I’ve been talking about the benefits of long-form storytelling for a while. And lately, I’ve noticed a bunch of new examples crop up. “Gradually, and then suddenly,” as Hemingway once wrote. That’s long-form storytelling and longer content pieces. Right now. We marketers are always experimenting with new content formats and new vehicles. And lately, the […]
Writing
The Story of This Guy Who Grew Up in a Library Made Me Realize I Did, Too (Kind Of)
Ronald Clark’s father worked as a custodian of a New York Public Library branch in an era when library caretakers and their families lived on site. A few of these apartments are still around, although now there are no people living in them. Ronald’s dad kept the NYPL Washington Heights branch clean and tended the […]
The Oxford Comma and Why We Argue Over Grammar
This post is an expanded version of my biweekly newsletter content, which features a letter from me to you along with ideas worth sharing and a healthy dose of fun. Not on the list? You can subscribe right here. Nothing ignites fire in the gut of righteous grammar geeks more than the serial—aka Oxford—comma. Why […]
What I Learned from Keeping a Journal and Why I’m Relaunching My Newsletter
Recently my friend Ben Opsahl sent me a note. He had subscribed here in early 2017 expecting a regular newsletter, and then noticed that he didn’t hear from me much. He had four emails from me last year, he pointed out. Four? Yep: F–O–U–R. Because that’s how often I wrote here and how often I […]
I Should Hate This LinkedIn Post, but It’s Actually the Greatest
As an exacting writer and a proponent of a slow and strategic marketing, I should be having an aneurysm (Ann-eurysm?) over how a single, sweary, typo-infested LinkedIn post slopped together in 20 minutes sparked a flurry of online engagement and $90K in sales. But I’m not. Because from a marketing and writing point of view, […]
Dear Name Redacted: Why Typos Happen, Dammit [Questions from Readers]
This is an occasional series based on actual emails I receive, and my actual responses. Everybody Writes is just shy of its second birthday. Since its birth, I’ve heard frequently from readers who have highlighted the same few typos in the text. (Sometimes nicely. Sometimes less so.) The “few typos” sounds dismissive. But the truth […]
Calling BS on Facebook’s Edict That Writing Is Dead
Facebook is predicting the end of the written word on its platform. And perhaps suggesting that words more broadly are doomed. “The best way to tell stories in this world, where so much information is coming at us, actually is video,” said Nicola Mendelsohn, who leads Facebook’s operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. […]
Content Marketing Grows Up: My 2016 Prediction
Content Marketing wakes up one morning in a place it doesn’t recognize, and tries to piece together what happened last night… and all the previous nights, too. (Because, if it’s being honest, last night wasn’t an occasional bender—it had become a lifestyle.) It takes a hard look at itself and wonders with a measure of […]
5 Keys to Developing a Strong Tone of Voice in Your Content Marketing
One of the biggest branding mistakes that companies can make is to not pay enough attention to their tone of voice. “Voice” sounds high-minded, doesn’t it? More suited for the literary world rather than the business world? But tone of voice just refers to how you sound in your writing. In marketing, your tone of […]