on What to Avoid

 Every month Click Docs asks content marketing experts a key question. I'm always learning something from these experts. Here's the question they ask today: What's the Biggest Mistake to Avoid in B2B Content Marketing?

Be sure to read the post. I'm in good company with Ardath Albee, Brian Carroll, Rebel Brown, Maria Pergolino, and Mac McIntosh.

Here's my tip:

Everyone knows this joke: A celebrity runs into a friend who politely asks, “How are you?” The star takes off on a 5 minute monologue all about his success and his last film. Not completely insensitive, the star stops himself and asks the friend, “Oh, enough about me! How did YOU like my movie?”

What Bugs You About Writing?

Barb Sawyer makes a good point. She says this: "Everyone has become a writer, thanks to computers. Often not by choice. Frequently not by training.

"Many people have never been taught how to write with the skill, speed and grace required for the staggering amount of writing they are expected to do.

"Some agonize over choosing the right words. Others become upset when people don’t get what they mean.

"As readers, we get frustrated too, ploughing through long-winded, nonstop emails or scratching our heads in bewilderment."

Barb's doing some research on what bugs you about writing. Please go contribute to her research so she can create a useful ebook to help us all to improve the quality of our content marketing writing. You can post your challenges on her blog post here.

Finding Creativity Juice: Under a cactus in Mexico?

Do you love your brain, love searching for a great idea that will grab your readers' attention, and just pull them into reading your blog post or white paper?

Or is the creative writing process like pulling teeth without the novocaine...? For many of the professionals I work with, writing is time consuming, and even painful... like fingernails scratching across a blackboard.

It's hard, slow work giving birth to a piece of content that will solve a problem and entertain at the same time. In a recent Copyblogger piece, The Three Essentials of Breakthrough Content Marketing, Sonia Simone writes:

"High-quality content trains your readers and listeners to keep opening your stuff. It rewards them for doing what you want them to do. That means that every piece of content you write has to either solve a problem your audience cares about or it has to entertain them. Preferably both."

Sheesh. I know what you're thinking. "I'm a consultant, coach, ... expert in xyz, not Hemingway!"

I'm not either, but what I've learned about writing on the web and content marketing isn't rocket science.

I struggle with finding things to write about on this blog. I've written a ton of information here about writing great newsletters and blog posts, as well as white papers and articles to increase your visibility. Sometimes it feels like I've already written as much as I have to say. There's nothing new, it's been done before.

White Papers: A Key Piece of Your Content Marketing, Especially Offline

I'm working on a white paper for one of my long term clients. I had a flash back: it reminded me of my first journalism assignment when I was a cub reporter for the San Diego Union Tribune. That was 50 years ago! I feel like I've come full circle back to my first job and first love: writing about people.

If you don't have a white paper you can use for your marketing, think about doing this. My client has plenty of web pages up and does a superb e-newsletter (I know this because I help him with his!)

But as he says, "My clients are CEOs and high-level directors of companies. They don't spend much time online. I need something tangible, printed, that I can leave behind after a meeting, or send to them before."

How Chip Scholz Gets Content Marketing Right (even if it hurts...)

On a recent post about leveraging what you know to help other people online, one of my favorite clients, Chip Scholz, commented:

Great post, Patsi. Thanks for reminding me of the power of writing, and of delivering great content. I find writing extremely time consuming and almost painful! How can I find ways of making it easier and less time consuming? Do you have any suggestions on resources (other than you of course!)

Time consuming and painful, ah, yes. And the pain is where, exactly? I'm a doctor, but help me out here, Chip. I'm a doctor of psychology, so if the pain is anywhere in your body, you've come to the wrong place.

Chip's off speaking, consulting and coaching somewhere, earning big bucks doing what he does best, so I'll have to work with what's showing on his web pages. I'm going to answer his question based on his content marketing.

What I'm seeing for Chip's online visibility is content marketing on the following pages:

Website: ScholzandAssociates.com
Blog: Leader Snips
Book landing page: Selling for Geniuses
Twitter: ChipScholz

4 Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy: Think Heart, Eat Happy

Yesterday I gave a talk at the Lake Chapala Society about "4 Ways to Keep Your Brain Healthy." As a former psychologist, I have a passion for sharing what neuroscientists are discovering about the brain.

The four areas you need to pay attention to for your brain are mental challenges, cardio exercise, healthy diet, and happiness. I call this the "Think-Heart-Eat-Happy" brain program.

The most important thing to do for your brain, at any age, is to get regular physical exercise that raises your heart rate to around 60-70% of maximum. This will elevate levels of BDNF: Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor, a protein that is crucial for the growth of neurons and their communication networks. It's called "Miracle Gro" for the brain, it's that important.

5 Key Principles of Content Marketing

I know a lot of people trying to figure out how to supplement their incomes with an Internet business. Some of them ask me how to go about it. While that's a huge endeavor involving many pieces, the key is writing on the web using content marketing.

What you publish on web pages works to attract a targeted audience of people who are interested in finding solutions to their problems.

Remember, the number one reason people use the Web is to get information.

That's why I recommend starting with a blog. A blog is a communications and publishing tool you can use to attract readers, those people who are your ideal prospects. Of course the next question is "What do I write about?"

That's where you need to learn how to do Content Marketing.

What are the principles of Content Marketing to abide by? Here are some good tips from Velocity UK, a marketing consultancy firm who just published a great B2B Content Marketing Workbook.

Content marketing plays by different rules than traditional, ‘broadcast-style’ marketing, here are some of the key ones:

MindTram Is a Gold Mine for Book Lovers

I'm a firm believer in reading books and am amazed at how many people don't read them daily. I carry my Kindle with me and if I have to wait, I use the time to read.

(I read a quote somewhere and can't find it now, but it said something like ...'one who can read books but doesn't is on a par with one who can't read'. I think it was Oscar Wilde but like I said, I can't find it now. Let me know if it rings a bell for you.)

I am thrilled to find a site called MindTram by Colin Ude-Lewis. Colin does what I do: reads and marks up books with yellow highlighter and makes notes. But he goes a step further. He makes his notes available to you. I've just signed up for his service, Wisdom Notes.

For a small subscription fee, you can get his notes and quotes on a huge library of self-development, philosophy and business books. This is a true treasure trove for anyone who loves books, and loves expanding their thinking and knowledge. It's also a great source of content ideas for blogs and newsletters.

Colin is an executive coach in Europe at Lewis Fields.

Content Marketing Is "Issues" Marketing: Velocity UK

I just heard about this on Twitter and downloaded a fab content marketing ebook published by Velocity UK, a consulting-led B2B marketing agency specializing in technology markets.

Doug Kessler is the author, it's well designed and power-packed. Please go download it here: The B2B Content Marketing Workbook - Thought Leadership for B2B Lead Generation and Beyond.

What stands out for me - besides the great design - is the melding of concepts of thought leadership and content marketing. And making the link between "issues" and content marketing. (Reminds me of a Friends sitcom clip where one of the girls repeats "He's got issues!")

Think about it. In this beautiful Web 2.0 world, you no longer write about your products and services. It's all about the issues your customers have. We should be calling this Issue Marketing to be real.

A Story Teller's Mindset: Key to Great Content Marketing

 The hardest thing about writing good content for marketing is coming up with stories to tell. There's no lack of knowledge, or research, or interesting concepts to blog about, or to write white papers about.

I read one or two books a week, full of interesting information I can share with you here. But it's dry without my telling you a story of how that information comes to life in the real world.

What's needed is a story-teller's mindset. I'm working on that, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. I'm observing people who have that already.

Like Eric, Tall Eric, down at the tennis courts. If I mention coffee, he's got a story. Okay, so that can be a bit annoying if you're in a hurry, but he's usually got my attention for a couple of minutes. There may be a point to his story...or not.