content writing

Why We Need Smaller Stories in Content Marketing

 Image source: Gratisography I talk a lot about thinking BIGGER in your marketing: sharing a bigger story to put your company in the larger context of what people care about. But today, I’m focusing not on big… but on small. I’m focusing on the need to tell the smallest story possible. Small stories are specific. Small stories are human-scale. Ira Glass, host of This American Life, spoke at Columbia University about the need to tell important stories—about refugees and climate change, to name but two—even if most of us are sick and tired of hearing about them. We’re sick of them, Ira told the Columbia Journalism School graduating class of 2018, because such stories have “the two key ingredients of any story you don’t want to hear anything else about: (1) it’s depressing and… (2) YOU ALREADY KNOW THE STORY.” Refugees: 60 million displaced people. The largest refugee crisis since […]

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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 is that? Maybe you heard about the Maine dairy-truck drivers’ recent legal victory that hinged on a comma—actually, the lack of a comma. The truck drivers won an appeal against their employer, Oakhurst Dairy, regarding overtime pay. Last week Oakhurst settled the case and paid up. What’s a serial/Oxford comma? It’s the final comma in a list of things in a sentence. As in: Marketers love clever creative, remarkable ROI, and respect. The Oxford comma is that comma after “ROI.” Here’s a well-known explanation of how the Oxford comma adds critical clarity:   One Morning

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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. “It conveys so much more information in a much quicker period. So actually the trend helps us to digest much more information.” In five years’ time, she added, Facebook “will be definitely mobile, it will be probably all video.” Stats show that the written word is becoming obsolete, replaced by hipper, accessible images and video. She did throw writers a bone: Words are disappearing—save for the fact “you’ll have to write for video.” Did you catch that? “have to.” Have. To. Our words are like the last triceratops wandering an increasingly balmy earth. In search

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9 Qualities of Good Writing

👉 👉 👉  New newsletter! Get a letter from me to you in your inbox, every two weeks! Sign up for free right here. There are two kinds of people: Those who think they can write, and those who think they can’t. And, very often, both are wrong. The truth is, most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We are all capable of producing good writing. Or, at least, better writing. Why does good writing matter? Isn’t the best content marketing very often something short, snappy, and non-text? Like Skype’s Born Friends video, Lowe’s Vines, or Chipotle’s haunting video commentary? Sometimes, yes. But here I’m not just talking about content in a marketing context. I’m talking about content, period. Text is the backbone of the Web, and it’s often the backbone of any content you watch or listen to, as well. That Born Friends video started with a story

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