If you’ve ever listened to advice on losing weight, you’re probably familiar with the term “empty calories”.
It simply means the food you’re eating – like a candy bar – is full of calories, but has negligible nutritional value.
The same can happen in writing.
Lots of words, negligible meaning.
And perhaps surprisingly, some of the biggest offenders are digital ad agencies.
You’d think marketing professionals would know better. But apparently not.
Here’s an example of what I mean…
I’ve been following Yanik Silver’s career for close to 20 years now, watching from afar as he journeyed from online copywriter and trainer to becoming a powerful advocate for a more evolved approach to business.
But… we never met until a few weeks ago, when we were both speaking at the same event.
I’d imagined his presentation might focus on sharing tried and tested techniques for online copywriters.
But I was dead wrong.
Instead, Yanik treated us to a vision of a world where business moves from being merely transactional to becoming transformational… where marketing is as much about making a positive impact on the world as it is about growing the bottom line.
Those of you who are familiar with my own vision for Conversational Copywriting will immediately grasp why I was so taken with Yanik’s presentation.
And you’ll understand why I asked him to take part in this interview.
So… let’s get started…
Whether you’re a freelancer, a consultant, coach or some other kind of solo professional, you have a personal brand.
Your personal brand determines how your clients, prospects and peers see you. What they think of you.
Your brand is a jigsaw of different influences – how you appear online, what you say, what it’s like to work with you, and what you do.
Most solo professionals take a pretty casual approach to personal branding. Their brand, such as it is, is largely accidental.
But smart individuals take a more deliberate approach.
Let’s take a look at what that might involve…
When we were children we knew how to connect with others through the use of simple language and a smile or two.
And then we had that ability educated out of us.
Our high-school teachers taught us how to write in fancy sentences.
At university we learned even more exotic words and sentence structures.
When we started working in an office, we were exposed to all kinds of business jargon and other nonsense.
And somewhere along the way we lost the ability to communicate simply and clearly.
When the web arrived in our lives, way back in the mid 1990s, it heralded a wave of disruptions, one after another.
The web changed how we look for and find information, how we connect with others, how we shop… and a great deal more.
Over time, the web has also profoundly changed the way companies do business.
It was and continues to be massively disruptive to multiple industries. When did you last go to a physical store and buy a music CD? Or rent a movie on a VHS cassette?
Industries have been changed almost beyond recognition – like the taxi business.
And now we have a new wave of disruptions coming our way.
The focus of most of my posts is on writing sales copy that is less pushy and adversarial… and more open and conversational.
In this post I’m going to focus not on sales copy, but on web content.
Because content can go either way as well.
Content can be flat editorial that is broadcast AT an audience of passive readers.
Or content can be more engaging and conversational in its approach and tone.
If you want your own content to be more inclusive, engaging and conversational, here are 4 things you might want to think about.