social media | How To Write Better

Blogging: the evergreen business favourite – on your own site

July 17, 2018 By Suzan St Maur Leave a Comment

When you think that the first ever blog post was written nearly 25 years ago, it makes you wonder why this genre of communication hasn’t been killed and cremated along with many other online comms notions that have bitten the dust since those early years. Why not?

Do we still need to bang the drum about blogging on your own website or blogsite?

Well, you know how I love to bang the drum about blogging and how it’s the best way since sliced bread for you to get both traffic and SEO brownie points for your website…could be that’s why blogging is still going strong. Here’s how to make sure it stays strong for you… [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging, Business writing, Latest, local business, small business, Social Media Tagged With: blogging, blogging for business, business blogging, social media

How to use abstracts to introduce your blogs in social media

July 3, 2018 By Suzan St Maur Leave a Comment

Assuming you don’t post full-length articles directly on to social media (and that’s not normally a good idea unless they’ve been published on your website first) how do you let your readers know when you’ve just posted something new?And more to the point, how do you entice readers to click through and read your full article on your website/blog?

Introduce your blog posts on social media using abstracts

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Blogging, Business writing, Latest, Social Media, Writing tips Tagged With: abstracts, blog posts, blogging, social media, Writing

Advertising vs info on social media – the trolls rage on

January 17, 2017 By Suzan St Maur Leave a Comment

If you have a local business group on one of the main social media platforms, you know you’re going to get people advertising their businesses no matter how you try to stop them.

Advertising or content on social media on HTWB

I would have told this troll precisely where to shove his business video.

It doesn’t matter how explicit you are in your “rules” section; the only way to stop the ads is to kick the advertisers out, or at least delete their blatant advertising posts until they get the message.

But not always…

Explaining the difference between advertising and social media content

How to tweet on Twitter without strangling the birdie

January 4, 2017 By Suzan St Maur 45 Comments

Twitter,tweets,micro blogging,blogs,writing,Suzan St Maur,online marketing,social media

What are your favorite terrible tweets?

Anyone who spends time on Twitter will gradually see a pattern of different tweet styles emerging, not all of which contribute much to the greater good. Having only been a keen Twitterer for a year or two I can’t claim to be an expert, but speaking as a professional writer I cringe at the time and energy that’s wasted on what I think are bad or inappropriate tweets.

Of course, everyone has their own view of what constitutes good tweeting. Already large sums of money have been spent generating analyses that tell you your tweets should consist of XX percent personal and YY percent business content, they should go out at intervals of no more or less than ZZ minutes, they should contain no more than XX @ symbols and YY hashtags, and so-on. Who would have thought so much science could be found in a mere 140 characters, huh. And not surprisingly, few people seem to take any notice of it.

Before I launch into my attack on what I think are bad tweets, it’s only fair that I should reveal how I put my own together. And please feel free to critique this! They fall into one of these brackets:

Observations, articles, news stories etc. that interest me and/or make me laugh
Conversational posts with people I know, but out of courtesy to them and other readers I try to include a précis of the original topic, or respond via a retweet
Retweets of friends’ and followers’ posts when I feel they’re worth sharing
Posts about HowToWriteBetter.net and one or two of my own recent books

I try to create a good balance of all four. In every case my main criterion is to write something everyone can understand, either in the style of a newspaper headline, or as a short but self-contained thought. Here, now, are some of the stereotype tweets that irritate me. Do they irritate you?

THE ENGLISH EXPERT: You need free artikles for the webbsite and we got some you want so clicks here go for free stuff you enjoy read. (If you can understand what this is all about, that is.)

THE STRONG, SILENT TYPE: http://xxxxxxx.yyy (That’s it – no text. You are commanded to click on the link and I don’t need to tell you why. Now just f***ing well do it.) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business writing, How to Write, Latest, Writing discussion Tagged With: blogging, Business, online marketing, social media, tweet, Twitter, Writing

Social media: why you should advise, not adVERTise

October 18, 2016 By Suzan St Maur Leave a Comment

Have you ever been guilty of confusing social media with free advertising? This guy did…here’s what he posted in the discussion thread of a locality group on one of the very large social media platforms…

Social media: why you should ADVISE, not ADVERTISE

Tips on car maintenance, or very short case studies, work well on social media.

Hi there everybody. I just wanted to quickly advertise my business. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Agony Columns, Business writing, How to Write, Latest, Social Media Tagged With: advertising on social media, social media, writing for social media

When a city has been torn apart, what writing expresses feelings best?

March 23, 2016 By Suzan St Maur 2 Comments

How do you write from the heart about a calamity – the Brussels Attacks – that has just stunned you into shock and silence?
Yesterday’s tragedy in Brussels, Belgium – coming just over 4 months after the even more hideous atrocities 200 miles away in Paris – has resulted in a deluge of words written by journalists and their editors, mostly capitalising on the shock-horror elements that sell newspapers and please online advertisers.