Meerkat Communications

It’s Meerkat Communications’ 5th year – hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly!

It’s been a privilege to work with a great group of clients in a range of industries and to help them express their ideas in various formats, whether in a brochure, sales sheets, or their company website. I love being able to help transform concepts into concrete copy and to help clients see the power of words in reaching  target markets.

Here’s to many more years of successful collaboration,welcoming of new clients, and of making words work for you.

Geraldine

While I’m posting some great cartoons, I came across this one on Facebook. Unfortunately I don’t know the source, but it includes a link to The Plain Language Programme, so I’m going to assume that’s the original.

I came across this great Savage Chickens cartoon that made me giggle. I was feeling especially glum because I had finally done some new creative writing and then ended up losing it all on my silly computer, so this majorly cheered me up.

Now it’s the blank screen and the keyboard that do us in….

Blogs can sometimes seem like something only narcissistic weirdos with too much time on their hands  are interested in producing. However, blogs can function as highly effective business tools. Web 2.0 and social media give us a way to connect with our clients and potential customers directly, encourage feedback from them, and find out how they think we’re doing, almost instantly. Done right, blogs can be used by businesses to promote their products and services, cement their brand, share news, and create brand evangelists – a community of dedicated followers and supporters. Blogs can also be used very successfully as an internal means of communication to engage with employees and receive valuable feedback from your own immediate community.

What are some of the main functions of a business blog?

You can choose to use your blog to communicate within your business or to reach out to your clients and customers (existing and potential). Your blog can function to

• market your company through free media
• raise your social media/online presence but also add depth to it
• communicate new products and services
• recruit new employees, clients, customers, investors, etc.
• communicate bad news to clients (but also do damage control at the same time)
• get instant feedback on new ideas/products/services
• gather information about potential target markets
• offer customer service and/or technical support
• and give your company a voice.

Of course you need to blog effectively to ensure the blog fulfills its potential functions.

What are some tips for better blogging?

In order to create a successful blog, you need to first of all identify who your intended audience is, whether internal or external. Next, you need to profile that audience to determine their particular needs and expectations. What sort of tone will they prefer? What types of information will they need and not need? What is their level of knowledge on the topic? Will they understand industry jargon or do they need layperson’s terms? Then you need to determine your blog’s ‘personality’ and the range of topics you are going to cover.

Remember that you are creating a whole channel of communication, not just a single message, so it takes careful preparation  and follow-up to blog effectively.

Here are some of my other tried and tested tips for blogging:

• Use and develop a readable, comfortable, conversational style of writing (you have permission to be less formal but should still care about grammar, style, spelling etc. as this can affect your credibility)
• Keep the information valuable, interesting, and to the point
• Supply readers with links, extra resources, images, infographics, etc. (remember that both internal linking and external linking help with your search engine rankings)
• Proofread the message and evaluate the content (edit, edit, edit!)
• Keep your posts short (probably around the 180- 200 word mark)
• Create a list of topics for you and your team to write about so you don’t run out of steam
• Use engaging, eye-catching headings for your posts and use sub-headings for longer posts
• Tag your posts with appropriate tags and categories
• Ensure all information is legal, ethical, accurate, and not taken from any other source without permission or credit.

Finally, remember that you are trying to reach and build a community of readers who can potentially become clients or customers, so you need to allow for comments and feedback and be a responsive blogger. Reply to comments, consider following your own followers back , and encourage interaction.

Blogging is a great tool if used correctly, and remember that it’s perfectly appropriate for business, not just those navel-gazing weirdos…

Geraldine

Sometimes, despite careful planning, a well crafted message can be misunderstood or misinterpreted or, perhaps worst of all, ignored.

One of the issues I find these days is that people really just don’t seem to have any listening skills, nor do they actually read all of what has been written. I have experienced both of these problems many times. For example, in my classes I can repeat instructions several times and put them in writing, and students still do not listen properly and end up doing the wrong thing (to their detriment). And I’ve also written very clear, well structured business emails (after all, it’s my profession so I have to show I can practice what I preach!), and still I get a response that indicates the person has not properly read anything I have written.

Sigh…

So what can we do about it? Unfortunately we can’t control others (oh for such a power!), but we can keep ensuring we construct well organised and thought out messages, and allow for feedback and questions. Sometimes, too, all it takes is a deep breath and a lot of patience. Something I learned a long time ago, because of the torture I experienced from certain teachers, is that if someone doesn’t understand something and they ask you to explain it again, explaining it in exactly the same way will not help, because the person did not understand you the first time.

We also have to be aware that communication is a process, a cycle from sender to receiver and back again, so we have a responsiblity to others to listen to them carefully and to read things slowly and with attention. This can save us time and unwanted issues.

So, it takes practice, patience, and sometimes, a healthy sense of humour to stay sane and ensure you overcome any barriers to communication to get your message understood and get what you want.

Geraldine

I came across an interesting article via Wordtracker on using the idea of what the author, Sean d’Souza, calls disconnectors to write effective, engaging copy. Using clear examples, d’Souza explains how disconnectors are just what soapies (sorry, day time dramas) like Days of Our Lives use to draw in their audience and keep them watching, and he demonstrates how this can be an effective technique in writing better copy.

The basic premise is the idea of keeping the reader paying attention by throwing in textual curve balls: seemingly incongruous stories/examples/subject changes that then eventually tie in to the main idea of the article. I agree that this can be a great way to write a more interesting article, though you have to be very careful that your disconnectors don’t go off on too far a tangent without returning to the point you’re trying to make, leaving your readers in the proverbial soapie coma…

You can read the full article, “Why disconnectors in copywriting are critical in keeping your reader awake” on the Wordtracker site. Let me know your thoughts.

Geraldine