A Facebook headline reads, “How to Generate Blog Posts in 1 Minute Using AI.” It’s a sponsored post from Jasper (more about this later), and while the concept is certainly intriguing and tempting—especially when facing a mountain of blog posts to create for various clients—there’s a certain amount of skepticism that goes along with it. Is the hype too good to be true? (more…)
Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category
AI for Content Creation
Tuesday, May 16th, 202310 Copywriting Tips to Get Better Results
Thursday, November 3rd, 2022Whether you’re writing a brochure, copy for a newspaper ad, a script for a radio announcement, or a page or blog for your web site, there are some tried and true techniques that can help you make sure that your copy gets the results you’re looking for.
Think about writing copy as making a sales pitch to a customer. Your goal is to persuade that customer to do something–most likely to purchase your product or service. Here’s how: (more…)
Blogging Best Practices
Tuesday, August 30th, 2022A business contact of mine asked me recently about my thoughts on the value of blogs for generating revenue and the opportunity that may exist for writers to generate content for blogs.
Personally, I think the whole field of blogging is (more…)
Go-To Online Tools for Business Owners and Freelancers
Friday, February 18th, 2022Strategic Communications is an entirely remote company and has been since 2008, long before the pandemic emerged. Over those years we’ve been able to leverage a number of digital tools and apps to help us do our work more efficiently. We often learn about these tools through our clients. Each new client tends to bring along at least one new tool we haven’t used before. Some of our favorites: (more…)
Best Practices for Finding Freelancers: Top Go-To Sources of Talent
Monday, August 2nd, 2021Content is king, as the saying goes, and that’s certainly true in a digital world. Consumer appetite for content is at an all-time high and continuing to grow. That’s great for organizations that have well-oiled content creation teams in place to meet the demand. For others, though, developing content on a regular basis that is high-quality and focused on issues and topics that resonate with their audiences can be a challenge. The gig economy can help. A wide range of freelancers and contract content creators are available to organizations to help produce content for any format. (more…)
Finding Multiple Uses for Your Content to Extend Its Longevity and Reach
Tuesday, May 12th, 2020Content is always changing shapes, morphing into something new. Long before there was the written word, people gathered to tell stories around campfires. Before there was a printing press, there were handwritten books. Then, of course, came ebooks. Now, our content comes to us through a dizzying array of devices and platforms. Smart creators are using the growing number of delivery options to continue to reshape content into new—and sometimes improved—forms.
What Niche Publishers Know That Mass Media Overlooks
Tuesday, April 28th, 2020While publishers continue to battle for audience, relevance, and engagement, some niche publishers are quietly making an impact—and money—from narrowcasting. Consider, for example, the following:
Emu Today & Tomorrow, a magazine for emu farmers
Twins, a magazine for parents of multiples, which launched in 1984
Spudman, a publication for potato farmers
The Chimney Sweep News, serving a decidedly niche market of chimney sweepers as the name suggests
These and other publications are finding success by casting a narrow net to appeal to smaller, more exclusive market segments. Publishers can draw inspiration and insight from the retail sector.
How to Deal With Communication Dabblers
Thursday, August 15th, 2019If you’re ever created content for any purpose, chances are you’ve encountered a dabbler. A dabbler is someone who, when asked to review copy (or who is responsible for reviewing copy because of their position), suffers from severe scope creep. They just can’t stop themselves from offering far more, and far more detailed, input than what was expected.
Dabblers like to dabble. It’s what they do. Unfortunately, what they do can create a lot of headaches, and much rework and added expense, for those in the business of producing and publishing content of any kind. (more…)
Tips for Using Content Calendars
Tuesday, July 9th, 2019Social media marketing is an inexpensive and effective way to engage with your target market and position yourself as a thought leader. But to make it an effective tool, you need to be diligent in keeping your content up-to-date and post regularly. An infrequently-updated blog or social media page with stale posts can actually do more harm than good to your brand and engagement efforts. But many small business owners struggle to find the time to keep their social media profile up to date.
One solution to this is to use a content calendar.