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Creative writing is a great way to improve your mental health. In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can use creative writing to your advantage.

If you’ve been struggling with depression, anxiety, or any other mental health issue, you may have heard of the term “creative writing.” It’s a form of therapy where you write about your thoughts and feelings in a way that you may not have been able to do before. This article will help you understand what creative writing is, how it can benefit you, and how to use it to your best advantage.

## What Is Creative Writing?

“Creative Writing” is a term that refers to any kind of writing that is done for its own sake. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or anything in between. It doesn’t have to be about a particular topic, either; it can be about anything that you want to write about. The only requirement is that it be done for the sake of the writing itself, and not for any other reason. For example, if you write a story about a time when you had a bad day at work, it would be considered creative writing, but if you wrote the same story for the purpose of getting a raise, it’d be considered “work” and not “writing” in the truest sense of the word.

## How Can Creative Writing Help You?

When it comes to mental health, creative writing can help you in a number of different ways. Here are some of the ways that it can help:

1. It Can Help You Express Your Thoughts and Feelings

One of the best things about writing is that you can express yourself in ways that you might not be able to express in real life. When you write, you have the ability to get your thoughts, feelings, and emotions out of your head and onto the page, where they can be seen and heard by others. This can be a very powerful thing for people who are struggling with mental health issues, because it gives them a way to express themselves without having to worry about how they’ll be perceived. It also gives them an outlet to express things that they might not have the courage to say out loud, and it allows them to get their thoughts out of their head and into the world, where hopefully they can help someone else who is going through the same thing.

2. It Helps You Understand Yourself Better

Writing can also help you get a better understanding of yourself. You might not realize it at first, but the act of writing can teach you a lot about yourself and your own personality. It gives you the opportunity to look at yourself in a new way, and to see yourself from a different perspective. It allows you to look back on your life and see the things that you did, the choices that you made, and the people that you interacted with. This gives you a chance to understand yourself better than you ever could if you were just reading about yourself in the newspaper or watching the news on TV. You get to see things from your own point of view, and you can see how your actions affected other people and how other people reacted to your actions. This is a powerful way to learn about yourself, because you get to know yourself from the inside out, which is something that no one else can do for you.

3. It Allows You to Deal With Your Feelings in a Healthy Way

Finally, writing can give you the chance to deal with your emotions in a healthy way. There are a lot of people out there who struggle with depression and anxiety, and creative writing gives them the chance not only to express their thoughts and emotions, but also to work through them in a positive way. Writing can be cathartic, in the same way that talking to a friend or therapist can be. You can write about things that have been bothering you for a long time, or you can just write about whatever is on your mind at that particular moment. The important thing is that writing gives you an outlet for your emotions, and that you are able to use that outlet in a constructive way.

## How to Use Creative Writing to Your Advantage

Now that you know a little bit about creative writing and its benefits, you might be wondering what you can do to take advantage of these benefits for yourself. The first thing that you should do is pick a topic that you would like to work on. It could be something that you have been thinking about for a while, or it could be a new idea that has just come to you. Whatever it is, make sure that you pick something that is meaningful to you, because that will make it easier for you to get into the mindset that you need to be in to do creative writing. Once you have a topic in mind, you can start writing about it. You don’t have a set amount of time that you’re supposed to write for; you can write as much or as little as you’d like. It’s up to you how long you’ll spend on each piece of writing, and there’s really no right or wrong way to do it. The most important thing to keep in mind is that the writing is for you, not for anyone else. You’re writing for your own benefit, so you can’t worry about what other people will think about what you’ve written. If you do want to share your writing with other people, that’s fine, but you’s writing for yourself, so it’s your choice whether or not to share it with others.

It’s also a good idea to set aside a specific time each day to write. That way, you won’t be distracted by other things that might be going on in your life, like your job, your family, or your social life. By setting aside a certain time to write every day, it’ll be easier to stick to your writing schedule, which in turn will help you stay on track with your creative writing project.

If you have any questions about how to use creative writing to your advantage, feel free to ask them in the comments section below. I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have, and I’m always happy to help people who want to learn more about this topic.

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This article was originally published at HowStuffWorks.

## What is content writing?

Content writing is the process of creating written content for websites, blogs, social media posts, and other forms of digital media.

The primary purpose of content writing is to communicate ideas and information to the target audience. Content writing is an essential part of digital marketing, and it is one of the most important skills you can develop as a digital marketer. It is also a skill that is in high demand in the digital marketing industry, so if you are interested in a career in content writing, there is a good chance you can find a job as a content writer.

There are many different types of content that you can write, including articles, press releases, blog posts, product descriptions, web pages, emails, and more. The type of content you write will depend on the type of project you are working on and the audience you are writing for. For example, you might write an article for a website that is targeted at a general audience, but you might also write a press release for a company that is focused on a specific industry. You may also write product descriptions for an e-commerce website that sells a variety of products, or you may write a blog post for a personal blog that is aimed at a specific group of people.

## What skills are needed to be a good content writer?

In order to become a successful content writer, you need to have the following skills:

– Writing skills: You need to be able to express your ideas clearly and concisely. You also need to know how to structure your writing so that it is easy to read and understand. You should be familiar with the basics of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure, and you should have a basic understanding of the English language.

– Writing style: Your writing style should be clear and concise, but it should also be interesting and engaging. You will want to write in a way that makes your audience want to read your content, so you will need to pay close attention to the tone of your writing and the way you present your ideas. You can learn more about writing style in [Chapter 2](#2-writing-style).

– You should also have a good understanding of how to use words and phrases that are commonly used in your industry and in your target audience’s industry. This will make it easier for you to write content that is relevant to your audience and will increase the chances that your audience will be interested in reading your content.

– Your writing should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. If you are not confident in your writing skills, you can always ask a friend or colleague to proofread your content before you publish it. You might also consider getting help from a professional editor.

– Communication skills: You will also want to have good communication skills. This includes being able to listen to and understand what your audience is saying, as well as the ability to express yourself clearly and succinctly. It will also help if you have good people skills, as you will have to interact with your audience on a regular basis.

– Technical skills: Content writing requires a lot of research, so it is important that you have the technical skills to do the research you need in order to write high-quality content. This means that you should be comfortable using research tools like Google and other search engines to find the information you need. You must also be comfortable with technology, such as using a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone to write and publish content online.

## Writing style

In this chapter, you will learn about the different writing styles you can use when you write content, and how you can improve your writing style so that your content is more effective and interesting for your audience.

## What is a writing style?

A writing style is the way in which you write your content and the tone you use to write it. There are two main types of writing styles: formal writing style and informal writing style. Each of these writing styles has its own set of rules and conventions, but there are also some general rules that apply to both writing styles.

1. Formal writing style: This is the writing style that is most commonly used by professional writers. This style is based on the rules of grammar and punctuation that you learned in school, and is often used in academic writing, technical writing, and legal writing. It can also be used to write press releases and other types of formal written content. In this writing style, you should use a formal tone when you are talking about yourself, your company, or your products, and an informal tone when talking about other people, places, or things.

2. Informal writing style (also known as colloquial writing style): In this style of writing, you use informal language and a conversational tone when writing about yourself or your company. This writing style can be used when you want to make your audience feel like you are speaking to them directly, or if you want your audience to feel like they are part of a conversation. This is a common writing style used by bloggers, journalists, and social media influencers, and it is also the style that many people use when they are writing on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

## How to choose the right writing style for your content

There is no right or wrong way to write, so the choice of writing style depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your writing. If your goal is to create content that will be read and shared by many people, then you should write in an informal style.

I’m a retiree and I’m a freelance writer. I’ve been freelancing for about five years now, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. I thought I’d share some of the things that have worked for me.

Note: If you’re a freelancer and you’re reading this, I hope you’ll share your own tips and experiences in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

## How I Got Started

When I retired, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I knew I wanted to write, but I didn’t know how to get started. I had a lot of experience as a journalist, but that wasn’t the kind of writing I was interested in. I wasn’t looking for a full-time job. I was looking for something that I could do on a part-time or freelance basis, and that’s when I decided to try freelancing as a way to make a little extra money. I also wanted to see if I could make a living as a writer, which is something I’d always wanted to do. So, I started looking for freelance writing jobs. I found a couple of them, but they weren’t what I wanted. I wanted something that would allow me to write about what I’m interested in, and so I decided that I needed to find my own freelance writing gigs. I started freelancing, and before long, I was making enough money to pay my bills and put a little bit of money in my savings account. It was at that point that I realized that I really liked freelancing. I liked being my own boss, I liked the flexibility of working when and where I wanted, and it was a great way for me to make some extra money while still doing what I really wanted to be doing—writing. So that’s how I got started.

1. Find Your Niche

The first thing you need to do when you start freelancing is to figure out what you’re interested in writing about. You don’t have to be an expert in your niche, but you do need to be passionate about what you write about. If you’re not passionate about your topic, it’s going to be hard for you to write well about it, and you won’t be able to charge as much for your work as you could if you were passionate about it. I’m not saying that you have to love your topic to be a good writer, but if you don’t love it, you’re going to have a hard time doing a good job of writing about it—and you’re probably not going to make as much money doing it as you would if you did love it. So the first step is to find something that you’re passionate about, and then figure out how you can write about it in a way that will help you make money.

2. Figure Out How Much You Can Charge

Once you’ve figured out what kind of freelance writing you want to do, the next step is figuring out how much you can charge for it. You can charge more or less than you think you can, depending on the type of work you’re doing. For example, if you’re writing about a topic that you know a lot about, then you can probably charge a lot more than you can for writing about something you know very little about. The more you know about your subject, the more you can command a higher price for your writing. On the other hand, if the topic is something you’re just starting to learn about, you’ll probably have a harder time charging as much as you’d like to. The good news is that you can always charge more later, once you’ve learned more about the topic. So it’s a good idea to start out by charging as little as you can while you’re learning the basics. Once you’ve got the basics down, you can start charging more and more, until you’ve reached the point where you’re charging what you think is a fair price for the quality of your work. The other thing to keep in mind is that there’s no hard and fast rule about how much to charge. It’s up to you to decide what’s fair for you and your clients, but there are some things you can do to help you figure that out:

– You can look at what other freelancers are charging for similar work, and see how much they’re charging and how long it took them to get to that level of income. This will give you an idea of what you should be charging, and how much time it will take you to get there.

– You can ask your clients what they would be willing to pay for your services, and use that as a starting point for your own pricing. This is a good way to get a feel for what your clients are willing to spend on your work, but it’s also important to remember that your clients may not be telling you the whole truth.

Product descriptions are one of the most important parts of a product’s marketing. If your product description isn’t compelling enough, you’ll miss out on a lot of sales.

In this post, I’m going to share with you some tips to write a great product description. You’re going to learn how to make your product descriptions stand out from the rest, and how to write product descriptions that will make your customers want to buy your product right away!

Before we get started, I want to let you know that this post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on one of these links and purchase a product, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps me keep the blog running, and allows me to continue to provide free content for you. Thank you so much for your support, and I hope you enjoy this post!

## How to Write Great Product Descriptions

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let me tell you about some of the things you can do to write great product descriptions:

1. Be Specific

Your product description should be as specific as possible. If you want your customers to buy from you, then you need to make sure that they know exactly what your product is, and why they should buy it from you instead of from your competitors. You can do this by being specific about the features and benefits of your product, and by making sure that your customers can easily find out more information about your product by clicking on the links that you include in your description. For example, if you sell a product that helps people lose weight, you should make sure to include a link to a page on your website that tells your customers exactly how your product works, and what they can expect to see when they start using it.

You should also be specific when it comes to the features that your product has, and the benefits that it provides. This will help your customers make an informed decision about whether or not they want to purchase your product. For instance, if your product helps people get rid of their belly fat, you can mention that it has a special ingredient that helps your customers burn fat, and that it comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee. This way, your customers will know that they can try your product for a full 60 days, and if they don’t see the results that they want, they can get a full refund.

If you want to learn more about how to be specific, I recommend that you check out my post on the importance of being specific in your marketing.

2. Include Keywords

Keywords are the words that people use to search for products on Google and other search engines. The more keywords that you use in your descriptions, the more likely it is that people will be able to find your product when they search for it on Google. This is why you should include as many relevant keywords as possible in the product description that you write. You should also try to use keywords that are related to the product that you are selling, so that you can make it easier for people to find what they are looking for when they are searching for your product online.

3. Include Images

Images are a great way to get your customers excited about your products, and to make them more likely to buy them. In fact, studies have shown that people who view images of products that they are interested in tend to be more interested in buying those products than people who only read the product descriptions.

When you are writing a product description, it is a good idea to include an image that shows your product in action. This can be done in a number of different ways, such as by including a picture of the product itself, or by including an image of a customer using the product.

4. Use Bullet Points

Bullet points are an easy way to break up a long product description and make it more readable. When you use bullet points, it will be easier for customers to read and understand what you are saying, and it will also make your descriptions look more professional.

5. Use Action Words

Action words are words that tell your customers what they need to do next. These words can include things like “buy”, “order” and “download”. These action words can be used at the end of product descriptions, or in the middle of them. They can also be used in the title of the page that you link to in the description.

6. Tell a Story

One of the best ways to make people interested in your products is to tell them a story about how your products can help them. People love to hear stories, and they love to learn new things, so if you are able to tell a story that relates to the products that you sell, you are going to have a much better chance of selling more of your products.

7. Include Links

Links are an important part of any online marketing strategy, and product descriptions are no exception. Links are great because they allow you to send your customers directly to the pages that you want them to visit. This makes it a lot easier for them to find the information that they need, and makes it more likely that they will buy your products right away.

8. Include a Call to Action

A call to action is a message that you send to your customers, telling them what they should do next in order to make a purchase from you.

15 SEO Backlinking Strategy 2022: Increase Organic Website Traffic

It is the most challenging part of Digital marketing to get high-quality backlinks, especially for small entrepreneurs and startup companies. If you want to boost up your organic website traffic to beat your competitor, you just need to create high-quality backlinks. If you want to create high-quality backlinks, you have to follow a smart SEO backlinking strategy.

In 2022 according to a Google ranking factor, backlinks are trending as one of the top 10 most important ranking factors. So as an organic SEO specialist , I know how to create quality backlinks and what makes a quality backlink strategy for SEO that can link back to your site.

Regardless of how much time you spend on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, you will not reach your desired audience if your website does not have quality backlinks.

A backlink is a signal to other websites that point to a specific page or URL. It is not necessarily a positive signal, but it is a signal nonetheless.

Are you planning to enhance organic website traffic in 2022 through a proper SEO backlinking strategy? If so, keep all these 15 backlink strategy for SEO in mind. With some reliable tips, you will be able to reach more users and expand your ROI.

Why are Backlinks Important in SEO

Google and all other main search engines believe backlinks are more reliable for a specific page. You must want to know what makes a quality backlink. The Pages that come with a maximum number of quality backlinks have the tendency to get a high organic search engine ranking on the resultant page.

1. Create High-Quality Link-Worthy Content

You need to make sure your content is worth linking to and it is better to create linkable assets, which can include infographics, videos, quizzes, blog posts, eBooks, and surveys. If you want to make link-worthy content you must concern about your content marketing strategy. Making videos and other visual assets such as infographics can capture good quality backlinks.

All these queries and delivering customers with a valued message can help you get backlinks from high-quality, applicable authorities. You may see some resource pages as well. The resource page may include a few local sites such as government websites and university sites etc.

2. Practice The Broken Link Building Method

Next, generate content, which can replace that backlink. Extend out to any webmasters, which can feature that broken link on their website. Request them to replace the link, which is using your content instead.

It is also needed to ensure for your own website completes a backlink audit. For this tactic, your page has to be a suitable resource on the topic to which they were initially linking, so it makes sense to replace the broken link with yours.

3. Claim Your Business Listing

4. Arrange Virtual Events Or Sponsor Digital Meet-Ups

5. Practice Network Outreach

Find connections with blogs or websites that can host a link to your website. Network outreach connections are more likely to help you than any other thing. These can help you to use connections that you already have.

You may use tools like Ahrefs to define which links you wish to place for. Connecting with journalists and writers can help you to link appear in more posts. So it is wise to start making good connections with the journalists’ network as well.

6. Leverage With Your Brand Mentions

You may set up a Google Alert for your brand name and frequently you can search for your branded terms to catch mentions of your brand. If the mention doesn’t contain a link back to your site, you can reach out to the publisher and request it.

7. Take A Strong Part in Social Sharing Strategy

A strong social sharing strategy can help to derive traffic to your content and boost your revelation, which would be brilliant for your link-building strengths and your brand. If you want your content to reach others easily then sharing content can be the best option and it helps your posts to reach maximum exposure on social networks and will improve your website ranking as well.

Backlinks are often considered a challenging aspect of the SEO strategy as they involve lots of things including thought, making relationships, and outreach. Though many experts may like to avoid this part of SEO, specifically quite a massive part of its success depends on other people’s awareness or perception of the content, and it is worth it.

Except for these though, there is a quite high risk in managing in an echo chamber, generating content barely for search engines and not for users, which is not supported by the good SEO experts and this is exactly what Google down ranks.

8. Reclaim Image Links & Use Images to Earn Links

Most recently Infographics are the most commonly used visual asset for websites, which helps to earn backlinks. It is always interesting to experiment with something new. So if you haven’t done it earlier you must try. Before using these you need to optimize infographics and images for SEO, unrelatedly maybe you are a beginner or an advanced SEO expert.

9. Make Email Signatures

10. Update Your Content Regularly

• Revise spelling mistakes and grammatical errors from an old blog post
• If there is any broken link fix it
• To get more audiences to include multimedia
• Optimize your content with appropriate keywords
• Link to suitable and latest resources
• Regularly keep sharing your content

11. Use Influencers

Influencer plays an important role in marketing for ROI. In some cases, around 50% of customers’ buying decision depends upon influencer recommendations. So mostly around 80% of marketers consider influencer marketing as effective.

12. Write Testimonials and Reviews

13. Write Guest Blogging

You can start guest blogging which permits you to create a blog post on someone else’s website. Then, in the blog content, you can link to your website. It is better to find a website that is related to your site than you can write a guest post or you can share your expertise, thoughts, and experiences. It will help to leverage that website’s existing audience to build your audience.

Resource Link Building

What Types of Backlinks are Valuable?

Trait #1: They Come From Trusted, Authoritative Websites

Trait #2: They Include Your Target Keyword In The Link’s Anchor Text

Trait #3: The Site (and Page) Linking to You Is Topically Related To Your Site

Trait #4: The Link Is a “Dofollow” Link

Trait #5: The Link Is From a Domain That Hasn’t Linked to You Before

Best Practices

Create a Linkable Assets

Build Backlinks from Link Roundups

Use The Moving Man Method

Finally, I emailed everyone that linked to the infographic to let them know the image wasn’t working anymore. I also let them know that my infographic would make a great replacement for the BlueGlass one.

Broken Link Building

Guest Posting

Infographics and Other Visual Assets

Submit Testimonials

Blogger Reviews

1. Find bloggers in your niche that might be interested in what you have to offer. If you sell an information product that teaches people how to make their own soaps, you’d Google things like “soap making”, “make soap at home” etc.
2. Your results will be a mixed bag of blogs, news websites and “how to” websites like eHow. Filter out how-to sites or news sites. You’ll be left with a solid list bloggers that might be interested in your offer, like this one:

Link Reclamation

Use HARO

Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s Backlinks

Stick to Content Formats That Generate Links

About // The Editor

John E Lincoln, CEO

John Lincoln is CEO of Ignite Visibility, one of the top digital marketing agencies in the nation and a 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 Inc. 5000 company. Lincoln is consistently named one of the top marketing experts in the industry. He has been recipient of the Search Engine Land “Search Marketer of the Year” award, named the #1 SEO consultant in the USA by Clutch.co, most admired CEO and 40 under 40. Lincoln has written two books (The Forecaster Method and Digital Influencer) and made two movies (SEO: The Movie and Social Media Marketing: The Movie) on digital marketing. He is a digital marketing strategy adviser to some of the biggest names in business. John Lincoln is the editor of the Ignite Visibility blog. While he is a major contributor, he does not write all of the articles.

Resources:

https://www.sajibroy.com/seo-backlinking-strategy/
https://diib.com/learn/backlink-strategies/
https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-get-backlinks/
https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/backlinks
https://ignitevisibility.com/backlinking-strategy/

9 Ways to Describe Yourself in an Interview

While you might have an idea of what traits and characteristics you want to highlight about yourself, you might not be sure how to format your answers. Sometimes, an interviewer wants you to give a detailed description of your character, and other times, they just want you to summarize who you are in as few words as possible. Either way, we’ve got you covered.

In the examples below, we’ve provided some sample interview questions and answers, along with some bonus tips. Feel free to take sentences from different responses to create your own, unique way of describing yourself! While we don’t recommend using these answers word-for-word, they should give you an idea of what good, effective interview answers look like.

Additionally, we highlight different strengths that may fit your personality or goals in the interview room. Every business, interviewer, and position can value different character traits. It’s important to know how to use that to your advantage.

Describe Yourself as Flexible and Resourceful

I like to think that I’m a very flexible and resourceful person. Even when things change at the last minute, I’m able to adjust accordingly and meet tight deadlines. At my last job, the schedule was constantly changing, so I needed to be highly adaptable. Despite the chaotic environment, I always finished tasks on time.

Use this verbiage (style of speaking) when interviewing for a position that requires a lot of changes on the job and strict timelines. This line of speaking is reserved for interviews where you’ve already researched the position and know what you’re getting yourself into. It reinforces to the interviewer that you can handle the pressure that comes with constant change.

How To Answer, “How Would You Describe Yourself?”

I am passionate about my work.

Every employer seeks to hire people who enjoy their work, but the word “passion” evokes feelings of dedication and loyalty. When someone is passionate about the work they are doing, they are naturally committed to quality and positive outcomes.

Example: “I am passionate about my work. Because I love what I do, I have a steady source of motivation that drives me to do my best. In my last job, this passion led me to challenge myself daily and learn new skills that helped me to do better work. For example, I taught myself how to use Photoshop to improve the quality of our photos and graphics. I soon became the go-to person for any design needs.”

Related: 6 Types Of Motivational Speaking Jobs And How To Get Hired

I am ambitious and driven.

Ambition and drive are two qualities that are essential to success and growth in many jobs. When an employer hires an ambitious candidate, they can rest assured this new hire will consistently seek ways to improve themselves and keep their eyes firmly set on their next goal.

Example: “I am ambitious and driven. I thrive on challenge and constantly set goals for myself, so I have something to strive towards. I am not comfortable with settling, and I am always looking for an opportunity to do better and achieve greatness. In my previous role, I was promoted three times in less than two years.”

Related: What Is Self-Confidence? (Definition And Tips To Improve)

I am highly organised.

An organised candidate is a detail-oriented candidate and someone an employer can trust to meet deadlines. This quality is especially important in administrative positions, project management and other roles that require adherence to process and quality.

Example: “I am highly organised. I always take notes, and I use a series of tools to help myself stay on top of deadlines. I like to keep a clean workspace and create a logical filing method so I am always able to find what I need. I find this increases efficiency and also helps the rest of the team stay on track. In my last role, I created a new filing process that increased departmental efficiency by 25 percent.”

I am a people person.

Some people are naturally outgoing, conversational and quickly find ways to feel at home in groups of complete strangers. This attribute is especially helpful for professionals in customer service and sales positions.

Example: “I am a people person. I love meeting new people and learning about their lives and their backgrounds. I can almost always find common ground with strangers, and I like making people feel comfortable in my presence. I find this skill is especially helpful when kicking off projects with new clients. In my previous job, my clients’ customer satisfaction scores were 15 percent over the company average.”

I am a natural leader.

While you can teach people management skills, some people naturally take on the role of a leader in group settings. Employers often seek natural leaders for leadership and non-leadership positions because they set a good example and can boost team morale.

Example: “I am a natural leader. I have eventually been promoted to a leadership role in almost every job because I like to help people. I find co-workers usually come to me with questions or concerns even when I am not in a leadership role because if I do not know the answer, I will at least point them in the right direction. In my last two roles, I was promoted to leadership positions after less than a year with the company.”

I am result oriented.

A results-oriented candidate is someone who keeps the end goal in mind and knows which resources it will take to get there. Employers know when they hire someone who is results-oriented, they will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Example: “I am results oriented, constantly checking in with the goal to determine how close or how far away we are and what it will take to make it happen. I find this pressure inspiring and a great motivator for the rest of the team. In fact, over the past year, I was able to help my team shorten our average product time to market by two weeks.”

I am an excellent communicator.

are necessary for ongoing success in almost any position and every industry, but they do not always come naturally to everyone. When a candidate can communicate well, they help ensure messages are not muddled internally or when delivering information to a customer.

Example: “I am an excellent communicator. I take pride in myself on making sure people have the right information because it drives better results. Most business issues stem from poor communication, so I feel a responsibility to keep everyone on the same page. These skills helped to increase my personal client retention rate by more than 40 percent in a year and helped the team deliver 100 percent of our projects by the original deadline.”

Source:

https://magoosh.com/english-speaking/how-to-describe-yourself-in-an-interview-9-methods-with-examples/
https://in.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/interview-question-how-would-you-describe-yourself
https://careersidekick.com/describe-yourself-interview-question/

11 Killer Copywriting Tips You Should Be Doing

As a marketer, your advertising efforts should aim to convince your audience that they need your product in their lives; and you do this by telling a compelling story. This type of storytelling can only be done by agencies with experienced content marketing and copywriting services under their belt.

Copywriting is the process of writing text that persuades readers to take desired actions and purchase your product. Copywriting is a must for all businesses and agencies and is a critical part component for executing your digital marketing framework strategies since it concerns all of its your channels.

A good content marketing agency knows that a good copy reflects on the familiarity of its readers to catch and keep their attention. Additionally, a well-thought-out copywriting plan can convert casual readers into loyal customers.

What is good copywriting?

What makes a good copy? Clickbait titles or sensational captions may deliver clicks, but it will take much more than these to create customers out of your audience. Before you can put to good use the copywriting tips we’re presenting you, you have to understand what good copy looks like.

1. Good copywriting is clear; it doesn’t beat around the bush.

When your readers see your copy, it’s important for them to instantly understand what your topic is. Although a little mystery can get your readers to stay longer, confusing them with vague content can turn them away.

2. Good copywriting is concise; it’s brief yet comprehensive.

Don’t bombard your readers with blocks of text. Strive to keep your writing short and sweet, but not too much that the soul of the copy gets lost in the editing process. Aspire for brevity, but don’t leave out the crucial information that your readers need to make a decision.

3. Good copywriting is organized; it structures your ideas.

Write a copy with a logical and meaningful flow. Strategize the hierarchy of information to be presented. This can help you influence your readers’ decisions and emphasize the most crucial points of the message. If your copy is unstructured and confusing, your readers will likely not understand what you’re trying to say.

4. Good copywriting is creative; learn to think outside the box.

Your readers aren’t robots. They crave creativity and emotion. Don’t settle with the monotonous and formal invitation for your audience to check out your brand. Reel them in with clever quips and memorable phrases through a unique brand voice that’s sure to get stuck in their heads. In this light, make sure to also maintain a consistent brand voice to sustain the connection with your readers.

5. Good copywriting is meaningful; write with a purpose in mind.

Before your team starts writing, be sure they know the objectives of their copy. This includes the target audience and in what marketing channel it’s going to appear. The relevance of your copy depends on your writers’ understanding of who’s going to read it and in what context they are going to read it.

6. Good copywriting is persuasive; call your readers to action.

It’s not enough that you catch your readers’ attention; rather, you need to tell them what to do with the information they read. This comes in the form of a call to action (CTA) . You can use CTAs to persuade your readers to purchase from your brand, learn more about your product, or participate in a discussion about the two.

Add more interest.

When you don’t know what to write next or how to make your draft better, one copywriting hint is to add interest. As David Ogilvy once said, “Tell the truth but make truth fascinating. You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.”

Every writer and every brand has their own unique voice, style, and unique selling proposition (USP). Ogilvy knew that building a “sharply defined personality” is the best way (and sometimes the only way) to differentiate yourself from the competition and gain a larger market share. Before publishing anything, make sure it clearly demonstrates your brand personality – including voice, style, word choice, values, and USP – as well as matches your target audience’s needs and desires.

More Articles Like This

How to Write a Follow-Up Email (+12 Examples & Templates)

30 Awesome Examples of Conversational Copywriting (+How to Do It Right)

24 Unusual (Yet Brilliant) Call to Action Examples You Can Copy

Source:

https://propelrr.com/blog/copywriting-tips
https://writtent.com/blog/stuck-writing-35-sure-fire-copywriting-tips-tricks-pros/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2019/10/15/copywriting-tips

Select platforms like Facebook and Instagram have built-in shopping tools designed for ecommerce companies. Your brand can tag shoppable products, and customers can tap to go to your website or check out right in the social media app.

How to manage social media like a pro: A comprehensive guide

As a person in charge of social media, you live a hectic life. Between building effective strategies and overseeing multiple social media accounts, you need to stay on top of finding new opportunities for marketing growth, and report on your performance – all under the pressure of time. And if this wasn’t challenging enough, your social media teams are growing. This means you need solid management know-how to build efficient workflows and deliver results. We know things can get overwhelming. That’s why we created this step-by-step guide explaining how to manage social media more efficiently – from persona analysis and content creation to listening.

Social media management is the process of analyzing social media audiences and developing a strategy that’s tailored to them, creating and distributing content for social media profiles, monitoring online conversations, collaborating with influencers, providing community service, and monitoring, measuring, and reporting on social media performance and ROI.

Managing social media: where do I begin?

If you’re not sure how to begin optimizing the way you manage social – don’t worry. It’s something many marketers are confused about. To be able to start off on the right foot, you need to do three important things:

Because completing them will provide you with fundamental information that will steer your social media marketing efforts in the right direction. As a result, you will be able to concentrate your resources on strategies that work and cut down on those that don’t.

Conducting a social media audit

Step 2: Use social media analytics to review your key performance metrics, such as follower growth, engagement (including the average engagement rates for particular months), publishing frequency, most engaging content formats, top-performing posts, traffic sources, community sentiment, question response rate, average response time, audience interests, demographics, and behaviors.

Step 4: Analyze the data and identify areas that could use improvement. For example, if you see a dip in your engagement volume, it might be a result of low content quality, inaccurate targeting, or wrong publishing frequency.

That’s exactly the type of information you need to single out shortcomings in your strategy. From there, you can take the first steps towards fixing them and making your social media management activities more efficient.

Decide on the right social media platforms

A lot also depends on where your audience is. If during your research, you find out your audience is mostly on Twitter, for example, but your presence on the platform is far from strong, then you should obviously seek to improve.

What are my business objectives (improving brand awareness, lead generation, website traffic, conversions, etc.)? Will I be able to meet my business objectives on the platform? How much will I have to spend to meet my goals?

Analyze your target audience

Analyzing your social media community is everything when it comes to managing social media efficiently. There are plenty of benefits to analyzing your followers – including building stronger customer relationships, creating more relevant content, and boosting social media conversions.

Or, if you want to make your life easier, you can let AI do the job for you. It’s likely that your customer personas will be diverse. For example, you can have a group of teens interested in sports and a group of 30-year-olds following Digiday’s Facebook page and interact with their content.

Having this information will allow you to make better use of your resources by concentrating on doing what works best with your community. Need help analyzing your target audience on social media? Check out this audience insights report from Socialbakers (now a part of Emplifi).

SocialBee

Seamless social media posting for all your profiles

Description: SocialBee is a social media management tool that promoses to bring you more leads with less effort. Its core functionalities allow its users to add, organize, and share content across several social channels from one place: Facebook (Pages, Profiles, Groups), Twitter (Profiles), LinkedIn (Profiles, Pages), Pinterest (Boards), Instagram (Profiles), and even on Google My Business. And it even integrates with Buffer.

Unique value: Oneof SocialBee’s most-loved features is the possibility to recycle evergreen content while keeping it fresh by using post variations. You can use SocialBee to posts consistently, while having an overall balanced mix of content in each category. More than that, the quality of support and is another valued asset of SocialBee.

Social Media Reporting

As you review your social media reports, make note of when the most significant upward and downward trends occurred. Review what happened on those days—such as the content you posted or the influencer partnerships you shared. Then use your insights to determine what works best for your audience and do more of it as possible.

In addition to standard reports, Agorapulse also offers custom options that can compile analytics for multiple profiles or for specific campaigns. To create one, click the Create a Report button in the upper left corner of the reporting tab.

Then choose the social profiles and data sections you want to add to the report. Before creating the report, you can opt to send it to yourself, your team members, or your clients every week or month. When saving time is critical, automated reports are key.

Social Media for Agencies

Maintain an asset library

With an asset library, you can keep content organized in separate client folders and subfolders for campaigns or social profiles. Agorapulse’s asset library also lets you add titles, labels, and internal notes so you can quickly find any content you’ve uploaded.

If you want to create or add content to your asset library quickly, you can use Agorapulse’s Canva integration. With one click, you can start designing a new post in Canva or shift an existing post from your Canva folders to your asset library.

Master scheduling tools

Create an approval process

Rather than using email or chat apps to review social media posts one by one, incorporate the approval process into your social media scheduling tool. Just create a draft of the post, and then assign it to your client, chief marketing officer, or other stakeholders. Once the right person approves the post, the scheduling process automatically completes.

Also, consider using Agorapulse’s shared calendar to make collaboration with your clients about social media content much easier, more visible, and less of a hassle. With shared calendars, you can share drafts with everyone on your clients’ teams, even if they don’t have a seat in your Agorapulse plan.

Just create a shared calendar with each client’s social profiles, and add the people who need access. Once you invite them, they can view the calendar any time to see published, scheduled, and drafts social media posts.

Set a standard price structure

Do you ask yourself, “How much should I charge for social media management?” every time a new potential client contacts you? To save yourself time and hassle, set a standard pricing structure that makes sense for your agency.

In Conclusion

Now that you have the basics of social media management down, it’s time to get to work. Hash out your social media goals, map out a content calendar, create branded content, and start building relationships with potential partners to grow your brand effectively.

Sources:

https://emplifi.io/resources/blog/social-media-management-guide
https://buffer.com/library/social-media-management-tools/
https://www.agorapulse.com/blog/social-media-management/
Social media management

If you’re just dipping your toe in the social media marketing waters, do-it-yourself tools are a great way to get started. These platforms can help you manage your own campaigns with simple, comprehensive interfaces designed for the most novice of social media manager.

What Do Social Media Managers Do?

Social Media Managers create and maintain brand promotions, company information, and marketing campaigns for their company across several social media networks. Use a digital marketing campaign checklist to make sure your content is on track.

They also know the best social media metrics to focus on and use free or paid tools and respond to questions and comments according to the company’s voice and guidelines. Social Media Managers work daily to produce new content, constantly innovating to push new ideas and formats and measuring how well those ideas perform.

Social Media Managers may report to a Social Media Director (in larger organizations) or the Head of Content or brand. They work with other creative groups such as marketing and public relations, as well as the sales department, to drive lead generation campaigns that the sales team can convert into revenue. A Social Media Manager is expected to keep up with new trends along with company and industry news.

An in-demand role, Social Media Manager positions typically require a bachelor’s degree in marketing, public relations or similar. According to Glassdoor, Social Media Managers earn an average salary of over $46,000 in the U.S.

• Create content for multiple platforms– What tips are used to expand your reach on Facebook, won’t necessarily work on Instagram. Look at what content will work for each platform e.g video, gif, infographic, blog etc.
• Monitor social analytics – You need to check what campaigns are working (or not working) across channels so your time and money is going in the right places to the right people.
• Devise a social network strategy – You may need to create a campaign from scratch to promote a sale or new product.
• Measure and prove ROI – Set measurable goals for a new campaign across relevant channels and create a report to track performance. Use a social media campaign calculator to meet your objectives at the right cost.
• Schedule social posts – Each platform has an ‘ideal’ time to post content. Scheduling ahead of time helps reduce workloads and ensure content is posted when you’re asleep, but your audience aren’t!
• Find relevant curated content – Some of your social posts should reflect world events or developments that matter to your audience. So, do some research and share third-party content that will resonate.
• Engage with your audience – The point of your social media is to build engagement. So, respond to any comments and deal with customer queries.
• Review and populate your content calendar – In such a fast-paced world, you need to plan your content. Populate your social media calendar for days or even weeks ahead to stay on top of things.

The best social media management tools

How we evaluate and test apps

All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who’ve spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. We’re never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to any site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our process, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.

Social media management apps have one purpose: to make managing your business’s social media presence easy and efficient. Most small businesses don’t have the staff or the time to waste posting individual updates and checking in on each site a few times every day. With this in mind, we set out some pretty firm criteria on what we felt made a great social media management tool:

It’s easy to waste time on social media—whether you’re posting for yourself or your business. It shouldn’t be a hands-on job that takes time every day. This meant we required apps to enable you to schedule future posts and updates so you could batch your social media work into a couple of blocks each week. Also, it was ideal if apps offered access to your social media inboxes away from the distraction of the feed, so you could reply to customers without getting sucked in.

Social media shouldn’t be a crapshoot. Different audiences will engage differently with different kinds of content. To make it easier for you to identify what content works for your audience, the best social media management tools will offer detailed analytics on how your posts do. (Unfortunately for marketers, not all social networks allow the same kind of analytics, which means you won’t necessarily get the same features for every social network you use.)

Finally, all the apps had to be cost-effective for small and medium businesses. There are plenty of enterprise- or influencer-focused apps out there that charge a serious premium for features you’ll never use. Price wasn’t as much the issue as value for money.

It’s also worth noting that every app has a free trial or even a totally free plan. Don’t decide on one based just on our observations; try the two or three that sound like they might suit you best, and go from there.

Best social media management tool for straightforward social media scheduling

Buffer is one of the longest-running social media tools aimed primarily at scheduling posts, although it’s gone through multiple updates, shifts, and iterations. It supports Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. Free users can connect up to three social accounts, including Facebook Pages and groups.

When you first connect a social account, Buffer will create a schedule for you. By default, Buffer creates four slots per day: in the morning, around noon, late-afternoon, and later in the evening for the time zone you’ve selected. Head to Settings > Posting Schedule to tweak this at any time, delete or add time slots, or disable an entire day. The more slots you have, the more updates you’ll need to schedule, but scheduling updates is easy with Buffer’s intuitive dashboard, mobile apps, and browser extensions.

For scheduling content from the web, Buffer offers browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. Click the Buffer icon in your toolbar (or use a keyboard shortcut), compose your update, and click Add to Queue to schedule. There are also mobile apps available for both iOS and Android, so you can schedule on the go.

While Buffer’s free plan is good enough to get started, if you want a more complete social media management solution or to control more than three social media accounts at once, you’ll need to pay $6/month per social channel for the Essentials plan. This gives you access to detailed analytics and engagement features, which let you interact with your audience directly from Buffer. (Also, if you want to bring team members on board, Buffer goes up to $12/month per social channel.)

Buffer new items in an RSS feed

Buffer your WordPress posts

Buffer Price: Free plan includes one user, three accounts, and 10 queued posts per profile; from $6/month per social channel for the Essentials plan that offers unlimited queued posts per profile; from $12/month per social channel for the Team plan that offers unlimited users.

How Much Does Social Media Management Cost?

Social media management tools and services vary in costs, which is why it’s so important to get a tailored quote before you make a decision. Above all, you’ll want an accurate estimate of how much social media management tools and services will cost for the particular scale and needs of your business.

Cost of Social Media Management Tools

The cost of social media management tools can vary, but you should expect to pay somewhere between $10 and $600 per month. Yes, that range is large, but a lot of factors need to be considered before narrowing it down for your particular business.

Accounts

The beauty of social media management tools is your ability to schedule posts for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn from a single platform. However, depending on how many accounts you’re looking to manage, the price could go up.

Whether you’re popular on a wide range of platforms, or just have six different Twitter accounts that you want to manage, make sure you know exactly how much it costs to add extra accounts to your service, as it could cost you a pretty penny.

Posts

The primary purpose of social media management tools is to schedule posts in advance so you don’t need to perfectly time out your day to hit those peak hours. However, if you’re trying to take the “quantity over quality” approach, you might need to pay a little extra.

Even if you only have one account, some social media management tools will put a limit on the number of posts you can schedule in advance. The more posts you want to schedule, the higher the price, so make sure you take that into account when picking your tool.

Users

Are you planning on tackling your social media strategy all by yourself, or were you hoping it would be more of a team effort? This is an important question to ask when it comes to which social media management tool and plan you end up with.

Most social media management plans are priced on a “per user per month” basis, so each additional user will cost you. Additionally, some plans specifically cap your users at a certain number, and you’ll to upgrade to add more, so be sure you consider how many users before making your decision.

Features

Social media management comes in many forms. From scheduling posts to analyzing trends, you can do a lot with the right platform. As you can imagine, providers offer a wide range of different features, and that can seriously effect how much you end up paying.

In most cases, the average plan will offer scheduling capabilities, along with some posting help. However, if you’re looking for marketing, monitoring, listening, engagement, and analytical features, you’re typically going to have to shell out a few extra bucks a month.

Platforms

Almost every social media management tool offers functionality with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. However, if you’re looking to branch out with your social media strategy, you might want to investigate which providers offer additional platforms and, more importantly, how much they cost.

TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, and Tumblr, among others, are far from standard in the average social media tool, but you can absolutely find them. Loomly, for one, is a great option, although it could cost you a bit extra to get all the coverage you’re looking for.

Cost of Social Media Management Services

Unlike social media management tools, these services offer everything from marketing strategy to paid advertising to improve your overall strategy on social media. Because of this, social media management services vary greatly in cost depending on a wide range of factors, including:

When it comes to social media management services, the varying costs make it imperative to get a customized quote before you make a decision. To get a good idea of what’s out there, take a look at a few tools and services we have reviewed below.

Social Media Management Stats

Unlike other aspects of your business, measuring how important social media is to building a growing company is pretty difficult. With abstract metrics and unique approaches to success, having a few statistics to drive the message home certain never hurts.

Now you know what social media management involves, its benefits, and the cost factors that will determine what sort of price quote you can expect, here are some examples of the companies that can help you. We’ve put together a selection of the top social media management tools and services available in 2021.

Do It Yourself: Social Media Management Tools

If you’d prefer to be hands-on with your brand’s social media, then there are some brilliant tools you can choose, to manage how you go about this. Social media for business shouldn’t involve logging into a standard Facebook or Twitter account, just like you would with a personal page. Businesses need to be smarter.

Sources:

https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/what-skills-do-i-need-to-be-a-social-media-manager
https://zapier.com/blog/best-social-media-management-tools/
https://tech.co/digital-marketing/social-media-management-guide
Social media management

The challenge for SMBs and enterprise organizations is finding the right solution for their present needs while paying attention to their possible future needs. Smaller brands and startups have the benefit of being able to focus on tools that will help their growth and build their name. Established brands are focused on their reputation as well as tracking competitors in a market where every hashtag, mention, or "like" can quickly go viral, impact a brand’s reputation, and even affect their bottom line.

What Is Social Media Management?

The social media landscape continues to evolve and mature. While there hasn’t been a considerable increase in the number of social media platforms, we are seeing the consolidation of popular services under Facebook’s control. Social media platforms are pivoting to better serve as captive advertising and sales channels.

For example, Instagram, which was focused on photo and video sharing, has grown into a serious marketplace because photos of products and services fit easily within users’ news feeds, putting possible purchase decisions just a few clicks away in the seemingly endless scroll that can be social media surfing. The addition of Instagram for Business (Opens in a new window) and Instagram TV (Opens in a new window) (IGTV), which enables creators and brands to create video channels within the application, has also added more avenues for interaction and engagement. Social media management tools are similarly adjusting to being able to publish posts and measure data from these new offshoot features.

Social media use continues to grow globally, which means that businesses and companies now have global reach for their brands and products. Any sudden global expansion brings unlimited potential while also posing some considerable challenges. These include being able to handle foreign languages and understanding localized social media trends. Social media has also transcended beyond publishing content and interacting with customers; it is a valuable source of real-time information and analytics. Some social media listening tools can quickly break down this information into quantifiable and actionable data points. Social media management tools can take analytics and funnel it into customer relationship management (CRM) tools to give you more informed and nuanced customer interactions.

There are a wide range of social media management and analytics tools in the market today. They run the gamut from creative publishing and scheduling tools (such as Loomly, Planable, and Sendible) that aim to keep social media managers on top of posts to powerful analytics tools (such as Buffer Publish and our Editors’ Choice pick Talkwalker) that can present real-time performance and competitive information in a number of ways. Integrated solutions, such as Editors’ Choice Sprout Social and pioneering social media app Hootsuite, continue to be popular for small to midsize businesses (SMBs) because of their versatility and convenience.

SEMrush

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid

SEMrush is best known for being an inclusive SEO software platform, but it also incorporates a couple of useful tools for social media management across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google My Business.

The social media poster allows you to schedule and posts to these different social media platforms. It includes an image editor, UTM-builder and link shortener, for customizing your posts, which you can then publish immediately or according to an automated schedule. There’s also the ability to manage ads specifically across Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and the Audience Network.

The social media tracker then allows you to track cross-platform engagement with users, allowing you to collect analytics for reports in a single dashboard. This includes both reactions to posts as well as mentions elsewhere. You can also monitor competitors to determine how often they are posting.

The biggest strength, however, is the fact that SEMrush allows you to integrate your social media management with your overall SEO and marketing strategy, and provides a useful platform that brings everything together in one place.

Social media design tools

A brand’s social media presence should look visually cohesive — but how do you achieve that and keep posts timely? With design tools like these, that make it easy for social media managers to access on-brand templates, fonts and stickers in a flash.

1. Canva.

“It’s got prebuilt templates for all industries that can be easily manipulated with your brand colors and fonts and quickly resized for different platforms,” she explained. “It’s the best tool I’ve found for creating branded social content… Everybody in social media needs Canva.”

2. Mojo.

Designed for creating Instagram reels and stories, Mojo’s mobile app offers hundreds of social templates to ensure clean, consistent layouts on branded posts — and it lets social media managers edit, animate and add stickers to photos and videos.

Sources:

https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-social-media-management-analytics-tools
https://www.techradar.com/best/best-social-media-management-tools
https://marketerhire.com/blog/social-media-management-tools

There are a number of steps towards branding your business. What’s important to remember as you go through them is consistency. Business branding is about consistently conveying the same message and personality across every channel.

How to establish your business brand

Having a well-branded business is invaluable to building a reputation. Your brand helps customers understand what your business stands for. Successful business branding makes you easy to recognise and helps you resonate with customers. So what exactly is branding in business?

Your brand is present in everything your customer sees, from your website design, colour scheme, and logo to the way you advertise your product. What you decide to emphasise and the tone you use to talk to customers are key elements of your business branding. It’s how you define your personality and values.

Brands are often mistaken for logos or slogans, but a brand isn’t a single thing. Your logo, slogan, and other trademarks are part of your brand, but are not the brand itself. They’re marketing tools that are used to help you communicate your brand.

Free Brand Building Guide

Fill out the form to get your free guide.

2. Establish your mission statement.

Let’s return to a question I asked in the previous step: Why did you create your business? Answering this will help you build your mission statement, which defines your purpose and passion as an organization.

Before you can craft a brand that your audience recognizes, values, and trusts, you must be able to communicate the purpose that your business provides. Then, every part of your brand (logo, tagline, imagery, voice, and personality) can reflect that mission and vision.

3. Define your unique values, qualities, and benefits.

Take a moment to jot down a list of what sets your business apart from others. I’m not talking about product features (like appearance, components, or capabilities); I’m referring to how your products or services improve lives and contribute to success.

You’ve probably never heard of Alani Nu; they’re a nutrition company based in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. I order their vitamins because 1) they’re proven to work, and 2) I trust and respect the brand (and it’s gorgeous!). On their website, they’ve clearly and simply outlined their unique values and benefits as part of their overall brand. Highlighting these makes it easy for customers like me to trust their products and choose them over competitors.

4. Create your visual assets.

If you can say with confidence that you’ve mastered these steps, it’s time to move on to one of the more exciting parts of branding — the visual design. We’re talking about your logo, color palette, typography (fonts), iconography, and other visual components.

As you create these elements, build a set of brand guidelines (or a brand style guide) to govern the composition and use of your visual assets. This will ensure that whoever uses your new branding does so accurately and consistently. Check out HubSpot’s brand guidelines for reference.

5. Find your brand voice.

How you communicate with your target market is also considered part of your branding. You want to define a brand voice that connects and resonates with your audience — otherwise, they probably won’t pay attention. Because of that, don’t hesitate to return to step one to get familiar with to whom you’re speaking.

From your advertising campaigns and social media captions to your blog posts and brand story, ensure your tone is consistent throughout all of your written content. Give your audience a chance to get familiar with your brand and learn to recognize the sound of your voice. Better yet, master a fun, entertaining voice, and your customers will look forward to your social media and email updates.

MailChimp is a great example of a brand that speaks with a clear, consistent tone. When I used their free plan for my small business, I always chuckled when receiving their emails and working in their interface. From its web copy to its email blasts and social media captions, MailChimp has established a brand voice and personality that is personable, fun, and accessible — it can be hard to explain the technical parts of a software product (like A/B testing), but MailChimp has mastered that, too.

6. Put your branding to work

Your brand only works if you do. Once you finish designing and creating your new brand (or rebrand) integrate it throughout every inch of your business. Pay extra attention to ensure it’s displayed anywhere your business touches customers. Here are a handful of tips for applying your brand across your organization.

Website

Splash your logo, color palette, and typography across your website. Don’t use anything but your predefined assets in your brand guidelines. Your website is a major part of your company identity — if it doesn’t reflect your brand, it will only provide a jarring customer experience. Also, be sure that all web copy, calls-to-action, and product descriptions reflect your brand voice.

Social Media

All profile photos, cover art, and branded imagery should reflect your brand. Consider putting your logo as your profile photo — this will make it easier for customers to recognize your business. As with your website, be sure all profile information, posts, and captions reflect your brand voice.

Packaging

If you have a physical products business, your product is probably the most tangible way that customers interact with your brand. For that reason, your packaging should reflect your new branding — in its design, colors, size, and feel.

I love Chobani yogurt (confession: I’m eating it right now). Their new branding immediately tells me that they produce authentic, healthy Greek yogurt. That’s one of the main reasons I buy Chobani. Recently, I realized that their yogurt packages are made with a very earthy, textured material — an intentional decision that supports the overall experience they’ve paired with purchasing and eating the Chobani brand.

Branding Tips for Small Businesses

1. Treat your brand as a person.

Whiskey Riff is another brand you’re probably not familiar with. It’s a two-man media company based here in Chicago that’s dubbed themselves “the most entertaining country music site ever”. I’m a fan because I love country music, enjoy their written and podcast content, and proudly wear some of its awesome apparel.

• “Hey, I’m Whiskey Riff. I love country music and, you guessed it, Whiskey. My logo was inspired by the Y in the circle on the Chicago Theater marquee, and I’m adorned with horizontal red stripes and stars — which represent the American and Chicago flags.”
• “I publish in-your-face content about what’s going on in country music today. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. My podcast featured my founders interviewing country music artists and telling hilarious stories. Check out my apparel line; my t-shirts, tanks, hats, and accessories can be seen at country music festivals (and on stages) nationwide.”
• “Whiskey Riff is like that first shot of Jack Daniels — that much-needed, refreshing drink after a long day. It’s a break from that cookie-cutter way of life, and you immediately appreciate — and trust — its candidness. There’s absolutely nothing like it in the industry.”

2. Prioritize consistency.

Inconsistency is the number one branding mistake that companies make. Inconsistency undermines your brand and confuses your customers. Recognizable, valuable brands prioritize consistency — and they reap the benefits. When your brand is a unified presence across mediums and platforms, customers can easily get familiar with, recognize, and come to prefer your brand over time. Brand guidelines can help with this initiative.

3. Build and follow a brand strategy.

A brand strategy is more than your brand guidelines; it’s a plan with specific, long-term goals that can be achieved as your brand evolves. These goals typically revolve around your brand’s purpose, emotion, flexibility, competitive awareness, and employee involvement.

Remember how I said that branding is a continuous process? There’s a lot that goes into it. A brand strategy can help you turn that process into a well-oiled practice that keeps your brand moving toward success and recognition.

4. Don’t let inspiration turn into imitation.

Competitive analysis is important. Not only does it educate you on where your competition stands and how they are excelling, but it can also give you ideas on how you can improve or further set apart your brand.

However, be conscious to not fall into an imitation trap. Keep your competitive research limited and focus on what your organization brings to the table. Just because a competitor (or two) has branded their company in a certain way doesn’t mean that you have to follow suit. New, unique, provocative brands are memorable brands.

5. Use branding to hire.

Strong branding makes your employees proud. I know I’m proud to be associated with HubSpot, much less work there. Leverage your branding to attract talented people. If hiring is a strong initiative for your organization, dedicate some of your resources to employer branding. Employer branding is how you market your company to job seekers and current employees. If you’re publically proud of your organization, others will be, too.

Sources:

https://sumup.co.uk/business-guide/how-to-establish-your-business-brand/?prc=ukairbtn-s-3gp119gbp&gclsrc=aw.ds
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/branding
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/branding

Finally, being a ghostwriter can help you and your freelance writing business in many ways. You get to learn how to communicate with clients better and help them open up you. Your writing also becomes better over time since you have to learn how to write in other people’s voice effectively.

How to Become a Ghostwriter in 6 Essential Steps (+ Tips from Professionals)

Becoming a ghostwriter might not be every writer’s dream, but it’s certainly a noble one. Whether you’re writing novels or business books, you’ll be helping someone tell their story without expecting any credit — though of course, you can also make a pretty penny as a ghostwriter. We’ve seen our fair share of successful ghosts on Reedsy, and some of them will be sharing how to become a ghostwriter in this post. There are five steps in total, so buckle up and let’s go.

Understanding the job description is the first step to doing anything well. Well, what is a ghostwriter? A ghostwriter is someone who works on a manuscript that will be credited to someone else. This may be the entire book or just parts of it, but either way, the “ghost” will often not receive public credit (unlike a listed co-author).

Usually, the ideas and knowledge contained in the book come from the publicly named author — the ghost only puts these ideas into words. As such, being a ghostwriter means you’ll have to work very closely with each author, noting down their detailed thoughts and overall style so that you can convey them seamlessly in the book.

Is ghostwriting legal?

In some cases, like The Autobiography of Malcolm X, the ghost may even be credited on the cover. If the author agrees to share the credit, your name will often follow the phrase “as told to” on the cover or front matter. Otherwise, the author might also name you in the acknowledgements. Don’t be perturbed if you don’t receive any public credit, however; it’s par for the course in publishing, and perfectly legal so long as you still get paid.

How much do ghostwriters make?

From the data we’ve gathered from the hundreds of collaborations on Reedsy, a ghostwriting project can earn you anywhere from 5000,000 to $60,000. And if you’re writing for a celebrity or a high-profile author, you can expect a six-figure payment for a book! A number of factors contribute to how much ghostwriters make, but the general rule is: the more experience you have, the better your income will be.

Are you ready to join Reedsy?

Take on freelance writing gigs

We know you’re eager to write a full 50,000-word book (and get paid for it) as soon as possible, but it’s not so simple. Most authors would first need to have a general idea of your authorial voice and range of knowledge, to see whether you’re compatible with their own book idea. This is why having some previous work to demonstrate your talents is absolutely crucial — and why we recommend you start with freelance writing first.

Test out various styles and topics

There’s no better time to experiment than now. Don’t limit yourself to just one or two categories of work — spread your wings and fly! Send pitches to magazines, blogs, and newspapers; write op-eds, listicles, and even short stories. Indeed, if you hope to become a fiction ghostwriter, make sure you’re not just writing articles constantly, but also adding some fiction creds to your portfolio.

One of Reedsy’s most popular ghostwriters, Sally Collings, encourages you to find opportunities to practice your skills even in the most unexpected places: “Find individuals or organizations who need help writing the ‘About’ section for their websites. Most people just don’t know how to make their own story shine, and it can be very helpful for them to draw on your storytelling skills.”

Alternatively, you can also act as an editor, assisting authors with manuscripts by refining their structure or voice (though not doing the writing yourself). “This will give you real-world experience collaborating with clients and shaping a manuscript — without tackling the heavy-lifting of concept development,” Collings shared.

Finally, keep up with your favorite publications on Twitter to see when they’re calling for pitches. When you do send something in, remember to personalize your note to them, and to be concise — editors often have a lot of submissions to go through.

Build your portfolio

Once you have a decent idea of what you really like and are good at, then you can home in on it. It’s important to keep writing on a variety of topics — but it’s also crucial to write regularly in the field that interests you, according to Stacy Ennis. “One of the best ways to be seen as an authority in an industry is to be the most consistent person talking about it.”

As your writing portfolio grows, Collings advises you to “create a website and professional email address. Order business cards. Start professional social media accounts. Update your LinkedIn profile with the title ‘ghostwriter.’ Begin calling yourself a ghostwriter when you meet people. Basically, treat it like a business and be prepared when it comes time to offer your services.” And with plenty of solid freelance work under your belt, you should be well-prepared for this next step.

What is Ghostwriting?

1. Interview the person you’re ghostwriting for.

The most important part of ghostwriting is understanding the material that you’re writing about. As a ghostwriter, you probably write about a variety of topics from industry blogs to memoirs. Before you dive into each piece, it’s essential to talk to the person you’re ghostwriting for and discuss the topic in depth.

Pam Bump, the Audience Growth Manager on the HubSpot blog team, says, “If you can, interview the person you’re ghostwriting for over the phone or on a video call. This will not only allow you to take down all the key details they want to cover in the content, but you’ll also learn more about how they speak or present tips. This can help you write content that naturally reads as if it was written by them.”

2. Make sure you understand the voice of the person you’re writing for.

Jumping off that last point, interviewing the person you’re ghostwriting for will help you get a sense of their voice. We’ll dive into when to use your voice or the client’s voice below, but each piece you write should have a distinct style and tone.

Bump adds, “If you can’t interview them to get a sense of how they talk or present their thoughts, you can alternatively read some of their other blog posts, social media posts, or published works to get a sense of how they write.”

3. Find the themes.

Karla Cook, HubSpot’s Senior Manager of the blog team, says, “It’s important to meet with the person you’re ghostwriting for at the beginning of the project and have a conversation about what they want the written piece to cover. This is their chance to share their brilliant, unfiltered thoughts with you, and it’s your job as the ghostwriter to identify themes, strong phrases, and potential narratives for when you approach producing the piece later on. This is also an opportunity to get a feel for how your subject approaches communicating, and can help inform how you represent their voice.”

4. Be flexible.

Can You Make a Living as a Ghostwriting?

But, is ghostwriting illegal or ethical? No it is not illegal and it is considered ethical. The only exception is if you are paying someone to take a test for you or do your homework for you as a student. It would also be illegal if you forged your writing when it was someone else’s. With ghostwriting clients they pay for your ghostwritten work and assume it as their work. That is not forgery.

If you can get in the author circle, then you can ghostwrite for authors. This is very lucrative. But, if you just look at job boards and find any ghostwriting gig, you won’t grow your business or make this a go for very long.

What I’m trying to tell you is to really hone down on the type of client that seeks out ghostwriters. While I do mention that anyone hires ghostwriters, only pair yourself with the ones that are high-paying!

Sources:

https://blog.reedsy.com/freelancer/how-to-become-a-ghostwriter/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ghostwriting-tips
https://elnacain.com/blog/ghostwriter/