Tweets on my experience as a content marketer
Medium · Writing · 2015 · 421 words
Visa shares lessons learned as a content marketer, with an emphasis on purpose-driven writing and writing as a personal letter.
Tweets on my experience as a content marketer
These were from October 2014– I had been writing for ReferralCandy's blog for about a year and a half by then. I now also manage the Candybar blog.
1. I think I've come a pretty long way as a writer, blogger, content creator. Most important lesson: Be purpose-driven. Know your end-goal.
2. My early writing was exploratory. I was just getting used to the sound of my own voice. Imitating. Stating the obvious. Unavoidable stage.
3. Some tips would've helped me move along faster. Number one tip: Don't think. Just write. Just create. Let it be ugly. Make it ugly.
4. The best hack I know for writing well: Write it as a personal letter. Pick ONE real person that you care about deeply, and write to them.
5. Good writing has an urgency about it. I'm adamant about this. Even gentle, breezy writing is purposeful in its breeziness. Slam the page.
6. Sometimes you might "just feel like writing". That's okay. Get it out first. That's a wonderful thing to have done at all. Do this x1000
7. But when editing, ask yourself, "What is this for? Who is this for? What changes? What's the surprise? What must the reader discover?"
8. I used to try to stuff in everything I knew about a topic. Made me anxious and stressed that I couldn't describe everything + be coherent
9. That's like trying to play tonnes of notes in a song, or playing really fast to communicate intensity. It wears people out. Relax.
10. This is scary, but it really helps: Write down what you want the person to take away from the whole thing. Then start there!
11. Good content marketing is urgent + respectful. It doesn't waste your time. It gives you context, frameworks, examples. It makes a case.
12. The reader should be able to try on your content, like a lens to view the world through. Obviously, it should make things clearer.
13. A good piece of content is a good lens that gives people additional clarity. (Fun extensions: Telescope? Microscope? Nightvision? 3D?)
14. I used to agonize over how everything I'd write has been written before. But you can always go wider, deeper, clearer, etc. Fill in gaps
15. Stuck? MOVE!!! Take a walk. Talk to someone different. Ask questions. Read a book. Watch a video. You need new stimuli + collisions.
16. Write, write, write. We need more writers. We need more art. We need more perspective, more context. The world ain't seen nothing yet.
Originally published at https://medium.com/@visakanv/tweets-on-my-experience-as-a-content-marketer-6c0187c8a0fb.