Reads of the Week – 08/9/2014
There’s a lot of content out there in Content Marketing Land—which is a good thing. It means you don’t have to reinvent the wheel!
This week, I’ve got four interesting pieces you may have missed on content writing, email campaigns, social news hacks and more.
8 Writing Strategies for People Who Say They Can’t Write
By Catherine Clifford for Entrepreneur
Favorite Soundbite:
Lose the “I’m just not a writer” syndrome. Everyone has the potential to be a writer. Continuing to tell yourself otherwise is nothing more than an empty excuse. Reverse the energy. You can be a writer. Tell yourself, “I am absolutely capable of writing.”
Takeaway:
There’s power in self-confidence and writing is no exception. This is a no-nonsense list of tips that can be helpful to anyone needing to write online content.
How to Use Social Media to Build Your Non-Profit or Campaign Email List
By Laura Packard for PowerThru Consulting Blog
Favorite Soundbite:
You could use custom tabs [in Facebook] to highlight a basic email signup form, set up a donate tab, or maybe show off a hot petition around your issue.
Takeaway:
Here are some tips you don’t read every day. You may have seen call-to-action tabs on Facebook, but not known how to make them happen on your Page. You’ll find some fairly detailed instructions here for how to incorporate calls to action into Facebook and your other social profiles.
BBC Launches First Social Media-Only News Service — For Thailand
By David Cuen for BBC Blogs
Favorite Soundbite:
We decided we had an opportunity to be innovative and launch a ‘social first’ news operation, using social media only. There were many advantages. Firstly, over the past few months we’ve been working hard to put social newsgathering at the heart of our language services…Second, by using Facebook we could launch quickly and cost-effectively. Because a social network is a different platform, attracting a new audience, we could also experiment with new formats and interact with our users in different ways.
Takeaway:
Social Media is very young—which is exciting—because that means that everything hasn’t already been done! No matter how traditional your industry or organization may seem, for innovators, there’s still a lot of opportunity to meet big business challenges and try something truly original with your social media.
Potato Salad By the Numbers
By Fred Benenson & David Gallagher for the Kickstarter Blog
Favorite Soundbite:
Ohio, California, and New York pledged the most to the project. Ohio was no surprise, as it’s Zack’s home state. In fact, if we zoom in on Ohio, there’s particular strength around Columbus, Zack’s hometown, where his friends and neighbors wanted to come along for the ride. More than 62% of the money in Ohio came from Franklin County, which includes Columbus.
Takeaway:
There’s a lot if insightful data in this blog post, but it’s worth noting this detail about Zach’s hometown support for the project. The wider social net is an amazing resource, but never underestimate the ROI of engaging a base of supporters.
Did you read something amazing this week? Let us know in the comments. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and happy posting!