July 18, 2010

Minimum Words For Maximum Effect In All Copy

: Image via Wikipedia

A note for all copywriters and those writing for the web. An intriguing article in today's paper about TED.com (stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design) has relevance to anyone attempting to master the art of copywriting or any other form of writing for the web.

Chris Anderson is the owner TED.com and what particularly grabbed my attention was his ruling that speeches at TED conferences cannot exceed 18 minutes. Eighteen minutes, he concluded, is: '..long enough to be serious and short enough to hold people's attention'.

How true that on first exposure to a new speaker or writer the author or speaker needs to grab your attention sufficiently to ensure that you come back for more – while at the same time keeping it short enough to recognise the user's short attention span that characterises the modern world as we surf our way through our lives.

At the same time you need to pack sufficient impact into your message to ensure that the listener recognises that it has value.

Note to self; more time and preparation required for all public pronouncements to ensure maximum impact with minimum words. And if it ain't worth saying then don't bother opening your mouth.

How did TED start? (laf.ee)
When ideas have sex: Matt Ridley on TED.com (ted.com)
Announcing TED's Global Conversation Project (ted.com)
Ted – the ultimate forum for blue-sky thinking (guardian.co.uk)

Did you like this article? Then subscribe now to my RSS feed:

Tags: Chris Anderson, Copywriting, maximum effect, public pronouncements, short attention span, ted conferences, writing for the web

June 17, 2010

A Tipping Point For Social Media

I am no spring chicken and every fibre of me rebels against social media. Just call me 'old school', so what social media activities like Facebook and Twitter posting I have done so far I have done out of a business obligation rather than because I had seen the light.

Indeed, I recently returned to good old fashioned personal networking in order to broaden my contacts after a change of course into marketing online services to bricks and mortar businesses. There is clearly lots of potential here, much in the vein of Russell Conwell's 'Acres of Diamonds'.

So strangely it was as a result of old style personal networking event today, courtesy of 4Networking, that I have, at last, 'got it' about social media.

I know lot of stuff about social media, the tools, the tricks, automation, leverage etc. But it took a simple comment from the mother of a 14 year old to serve up my personal 'tipping point' and a real understanding.

So while I have grappled with the problem of the varying effect of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin versus good, old fashioned email it was not until this business lady said that her son simply does not use email that I saw the light and indeed the end game.

In 6 years time her son will be 20 years old and entering the business world either as a buyer or seller, a consumer, influencer or merchant. Whatever part he may play in the process the fact is that he doesn't use email – and it's a reasonable assumption that his friends don't and wont do in the future either – and by then they won't be his 'friends' but his business colleagues.

So there you have it. My tipping point of understanding was not based on research or analysis. Not on an overwhelming weight of evidence or statistics but simply on one statement about what is happening right now with one individual in the real world. And note also it was not so much about what users were doing but about what they are not doing any more.

Having seen the light about social media the next hurdle both for myself and the rest of humanity must be to work out how to integrate the time spent on social media participation into the working day.

5 Things You Should Do in Social Media to Get Heard (socialmediatoday.com)
How to Become a More Savvy Networker Online (mashable.com)
How to Audit Your Social Media Efforts: 20+ Questions to Ask Yourself (techipedia.com)

Did you like this article? Then subscribe now to my RSS feed:

Tags: acres of diamonds, Facebook, Linkedin, personal networking, russell conwell, social marketing, Social Media Marketing, Twitter

June 3, 2010

London Bloggers Meetup

: Image via Wikipedia

I was refreshing the social parts that the internet cannot reach last night with my monthly pilgrimage to the London Bloggers Meetup for a chat to bloggers, media operators and others in the field.

Andy Bargery, the meetup organiser was telling me he is developing a new meetup he has christened Shoestring Marketing and we discussed the potential for cooperation with my own group at SmartMarketingWarriors.

Apologies to Heather or Helen, as I spent so much time trying to remember your domain name of H-in-London that whether it was 'eather or 'elen after the 'H' has now passed me by. I was also winding myself into something of a rant at the time about the vague way that some people drift through life expecting the rest of the world to support them – so my apologies for boring your socks off if you read this.

James O'Sullivan was also there, budding journalist and student of the modern era. I read an article in one of the papers at the weekend about ill-thought-through domain names that turn out to mean different things to different readers. So after saying that you can find James at www.battlethemelondon.blogspot.com I will leave you to work out the intentions behind his domain name. He's finding it a bit of a hoot whatever you think.

Hi to Chris Gilmour as usual. Sorry to read about the car but good news about the income boost.

I have to mention that the evening was kindly hosted by Best Buy who are transplanting their electrical goods retailing model from the US to the UK and looking for a small mention from the bloggers attending to improve the buzz.

Best Buy are rolling out offline stores for the moment to bed the systems in but Richard Clark, Head of Online Marketing, was adamant that service level which they claim to distinguish Best Buy from the current competition will be maintained when they go online later this year. We shall all live in hope as I never did discover how to get the VCR to record the programmes I wanted.

Thanks, anyway, Richard, for the beer!

Oh, I almost forgot the raffle prize I won of a ticket to a live Bon Jovi gig at the O2. That will be a new experience!

And a bit more about Meetup.com:

Meetup Everywhere: Turn Your Followers Into A Real Movement. And Celebrate Our Bday! (techcrunch.com)

Did you like this article? Then subscribe now to my RSS feed:

Tags: Andy Bargery, best buy, london bloggers, shoestring marketing

April 27, 2010

Are The Critical Elements of Your Squeeze Page Visible?

The perceived wisdom for effective landing and squeeze pages is that the optin box by which you would like your visitors to join your list should be 'above the fold', i.e. visible to your visitors without them having to scroll down.

But is what you see also what your visitors see – given the multitude of screen sizes, resolutions and browsers out there? One way to find out is to use one of Google Labs tools called Browsersize.

The attention of left to right readers will inevitably start at the top left corner of the page and Google has used the analytics data it has gathered from visitors to its own home page to develop 'browsersize' to show just how much of your page is visible to what percentage of your visitors by drawing contour lines overlaid on the URL you input.

Here's my home page where, at the time, a donate widget for my son's charity efforts has temporarily moved my optin boxes down the page. All the same, you can see that the 'donate' widget may not be immediately visible to between 5-10% of visitors.

Browsersize in use

Browsersize looks like another useful little tool coming out of Google Labs. Try browsersize for yourself at http:browsersize.googlelabs.com and keep an eye on Google Labs for other useful tools.