Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that Facebook’s algorithm will prioritize conversational posts by friends and family in the News Feed over posts from business pages was received as doomsday news by most social media marketers.

As a story-driven content marketing strategist, I couldn’t be more excited.

Why? Because if the Zuck sticks to what he says he’s going to do, this has the potential to spark a long-awaited shift in the world of content marketing. Instead of focusing on what makes content popular and attention-grabbing, we need to focus on what makes content personal and conversation-worthy.

When content impacts people on a personal level and gets them talking, well, that’s how change happens.

“The research shows that when we use social media to connect with people we care about, it can be good for our well-being,” Zuckerberg said in his Facebook post.“We can feel more connected and less lonely, and that correlates with long term measures of happiness and health. On the other hand, passively reading articles or watching videos — even if they’re entertaining or informative — may not be as good.

Based on this, we’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

A Facebook Live video from Social Media Examiner related the news as though an entire industry is being brought to its knees — which is true. Every shortcut and manipulative tactic sold by social media gurus as ways to grow followers is now being penalized by the very platform that taught them these tricks.

As a copywriter and content marketer who works with social enterprise startups, I see the change in Facebook’s priority from growing reach to sparking authentic, meaningful engagement as a step in the right direction.

RIP, Dopamine Economy

Medium author, umair haque wrote a prescient and thought-provoking essay on the state of digital marketing, “The Dopamine Economy.” His view was that ad-driven social platforms like Facebook were built off of infantilizing their users to a point where we have become “algorithm addicts” who are rewarded with a rush of dopamine with every like or share and passive consumption of content.

The current social media marketing economy is based off of achieving meaningless vanity metrics like follower count, reach, and pseudo-engagement factors like clicks, likes and shares.

The key performance indicators of social media campaigns rely on on numeric growth over genuine engagement and customer satisfaction. And thanks to the tech culture’s dogged loyalty to growth at all costs, real hackers have learned how to game the system. That’s how we’ve gotten to the point where a political campaign and a government-sponsored disinformation program can pay bot farms to “click” or “share” or “comment” on a post, change the landscape of someone’s newsfeed, and influence their vote.

Introducing The Oxytocin Economy

My view has always been that the best way to overcome fake follows, shares and comments is to humanize marketing goals and to focus on impact, connection and sustainability over rapid growth.

Here’s what I had to say in response to Haque’s essay on the Dopamine Economy:

“The answer is an Oxytocin Economy.

Oxytocin is the compassion and connection hormone. It’s the brain juice that keeps us bonded and cooperating as social animals.

It’s released every time we look into one another’s eyes. It’s released when we read stories and feel empathy for the suffering and triumph of the characters we’re journeying with. It’s released when we touch, when we see one another smile, when we hear one another laugh.

An Oxytocin Economy isn’t just about expressing ourselves. An Oxytocin Economy is about having a two-way conversation. It’s about listening — taking one another in and sharing of ourselves in a way that others can relate to. It’s about building trust, not manipulating envy or fear or outrage.

It’s about storytelling, but more importantly it’s about storymaking. It’s not about having an audience, it’s about having a conversation.”

Based on what Zuckerberg has to say about the future of Facebook, it looks like I may have something here.

If you agree, let’s take a moment to bow our heads for the death of the Dopamine Economy and take a look at what we as content publishers and social impact brands can do to help spearhead the emergence of an Oxytocin Economy.

How To Usher In The Age Of Empathy

For one, we need to slow down.

An Oxytocin Economy rewards sustainable business models that acknowledge and honor the interconnected nature of commerce, the environment, and social stability.

What does that look like in content marketing? It means focusing less on business models that rely on publishing massive (unsustainable) amounts of one-way blog posts and focusing more on creating and engaging with communities — and standing back and letting those communities evolve into mini-ecosystems built on conversation.

A recent article by kirsten oliphant in Hackernoon observes that when you build a community, it can take on a life of its own, and you can’t force life.

“A few months ago, a big influencer announced that she would be closing her Facebook group. I was fascinated by the response. Many of the members insisted that the group was no longer HERS. (And to be fair, the influencer rarely showed up there.) These members insisted that THEY had built the community. It was THEIRS.

She closed the group anyway.

Because, after all, it literally was her group. And yet…there is something to this idea that a community takes on its own life apart from its maker.

The influencer may have started the group and set it into place, but community and communication had its own life without her. Relationships formed in her ecosystem that had nothing to do with her…except that they occurred inside of her space.”

We as social impact brands have an opportunity to create member-focused Facebook groups in which we foster environments that provoke discussion and allow movements to grow organically and take on lives of their own.

When we bring people together and then place our trust and confidence in the ability of people to organize and innovate around shared passions and rise up together, we are rewarded in the long term.

We need to simplify.

Doing less creates more trust, trust creates stronger relationships, and stronger relationships create a better ability to overcome setbacks. An Oxytocin Economy, above all else, rewards trustworthiness. Instead of creating elaborate webs of manipulative, attention-getting triggers, businesses can focus their energy on reaching out to their customers on a personal level.

Simplification on Facebook means less promotional sales funnels and more opportunities authentic storytelling through Facebook Live and your personal feed.

It means actually reading or viewing content and considering why it’s meaningful to you or relevant to your community before clicking “share.”

It means focusing less on how many people see your post and focusing speaking to the one person your post is meant for.

It means less focus on influencers based on their follower count and more focus on influencers based on their follower engagement.

It means, as Oprah Winfrey so eloquently said at the Golden Globes, “speaking our truth.”

We need to reward integrity instead of popularity.

In the dopamine economy, as users we get treats for clicking buttons that serve algorithms programmed to provide a larger reach to content.

In the oxytocin economy, we can reward participation in thoughtful conversations.

One way to reward our users is through direct, personalized, one-on-one experiences rather than mass calls to action. Some social enterprises like Charity: Water are already using Facebook Messenger as a means to deliver the stories of people whose lives are impacted by the water crisis.

By sending a message to jewelry brand Lokai, you can experience an interactive story via conversation with “Yeshi”, a chatbot. The story is delivered as a text conversation over the course of 2.5 hours as you go about your day and Yeshi embarks on a miles-long trek to collect clean water for her family.

We need to value interaction over attention.

Our social networks now consist of never-ending newsfeeds of random articles and memes for our eternal consumption, designed to trigger our attention, fear and outrage. We’re rewarded and valued for the size of our networks and ability to get the most attention.

Instead of focusing on expanding our networks, the Oxytocin Economy focuses on deepening the relationships we make, and only when we’ve reached a level of true understanding and cooperation can we grow our network.

According to Social Media Examiner, we can expect Facebook’s new algorithm to prioritize posts from our friends and family that don’t just have comments, but have conversations within the comment section. Which means we, as content creators will need to be sure that we’re there, ready to reply to comments and keep conversations going.

It also means, more than anything, we’ll need to focus on fostering brand advocates and evangelists within our customer and follower base who will talk about our content because they share our passion and values.

We need to embrace the values of empathy, humility and responsibility

While the Consumer Economy was very much a paternal framework about obtaining material goods and protecting oneself from deprivation, and the Dopamine Economy transforms us into an infantile state of mind, focused solely on pleasure gratification and external approval, the Oxytocin Economy transforms us into a maternal state of mind, focused on the well-being of each other and our environment.

In order for our brands to adapt to the new Facebook landscape, we’ll need to do a LOT of listening.

We’ll need to create deep, empathetic customer personas based on an understanding of peoples’ struggles.

We’ll need to consider the impact our marketing content and products will have in the lives and communities of our customers.

We’ll need to see our social media followers as partners in our shared journey toward creating a better world— partners from whom we seek to learn so wecan be better.

This is a game-changing moment for many of us in the marketing world. This is a moment that will separate the innovators and entrepreneurs and changemakers from the herd of Facebook formula followers.

How do you plan on responding to this new opportunity?

That’s how it feels as I look at the crowdfunding strategy for Inflection Point: what did we get ourselves into? In fact, I think that’s exactly what Lauren Schiller, the creator and host of Inflection Point, said right after my strategy presentation.

At this point in a crowdfunding campaign it’s normal to feel overwhelmed by all the work to be done. It’s perfectly understandable to feel doubtful that you can accomplish it all by yourself.

But with the right strategy, do you know what you won’t feel?

Lost.

A crowdfunding strategy is a roadmap. It gives you a step-by-step plan of action, guiding you ever closer to your ultimate destination: a successfully funded campaign that will propel you toward bringing your creation into the world.

And like a roadmap, if you omit important details from your crowdfunding strategy, there’s a very good chance you’ll end up making a wrong turn.

That’s why, before you begin creating a crowdfunding strategy — or any kind of campaign launch — you need to address some fundamental questions. Once you provide the answers, you’ll have a clear — and slightly intimidating — picture of everything you’ll need to accomplish to launch a successful campaign.

1. WHY?

As marketing and leadership expert Simon Sinek famously said,“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”

Identifying your “whys” centers your focus on your mission, your values and what you want to change about the world or your industry.

It gives you the pillar around which you can make important decisions about who you want to reach, how you’ll communicate your ideas and what you will be investing your time and money in.

For example, the team behind The Inflection Point podcast believes that the more stories the world hears about women changing the status quo, the more women rise up.” Why? “because when women rise up, we all rise up together.” Our values of storytelling, empowerment, inclusion, community, and compassion will be reflected in everything we do from the way we interact with our listeners to what rewards we’ll offer our backers.

But your why doesn’t stop at your reasons for creating your project. Your why also helps you focus on the reason you’re crowdfunding and what you’ll accomplish with the funds once you’ve reached your goal.

Here are the crowdfunding “whys” to answer:

• Why are we the people to bring our project into the world?
• Why are we seeking to change/improve the conventional way of doing things?

• Why are you doing a crowdfunding campaign instead of…(fill in the blank: pitching a VC, applying for a business loan, asking for money from your parents, etc)?”
• Why do we need the funds?

Answering these questions will not only help you come up with a funding goal, it will also help you to communicate to your potential backers how much you’ve accomplished thus far and what their funds will help you to do.

2. WHAT?

Once you’ve established the reason for your project and the values you’ll bring to it, it’s time to focus on the concrete things you’ll do to make it happen.

“What” is a question that demands details. If “why” is about your story and your goals, “what” brings them into realistic, actionable terms. It demands that you make decisions and set measurable goals.

When Lauren and I were determining our what’s for Inflection Point, the whole nature of the project shifted from “good idea” to “thing we’re really going to make happen.” We needed to evaluate exactly what resources we had at our disposal (tens of thousands of monthly listeners, PRX as a presenting organization, over one hundred previous guests who are in leadership/influential roles…) and what resources we didn’t have yet (tens of thousands of operational dollars, a large team, content beyond the podcast, a highly engaged email list…) .

Here are the crowdfunding “what’s” to answer:

• What platform will we be using?
• What are the pros and cons of Kickstarter & Indiegogo?
• What are some other crowdfunding platforms out there?
• What is our funding goal?
• What will our estimated expenses be to launch this campaign?
• What amount of money will help us bring our project to life?

• What assets do we already have to work with?
• What existing content do we have that we can repurpose for our crowdfunding campaign?
• What talents/skills/resources/tools do we have?
• What communities are we already involved with?
• What financial assets do we have for hiring help or investing in marketing?
• What assets are we lacking?

3. WHO?

Now that you know your job to be done, it’s time to discover who will be the best people to help you accomplish it. By focusing on the people involved — and acknowledging the humanity of the people you’re connecting with — you can bring a sense of responsibility, empathy and respect to your messaging.

Before I joined the Inflection Point team, Lauren had a vague idea of who her listeners were. She knew that she got great reviews in iTunes and a few podcasting blogs, but she really didn’t know who the people were behind the reviews. I convinced her to work with PRX to create a listener survey to gain more insights into the worlds of her listeners. Not only did the information we got back help us better position and target the crowdfunding campaign, but it also helped us focus on what mattered to her listeners so we could plan an exciting new season and offer a new Facebook group.

So here are some “who” questions to consider:

• Who’s on our team?
• Who will be the project manager?
• Who will be the strategist?
• Who will write the sales copy and video script?
• Who will design our campaign page and any other visual assets?
• Who will be our videographer?
• Who will photograph our products?
• Who will implement our email sequences and analytics?

• Who is our ideal customer/backer/audience?
• Note: Discovering your ideal customer is a process unto itself. If you want some pointers on how to create a customer profile/buyer persona that will pinpoint your perfect customer, check out this post and download the profile worksheet.

• Who can help us spread the word?

This is where you take stock of your current network, identify the big influencers in the lives of your ideal customers, and consider the communities you can engage.

4. WHERE?

Okay: you’ve figured out who to connect with. Now you need to find them in their favorite places to hang out.

• Where does our ideal customer go?
• here do they go on social media?
• Where do they seek information/recommendations about our product/service?
• Where do they talk with others about using our product/service?

ere’s where you can analyze the best social media platforms to connect with your potential backers and come up with a plan for delivering meaningful content.

5. HOW?

We’ve established the backstory of your crowdfunding campaign. It’s time to talk about the action items you’ll need to accomplish to achieve your goal.

• How will we communicate with our potential backers?

Think about how you will build your email list and get influencers onboard with helping you.

This is also where you plan your email campaigns: how often will you send out emails before, during and after the crowdfunding campaign?

• How will we reward our backers?

Sending your physical product is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of making your backers feel appreciated. You want to offer rewards that are meaningful and exciting to your target backers.

• How much will this campaign cost?

I know, the whole point of crowdfunding is a free way for folks without money to ask interested parties to invest money, right? Well…not quite. The most successful crowdfunding campaigns had at least a *little* skin in the game in terms of marketing budget — or at the very least a bunch of super-dedicated volunteers willing to donate their time to putting it all together. If you have big ambitions for raising money, you need to determine actual costs.

• How will we handle our workflow?

Every project needs a process. How are you going to delegate responsibilities, track progress, stay on task, and communicate with your team?

6. WHEN?

There’s no arguing with a calendar: you’re either working toward your goal or you aren’t. Giving yourself a deadline and a timeline makes everything a little more *real*.

• When will we start our list-building phase?
• When will we start putting together our campaign content?
• When will we launch our campaign?
• When will the campaign end?
• When will we start shipping rewards?

I recommend my clients begin campaign planning and list-building at least 90 days before their launch. That way they have time to guide potential backers through the stages of awareness.

Crowdfunding, like mountain climbing or house-building or community organizing or any project worth doing, is not an easy undertaking, but it can be a tremendous boost to the growth of your business — especially if you’re a business with a mission to give back to the world.

The beauty of going through these questions before you begin your crowdfunding campaign? Once you provide the answers, not will you have a fundraising strategy, you’ll also have some answers to fundamental questions that will provide clarity to your entire business journey.

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]]>Building Your Crowdfunding Strategy: A Crap-Ton of Questions To Ask Before You CrowdfundMarketingInspirationWritingAlaura WeaverWed, 14 Sep 2016 11:22:00 +0000https://www.wordweaverfreelance.com/blog/how-to-use-pain-for-blogging-inspiration5571e7dde4b00447c3c2ba1c:55721f66e4b0ce968a7913b9:57d88a442e69cff710a7bfb1The blank white document with the flashing cursor: it can be an intimidating wall of nothingness staring down at you as you struggle to come up with something brilliant to write about.

“Have you got what it takes, punk?” Your empty page hisses at you. “You, me, and a fantastic content idea that knocks your audience’s socks off. Let’s do this.”

But you’ve got nothing.  Your inspiration bank is overdrawn.

You’ve searched for keywords related to your field to see what other folks are writing about, but it all blurs together in a yawning abyss of listicles, how-tos, and “you’ll never guess” clickbait fluff.

How are you going to stand out?

More importantly, how are you going to deliver meaningful content that your target user will instantly connect to and share with others?

Easy:

• spy on your users

• discover their pain

• steal their words

Instant blogging gold.

Sound shady?

Fear not: I’m going to give you some of the most legitimate, compassionate tools you can use in your content innovation workshop.  When you implement some of the ideas I’m about to share with you, you’ll have a consistently replenished source of content inspiration.

Plus, the content you create will hit your user right where you want it to: where they hurt-- so you can help.

Read on to discover how to use your target user’s pain to create content that inspires them to action.

The Infinite Value of Pain

First of all, let’s talk about what I mean by “pain.”

Our lives are full of struggle. It's part of being alive.

Pain is the physical and emotional byproduct of struggle.

We experience pain in our bodies: the pain of illness or injury.

We experience pain in our minds: the pain of having a physical or emotional barrier to overcome.

Pain keeps us alert: it prevents us from causing further damage to ourselves by seeking help or healing.

When we can’t get help or can’t find healing, the pain of our struggle turns into suffering.

The cause of your pain may be as insignificant as the inability to open a pickle jar.

Or it could be as monumental as the heartbreak of miscarriage.

As producers of content, it's our job to:

• Identify the reasons for our target prospect’s pain

• Understand how their pain manifests: do they feel fearful? Alone? Enraged? Bored?

• Offer content that will provide them help or healing from that pain.

“Why,” you may ask “would I ever want to exploit my user’s pain for my own benefit?”

Because it's not exploitation if you're offering empathy.

The point of content inspired by pain is to offer help with your target user’s struggle and end their suffering, not add to it.

Exploiting Pain vs. Empathizing With Pain

Let me give you an example of content that exploits pain.

Warning: if you’re squeamish over the acknowledgement of the existence of female genitalia, you may want to skip this bit. (Also: feminism, you guys. It’s 2016. Catch up.)

This is a vintage ad that's often shared as an advertising novelty. We raise our eyebrows, shake our heads and chuckle: Lysol? As a douche? Oh, those misguided, old-timey folks…

But let's take a closer look. Not through a 2016 lens, but from the point of view of this ad’s target user.

Let's say you're a woman who whose financial and social well-being depends on your husband’s marital happiness. You live in a world where domestic satisfaction-- in the kitchen, living room, and bedroom, is placed squarely on the shoulders of the wife. You do everything to fit the 1950’s image of the perfect housewife.

But your husband won't touch you. He rarely shows you affection and the few times you've been physically intimate he's expressed a lack of desire.

In this ad, Lysol identifies this woman’s pain quite insightfully: she feels shut out from her husband.

Being physically put off by one’s partner due to hygiene issues can be a perfectly relatable problem. I don’t know about you, but if my husband tries to kiss me in the morning before he brushes his teeth, he’s presented with a cheek. Ain’t no way I’m smooching that stank morning mouth.

No, the problem isn’t in the positioning of the pain.  It’s in Lysol’s complete lack of empathy.

Here’s where their content moves into exploitation:

LYSOL AGITATES THEIR CUSTOMER’S WORST FEAR BY BLAMING HER FOR RUINING HER OWN MARRIAGE.

Do they recommend having a heart-to-heart with her husband about the reasons for his distance?

Do they offer empathy or say “you've done nothing wrong”?

No: Lysol points the finger and says “Your marriage is falling apart and it's your fault for not taking care of yourself.”

Harsh.

Talk about kicking a girl while she’s down.

Let’s analyze this abhorrent ad and see what we can do to make it a little less of a dick move on Lysol’s part.

The first thing you need to understand is that the ad follows a classic copywriting formula called “Problem-Agitation-Solution” (PAS).

The PAS formula is one of the easiest, most flexible ways to:

• Present your understanding of a customer’s PROBLEM,

• Further explore the emotional implications of the problem ( aka AGITATION), and then

• Present a SOLUTION (usually your product or offer or-- in the case of blogging, your content).

So here’s how the Lysol Douche(bag) Ad shakes out:

Problem: Dave is shutting you out and you don't know why.

Agitation: You’ve failed to realize that “one intimate neglect” has shut you out of “married love.”  (2016 translation: Dave’s physically repulsed by you and your unhygienic female parts.) Don’t you dare blame your husband--you need to look in the mirror. You’re not trying hard enough to “safeguard your dainty feminine allure.”

Solution: Lysol douche will protect your marriage and keep you desireable for your husband.

Now: I'm going to pretend the execs at Lysol, in a rare moment of compassion, hired me to rewrite this ad.

They still want to sell the same product (douche) to the same target buyer (a 1950’s housewife), so  despite my postmodern feminist take on the whole scenario, I'm not going to solve the problem of overall systemic sexism in this ad.

But I am going to remove a bit of the blatant misogyny and replace the exploitative aspects with a little bit of empathy.

And I'm going to do it using the same PAS formula:

Problem: Your husband is shutting you out and you don't know why.

Agitation: You must be feeling so alone right now, and fearful that there's something you've done-- or haven't done to cause his distance. But we want you to know that you aren't alone: almost every marriage goes through a rough patch. And you shouldn't have to bear the burden of his happiness by yourself: marriage is a partnership.  

Solution: Talk to your husband.

...And if you need us, Lysol’s here to help. Sign up to receive discounts on our products and practical advice on how to help your household clean up its act.

I'm still positioning Lysol as a possible solution to a problem within the target user’s marriage-- but not the only one. I'm still implying that the husband’s distance may be due to his reluctance to address a lack of feminine hygiene--but the fundamental problem is a lack of communication. Instead of blaming the buyer, I'm showing that I'm on her side and that I’m here to help.

What? I’m not positioning the product as the superhero, here to rescue the helpless damsel from her problems?

Nope. Because my goal isn’t just to sell a product, it’s to build trust between the brand and the customer. Empathy = more trust = more sales.

Dove & The Exquisite Beauty of Pain

For the past decade, skin care brand has been running the Campaign for Real Beauty: a brilliant series of ads that turn the beauty advertising industry on its head.

Instead of sending the traditional beauty product message “if you want to be beautiful, use our products”, Dove tells its target user “You’re unique and beautiful and you deserve to take care of yourself. Use our products.”

But you know what? Dove’s most acclaimed content rarely promotes Dove products.

They feature women and girls having heartfelt conversations about their perceptions of their own beauty, and accepting their beauty despite the onslaught of pressure for perfection placed upon them by society.

Nice message, but does it get women to buy Dove products?

You bet it does: sales have jumped from $2.5 billion in the first year to $4 billion as of 2014. AND it helped bring issues of body image and perceptions of beauty into the mainstream.

Some critics have pointed out that Unilever, the owner of the Dove brand, has been hypocritical in its Real Beauty Campaign. Axe fragrance is also owned by Unilever, and the men’s body spray famously promises the unbridled lust of random bikini-clad women to sell its products.

But then Axe came out with this:

That’s right: Axe put out a Real Beauty ad for dudes.

The message:

Men are faced with a media onslaught of “ideal” masculinity. You don’t need anything beyond yourself to be awesome. Use our product to help bring out the awesomeness within you.

Exploitation adds to someone’s suffering.

Empathy takes away their suffering by letting them know they aren't alone in their struggle.

If Exploitation of Pain Isn’t a Wise Choice, Why Do So Many Advertisers Use It?

Look: as we’ve learned from the clickbait that clings like barnacles to every news site we visit, exploitation can be effective in getting the quick click or sale. These companies are more interested in manipulating their customers into BUYING NOW over maintaining a growing relationship with them.

Imagine the outcome of the original Lysol ad: “GAH! THAT’s why Dave doesn’t want to sleep with me anymore??? Oh, I’m so embarrassed! I’m running out and getting a bottle of Lysol right now!”

But what happens if after undergoing what must be a very uncomfortable experience for her girl parts, Mrs. Dave still can’t get any lovin’ from her hubby?

“I feel duped. And used. And my lady parts hurt. Lysol is a terrible company.”

Now imagine the outcome of the re-written ad: In my empathy-fueled scenario, there are a variety of possible outcomes, but all of them lead to ongoing brand interaction.

“Huh. I really should talk to Dave about his being so distant.”

And after she follows the ad’s advice:

“Wow. I’m so glad we had that heart-to-heart. I feel closer than ever to Dave. I’m signing up for more advice from Lysol. What a great company.”

OR

“Dave’s an emotionally unavailable jerk. At least I know that now. After I drink this old-fashioned, smoke this cigarette, and call a divorce lawyer, I’m signing up for more advice from Lysol. What a great company.”

OR

“Whoa. I’m soooo glad I talked to Dave. I never knew he was such a clean-freak. I feel a little embarrassed, but it’s better than having him shun me. I’ll run out to the store and grab some of that Lysol stuff.”

OR

“Dave’s gay. In 1950’s suburban America. Our marriage has a much bigger issue than a lack of feminine hygiene. Thanks, Lysol for helping me to make this discovery and stop blaming myself.”

And then a few weeks later:

“Oh look! There’s a coupon for a Lysol product. *CLIP*”

Cha-ching.

Quick sale? Not really.

Loyal customer?

Absolutely.

So are we clear now? If you express empathy for your customer’s physical or emotional pain, you’ll earn their long-term trust.

Which brings me to the next question: do you understand your customer’s pain?

Like, reeeeally understand it?

If you’ve done your homework and have created a user persona and started to interact with your user’s digital tribes, you should have a pretty good feel for the problems that plague your target customer.

If you haven't done those things yet, I recommend you check out the  posts linked above so you're fully equipped with an understanding of your customer's needs, desires, and challenges, and the communities they turn to for support & help.

Now the challenge is to figure out which problems will make the best content.

The “Sneaky Copycat” Technique to Content Ideation

I have a confession to make: this part is so easy I feel a little guilty charging my clients for it.

Here’s what I do:

1. Read or listen to conversations

2. See which comments/questions have the most engagement

3. Create a blog post based on the topic.

That’s it.  Like I said: easy.

Here are my favorite places to discover ideas for content. I’m going to share an example screenshot, a topic idea for the blog post and then a content outline using the PAS solution:

Blog/Facebook comments

I know, I know “never read the comments,” right? Well, in the case of content creation you’re going to have to hold your nose and dive in. Occasionally you’ll come up with buried treasure.

Check out this Facebook comment for a Scary Mommy post:

“My hubs will do anything you ask of him, but seems incapable of looking around and seeing what needs to be done.”

That comment got 190 likes.

There are at least 191 women out there with the same problem.

Let’s assume you’re a relationship counselor with a blog targeted to married women. How can you turn this problem/pain into a blog post your audience will immediately connect with?

Blog post idea: “How to Get Your Husband to Help Around the House Without Having To Ask”

Opening sentence (Problem): “If your hubs is anything like mine, he’ll do anything you ask of him, but seems incapable of looking around and seeing what needs to be done.”

Yep: I totally stole that commenter’s words. Why? Because they’re powerful enough to get 190 heads nodding. If they were originally written as copyrighted material (i.e. blog, advert, or book), I‘d never directly copy the words-- there’s the whole plagiarism-plus-just-not-cool thing-- but using a commenter’s words in this context is totally kosher.

Agitation (Remember: offer empathy): We’ve all been there: you try to drop subtle hints, hoping he’ll get the message. Or you just let the problem get worse, waiting for him to catch on. *Why* can’t he *see* the laundry overflowing the hamper?

Solution (What this blog post will help you do): Here are 11 nag-free methods to helping your hubby become aware of everyday tasks he may be overlooking.

Discussion groups

Here's what's awesome about comments & discussion threads: you can immediately see which ones are getting the most people engaged. Take a look at this thread in a LinkedIn group for Search Engine Land:

“Am I missing anything? I know that a site not ranking can be loads of issues, but just want to better understand this URL issue, how to solve it, and why this URL was even generated in the first instance. It seems to be a site-wide issue as all the URL's have this unfriendly structure.”

Tom's thread has 12 comments while the rest of the recent threads in this group have none. Everyone commenting is an SEO expert with tips, so your blog post has already written itself. If you use links to these expert’s blogs and share your post with SEOers commenting on the the thread, you’ll have a bunch of shares since you’re using their advice.

Blog Post Idea: So Your Site Has Been Dropped from Google: What Are You Missing?

Problem: Can duplicate content be causing your entire site to disappear from the search results?

Agitation: You have a huge, content-rich website that has sunk to the bottom of the search rankings. When you investigate, you discover the culprit: a strange URL that’s been mysteriously generated--triggering the algorithm that penalizes large blocks of duplicate content. Where did this URL come from, and how can you make it go away so your website returns to its rightful place in the results?

Solution: They could be from query string parameters. Here’s what some SEO experts have to say about the dangers of session IDs, and what you can do to fix them.

• Online reviews

This method takes a little more thought and reading time, but can be a profound source of content inspiration.

Rather than go through every step , I’m going to refer you to Joanna Weibe of Copy Hackers. She wrote a super-practical post on how she mines reviews for copy--check it out.

Give the Amazon book reviews a good lookin' over and try to discover your own blog post ideas from the pains the reviewers express. 

Now take a look at what I came up with:

Blog Post Idea: Through the Darkness and Back: Real Women Share Their Experiences with PPD

Problem: You’re suffering from postpartum depression and none of the advice you’re getting seems to help.

Agitation: Getting advice from doctors and books just isn’t enough. We need to hear real stories so we know we aren’t alone. If there's one thing everyone with PPD needs to hear, it's that what you're going through isn't abnormal--and you WILL recover.

Solution: Here are some personal accounts from REAL PPD survivors, so you can see there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.

Quora

The key to using Quora as a content resource is to turn the most upvoted answers into questions. Part of the research for your post will already be done for you because most upvoted Quora answers have substantial evidence to back them up. Even if they don’t, you’ll have the ball rolling for a topic that’s proven to engage readers.

Blog Idea: Is Technology Developing Too Quickly for Political Systems to Adapt?

Problem: Will the pace of technology unravel the social contracts between government and its citizens?

Agitation: In the past the spread of misinformation was slowed by distance of geography and time-- giving citizens enough time to absorb and decipher between truth and propaganda. But today’s lightning fast connections mean the average voter is constantly bombarded with conspiracies, rumors, and deliberate misinformation created by political parties and their supporters.  What does this mean for the future of democracy?

Solution: We’ll examine what top futurists say.

• AMAs on Reddit/Product Hunt/Growth Hackers

First of all, a warning: you will get sucked into the Reddit lurking rabbit hole if you aren’t careful. But be prepared to discover some fantastic questions--and answers in the "Ask Me Anything" threads that you can transform into juicy blog posts.

For the uninitiated, an "Ask Me Anything" (or AMA) thread is when someone (often a well-known person within an industry, but not necessarily) invites the members of an online community to..well..ask them anything.

What results is a barrage of questions, and the AMA subject tries to answer (most of) them as thoughtfully as possible. 

AMAs are great material for list posts. In this scenario, I've used the AMA as a spring board for a topic and would do additional research 

Blog Post Idea: 14 Ways Love Is Different When You’re Older

Problem: Is love the same no matter your age or are there major differences?

Agitation: In 1995, Celeste was a 70-year-old widow who rekindled a romance with a high school sweetheart. She discovered that while love can be very intimate and invigorating, when you're older "a relationship is actually based on the relationship."

Solution: Let’s take a look at more ways that romance is different when it’s experienced in your golden years.

Well that should do it! By now you have more than enough sources of user pain to fill your Pit of Despair full of content inspiration. Go ahead and give them a try.

Love them? Hate them? Leave a comment to let me know which you found to be the most (or least) helpful for you!

That happened to me a few weeks ago.

I went to my first TEDx conference. As a self-described TED-head, I was downright giddy as I settled into my seat and awaited the first talk.

The lights dimmed, the crowd went quiet, and child welfare advocate Amelia Franck Meyer stepped onto the stage. She proceeded to give a from-the-heart talk on the deep psychic damage the US foster care system has caused children.

“From the moment they leave the womb, human infants have two survival needs: the need to be cared for and the need to be claimed. As a species, we yearn for belonging. We need our tribes,” she said.

Then she she told the story of a little girl who had no one to claim her.

The girl went from foster home to foster home. Her fear and grief became aggression against a series of foster parents who weren’t equipped to give her the sense of belonging she needed. Eventually she landed in a group home for emotionally disturbed individuals.

That’s when Franck Meyer’s group, Anu Family Services stepped in to help. They found over 25 people in the girl’s extended family who wanted nothing more than to claim her as their own.

She had found her tribe.

“You don’t have to help me anymore,” the little girl told Frank Meyer on her last day at the group home. “There are other kids like me who need you.”

As I sat in the audience, surrounded by fellow nerdy do-gooders with tears rolling down their cheeks as they listened to this story---people who desperately wanted to help their fellow human beings find the sense of belonging and empowerment that this little girl had discovered--- I realized I belonged.

I had found my tribe.

Okay, nice story. But what does this have to do with copywriting?

As a copywriter, it’s my job to get into the world of my target reader and adapt my words to the language of her tribe.

Because the best way to earn someone’s business is to earn their trust.

And the way to earn their trust is to let them know:

"You’re in the right place. You belong here. We understand exactly what you need and we claim you as our own.”

I’m going to tell you how I helped a copywriting client reach a very different tribe than the one he belonged to.

I’m also going to share my favorite content marketing strategy tools for finding and investigating digital tribes.

By the end of this post, you’ll have some essential tools for gaining clearer insights about your target audience’s collective dreams, fears, and challenges. Once you have those insights, you’ll have invaluable material for writing meaningful, relevant copy that inspires people to action.

Because ultimately, the purpose of story-based copywriting is to create connections between people based on empathy and compassion.

Like Amelia Franck Meyer says, we all want to be claimed.

Let’s take a closer look at what makes a tribe, and why we make them.

The Tribes We Make

​

Although many of us are blessed with families to claim us, as we can see from Amelia Franck Meyer’s TEDx Talk, some of us aren’t so lucky.

Even when we fit into our families, as we grow into adulthood, we yearn to find belonging outside our families of birth.

So we spend our lives searching for kindred spirits based on common interests and ideologies, or even shared struggles.

​

And when we find one another, we form tribes: communities that offer support and guidance as we seek our goals in life.

Thanks to modern technology, most of us can form tribes over vast distances through the swipe of a finger upon a screen.

Seth Godin calls the online communities we create our “digital tribes.” And he advises entrepreneurs to provide value and serve those tribes rather than exploit them:

“What the Internet has done is...we don't have to get on a plane anymore to meet strangers who like us.

...The Linux operating system, which is on a billion computers around the world, was written by a group of strangers who have never met, who are part of the same tribe. And so the challenge of our future is to say, are we going to connect and amplify positive tribes that want to make things better for all of us? Or are we going to degrade to warring tribes that are willing to bring other groups down just so they can get ahead?” (From On Being With Krista Tippett)

So as a socially conscious business owner, what can you do to serve the tribe of your target buyer AND the community you seek to empower?

It all starts with understanding them.

Tribal Marketing Is A Balancing Act

As digital marketers, we have the unique privilege of connecting with like-minded people and helping other people to connect. We exist within our own tribes and we help to form tribes through the content we create and the brands we build.

If you have a social impact business, you have the additional opportunity to build a tribe that collectively serves the greater good---but you also have the responsibility to comprehend the underlying needs of the tribes you seek to help.

Let me tell you a little story about a social enterprise with a great mission, but it needed some guidance on "getting" its target user tribe. 

Listening Is The Key to Understanding

When Shereef Bishay came to me for copy help, the Learners Guild website looked and sounded like a typical non-profit brochure. It had aspirational phrases like “offering opportunity to historically underserved communities” and “bridging the tech diversity gap.”

Which is great if the aim is to get people to donate money to their cause.

But Learners Guild didn’t need donations--they needed signups. They needed participants in their software developer training program.

If there’s one thing I learned as I immersed myself in the world of their target user , the last thing anyone from an “underserved community” wants is to be seen as a charity case.

And when people from communities that have been snubbed or ignored by the tech world see the word "diversity," it's met with understandable cynicism.

With people of color in less than 1 percent of c-level positions at Fortune 500 companies, "diversity" has become an empty marketing phrase geared to make members of privileged groups feel better about themselves.  

So I needed to get to the heart of what people of color DO want out of a software training program, and what was standing in their way.

That’s when I discovered WoCinTechChat: a community of women and non-binary people of color who sought inclusion in the tech world.

And through them, I discovered People of Color in Tech: a blog and podcast devoted to the issues facing minorities working in technology professions.

 WoCinTech and People of Color in Tech (POCIT) host weekly Twitter chats, which offered the perfect opportunity for me to learn more about the needs and challenges facing women of color in tech careers.

The conversations in #WoCinTechChat led me to a Twitter list of participants. Soon my Twitter feed was flooded with a wealth of content about issues concerning people of color as they sought a place in the tech world.

Mining for Copy Gold

One of the top issues PoC  wanted out of training was a direct route from school into a well-paid job. Most people of color--especially women--lack the crucial career connections that lead to full-stack engineering jobs in Silicon Valley. 

The other big issue is the disproportionate student loan burden born by people of color.

So I knew I had to reassure a visitor to the Learners Guild landing page that we had a solution to their biggest problems. 

Here's what I came up with:

“Go From Beginner to Full-Stack Developer in 10 Months--Debt Free, Risk Free, Worry Free.”

The headline & subheader are designed to make clicking the "request application" button as frictionless as possible. 

And while the copy doesn't specifically indicate that Learners Guild actively recruits people of color, women, and LGBTQ people, the gorgeous stock photography sourced from WoCinTechChat sends the message loud, proud, and clear.

The sliders just below the founder's message address some of the biggest hurdles PoC in tech have to overcome: a lack of important career connections, a desire to be mentored and to become mentors, and a general disconnect from the larger tech community. 

Notice that instead of saying "come learn FROM us," I chose "come learn WITH us."

I want to let participants know they will be contributing members of a learning community of peers and experts--instead of outsiders fighting to break into a closed network.

After the Facebook Ad leading to the landing page came out, the most common comment was "is this for real?" People were so amazed by Learners Guild's unique selling proposition (debt-free education), they thought it was too good to be true.

I added the last slide to reassure readers that it is, in fact, the real deal.

The final call to action uses a copywriting technique called "future pacing." It makes the reader imagine herself in the situation being described. And the scenario I've described is EXACTLY what the members of the POCIT and WoCinTechChat tribes are striving for.

Thanks to the inspiration from a wonderfully supportive community, the landing page copy earned Learners Guild hundreds of excellent applicants for their first cohort in Oakland, CA.

Now: what would have happened if I had skipped all that research and came up with a vague idea of what I thought potential learners wanted to hear?

What if I had created a message that was based on my preconceived notions as a white woman of the struggles people of color in tech face rather than genuine insights?

There’s a chance I could have written irresponsible copy that patronized the reader and made Learners Guild appear tone deaf.

Even worse, I could have written a message that turned potential learners away not just from Learners Guild but from software development as a career option altogether, thus undermining the social  progress that Learners Guild seeks to further.

There’s a very real danger in outsiders “helping” tribes without understanding them first: we risk exploiting them for our own gain--and destroying them as a consequence.

The One-for-One Business Model & Unintended Consequences

Let’s talk about Toms Shoes for a moment.

Who doesn’t love the now ubiquitous cotton slip-ons, worn by hipsters and suburban moms alike?

I’ll tell you who: the third-world cobbler whose livelihood is undermined thanks to an influx of canvas slip-ons to his community, courtesy of Toms.

Matheson Miller, producer of the documentary Poverty, Inc. is challenging the perceived benefits of one-for-one businesses like Toms Shoes. He says that despite the philanthropic glow that Toms’ marketing inspires in consumers, the problems poor populations face can’t be solved by sending them free discarded or surplus items, but by addressing the issues that contribute to their poverty:

“Poor people aren’t poor because they lack stuff; they’re poor because they lack the infrastructure to create wealth.”

This isn’t to say that the one-for-one business model is by nature harmful to poor communities. The key is to provide needed items while still preserving the dignity and independence of the recipients.

What could Toms have done to avoid the backlash caused by their shoe giveaways?

They could have researched the communities they sought to help and listened--really listened--to what they had to say.  They could have had a conversation with them about why they lacked shoes (poverty) and what they needed (better paying jobs and more local business opportunities).

Toms has since changed up their model: they now sell coffee, and for every pound of coffee they sell, they donate a week’s worth of clean water to the communities they source the coffee from.

That’s a slip-on-shod step in the right direction.

The marketing lesson here is clear: before you adopt a model that claims to help people, make sure what you’re doing is truly helping them.

What does this mean in terms of copywriting?

It means we must chose our words with as much care as we choose our causes.

And as you’ve seen from my work with Learners Guild, when the words we choose come straight from the hearts of the tribes we want to help, it can have a huge impact on creating a sense of trust and connection.

Finding the Tribes Your Customer Claims

To create sales content that easily converts people from strangers to buyers and from buyers to advocates, it’s imperative that you know your target buyer.

You literally have to speak their language.

And as I demonstrated with my story about Learners Guild, the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in its culture.

But in order to study a tribe, as any anthropologist will attest, you first have to find them.

A Tribal Discovery Field Kit

So.

Here you go:  some of my favorite tools for finding tribes and capturing relevant conversations about issues that tribe members care about.

1. BuzzSumo-  

One of the most popular content creation tools out there, BuzzSumo is super-easy to use. Just search for a topic and BuzzSumo will generate a list of the most-shared content AND will give you a list of the top influencers on any subject.

HINT: the key to finding influencers isn’t in the number of followers but the amount of engagement. Followers can be bought. Retweets and shares are harder to manufacture. So keep an eye on the people with the most shares, not the most tweeps.

2. Mention-

Mention is a good old-fashion media monitoring tool. You can use it to keep track of conversations about any topic across any platform. I’ve discovered some amazing Twitter feeds about social enterprise thanks to this tool.  You can also use it to keep track of mentions about your brand or content that you’ve created. I’ve also discovered that one of the articles I wrote for Copy Hackers gets shared daily (*cough*egoboost*cough*).

3. Quora-

Not only can you search for answers based on topic in Quora, but asking a question can result in surprisingly in-depth answers and inspire thoughtful conversations that are ripe for copy mining.

4. Reddit-

There’s a subreddit for ev.ery.thing. Even if you’re not aware that something is even a thing, there’s a subreddit for it.  Just search for a topic and chances are someone is having a conversation about it. Also great for Ask Me Anything threads with influencers.

5. Product Hunt-

If you’re an SaaS startup or maker, the comments on Product Hunt give fantastic insights about the needs (and quirks) of other founders, developers, and makers. Plus, you can get access into the minds of some of tech’s biggest influencers.

6. Facebook Groups-

I’m a big fan of Facebook Groups because people tend to be more candid and closer-knit than other, more anonymous forums like Reddit. Candid comments = more expressive language = better copy inspiration.

7. Twitter Chats-

Twitter chats can reveal a ton of information about a tribe: the issues they face and stuff they love to talk about.

8) Amazon (And Other Product) Reviews-

Joanna from Copy Hackers has a fantastic article on how to mine Amazon reviews for copy inspiration, so I’m just gonna leave this here.  Go: read it and be enlightened.

By now, my do-gooding nerd-friend, you have more than enough resources to go on a tribe-hunting expedition of your own.

If you've got a favorite tribe-hunting resource that I haven't listed, feel free to drop a link in the comments.

But before you set off, a final thought:

Grabbing inspiration for content from a community, even with the best of intentions, is still exploitative if you have nothing to contribute. What value do you have to offer the tribe you seek to serve?

(Hint: it’s not your product. Not yet.)

In an upcoming post, I’ll discuss the delicate art of sharing content with user tribes so you can start building relationships built on trust and value.

Until then, go find your tribes!

P.S., Speaking of tribes, feel free to head over to my new Facebook Group: Storytelling for Social Impact. You’ll connect with like-minded changemakers, share your ideas and support, and give each other feedback on any content-in-progress you happen to be struggling with. Looking forward to seeing you there!

When we know we're making a difference in other people's lives, it keeps us going through the hard parts.

My four year old son was riding in the car with us last night, and we were talking about his favorite cartoon, "Yo-Kai Watch." It's one of those shows that was a video game first and was clearly created to sell more merchandise. But, whatever: I had Strawberry Shortcake back in the day. 

Anyway, in every episode, the main character meets creatures that must be defeated by either "negotiation or confrontation." Seriously--that's how they phrase it in the kid's show. So now my four-year-old knows what "negotiation" and "confrontation" mean. As a self-confessed word nerd, I couldn't be more proud. 

So we asked him, "which one do you think is better: negotiation or confrontation?"

He said, "negotiation, because talking is better than fighting, because when you fight you can hurt someone."

Wow, I thought. Maybe all those sibling rivalry moments when I marched him to his room before he choked the living crap out of his little brother are starting to sink in.

"It's wonderful to hear you say that, bud." I told him. "How did you get to be so clever?"

He smiled at the praise and then suddenly got uncharacteristically earnest. "It's because I get timeouts and we talk about when I make bad choices like hitting instead of talking when I'm mad. Hey...maybe timeouts are teaching me something after all!"

Whoa. My husband and I looked at each other, our eyes wide with amazement. This was the kind of feedback that as parents you don't dare to expect. At least not until your kids have their own kids and they finally get it.

But here my kid is, 4 years old, and totally getting it. And letting us know we're making a difference.

Can you imagine the huge sense of validation this has inspired in me as a mother? Until this exchange, I had been fumbling around in the pitch black cave of parenting, not sure if my "timeout & talk" approach has been harmful or helpful, worried that I was either scarring him emotionally with forced isolation indulging his tantrums with attention. With his words, my son held up a torch and said "keep doing what you're doing, mama! You've got this!"

And now I know what direction to move in. Now that I see the difference I'm making, I have the confidence to do more.

What's your pitch black cave where you could use some illumination? Is it a beta version of a new app? A lead magnet people have been downloading? A course you've been selling? A blog you've been pouring your heart into?

You may have metrics on web traffic or shares or conversions, but the numbers can't tell you the story of the impact your content is making on people.

For that, you're going to need to reach out and ask for feedback.

So here's my challenge to you this week:

Email or call your leads & customers and ask: how has my product or service helped you?

Don't ask using a survey or a form or anything that sends the message to your customer that she's part of the masses. This isn't about gathering data: this is about building relationships and your personal capacity to do more.

Just have a conversation. Ask for his or her story. The fact that you're not only willing to listen, but that you care about his or her success, will instantly build trust.

Record what they tell you. Not only can it give you brilliant material for social proof on sales content, it can inspire ideas for new content and help pump you up whenever you're wondering if all the work you've been doing is worth it.

Man, do I wish I could have recorded our conversation in the car with my son...I could play it for him every time he whines about having to go to timeout! I could play it for myself while I sit outside the door to his room, second-guessing myself while I listen to him howling in protest.

So now it's time for me to hear the story we're building together: if you've read any of my articles, downloaded one of my checklists or worksheets, or have engaged in my services, what difference have I been making for you? What keeps you following me? What would you like to see more or less of?

Just send me a quick email:

Alaura.weaver@gmail.com or tweet me: @WordWeaverFree

I'm looking forward to hearing about you, your goals, and what I can do to help you get there.

But now that I’m a copywriter who works with startups, I’ve discovered that my online dating days taught me a thing or two about digital marketing.

What does online dating have to do with content creation and digital marketing for startups?

Believe it or not, everything.

The Online Dating Paradox

The thing about online dating is in order for the process to work--in order for you to accomplish your goal, which is to find the most compatible person for your relationship needs (be those needs casual or long-term) --you have to know exactly who it is you’re looking for. Otherwise, the algorithms will have little to base their search upon besides superficial factors that have little to do with true compatibility.

The dating sites will come up with suggestions, sure, but the likelihood of those suggestions being a perfect fit for your needs become slimmer the less certain you are of your requirements for a perfect match. Thus the painful process of sifting through the profiles of people whose picture features a close-up of their abs,  the weird-as-sh*t people posing with their guns (both the arm kind and the semi-automatic kind)--and even better--ninja swords, and of course the profoundly poor spelling and lack of punctuation skills (major turn-off for a copywriter).

And once you’ve found Ms. (or Mr.) Right, there’s no guarantee that you’re the right fit for her (or him). After all, s/he may meet every parameter you’ve been seeking, but if your profile isn’t optimized to her/his needs, you may get overlooked in favor of the competition.

It’s a catch twenty-two that’s mirrored in the world of startups, isn’t it? Like a member of a dating site, you’re looking for someone to fulfill a need you have in your life (in the case of a startup: money), but in order for you to find them and achieve fulfillment, you need to know who it is you’re looking for and what it is they’re seeking.

The Pickier You Are, The Better Your Results Will Be

Digital strategist Amy Webb shared her online dating experience in her TED Talk “How I Hacked Online Dating.” As a super-smart, left-brained data junky, Amy a) was having trouble finding a suitable mate using online dating services, and  b) felt the need to reverse-engineer the algorithm so she could create a profile that would nab her ideal man.

So she did what any self-respecting growth hacker would do: she did some competitive intelligence, did A/B testing of profiles, and created a system for rating potential matches based on her own prerequisites for a potential mate. After posting her newly optimized profile, Amy received a flood of responses and finally met the man she would later marry. Here’s what she says:

“Well, as it turns out, there is an algorithm for love. It's just not the ones that we're being presented with online. In fact, it's something that you write yourself. So whether you're looking for a husband or a wife or you're trying to find your passion or you're trying to start a business, all you have to really do is figure out your own framework and play by your own rules, and feel free to be as picky as you want.”

So It Goes With Marketing.

The pickier you are about who your perfect customer is, the more likely you’ll be to find them, and the more likely they’ll find you.

From a copywriting and content creation standpoint, the more in-depth your understanding of your target’s internal motivators, the easier it will be to persuade them to marry buy from you.

If it seems like a tall order to identify THE ONE for you and your business (especially if your business is a startup and hasn’t even begun the customer acquisition process), fear not. By the time you’re done with this post, you’ll know the questions you need to ask and where to go to find that elusive perfect match.

It’s Not About You (But At First It Kind Of Is)

Ever hear the old adage “you have to love yourself in order to love someone else”? Trite, but true. In life, and in business.

In order for you to find your ideal customer, you’re going to have to do some personal inventory so you can figure out your story as a brand and how it will intertwine with your customer’s story.  

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you prepare your search for your target customer (with thanks to Neil Patel’s Advanced Consulting program):

1. What inspired me to start this business?

2. What burning need or desire does my main product or service fulfill?

3. What are the drawbacks to using my main product/service?

4. How is my main product/service better than any other option out there, including doing nothing at all?

If you’re a startup founder, these are (hopefully) questions you’ve already answered for yourself as you seek funding. But it never hurts to revisit questions of origin and motivation as you seek to define and laser-focus your target.

One Isn’t a Lonely Number

Now that you’ve done some soul-searching, it’s time to do some soul-mate searching for your target customer.

Please note I’m using the singular form of “customer.” Trying to capture the attention of and inspire a group of anonymous individuals such as an “audience” or a “market” is like trying to take down an entire herd of antelopes with one arrow. No: the key to creating compelling content is to identify the one person whose story it will fit into.

Wait, what?

Did I just say create content to fit into your customer’s story?

Yes, indeed: as a content creator, it’s your job to tell a (captivating, informative, entertaining) story and elicit a desired emotion that will convince someone to take action. But as a brand, your job is not to present information about yourself to a passive audience: your job is to play a role in your customers’ lives.

Your job is to share a story you think will help your customer complete their own journey.

Which means you and your brand are not the protagonists of the story.

Holding Out for a Hero

Your customer is the protagonist, or--to get all Joseph Campbell on you--the Hero. Your brand exists to help the Hero in his or her journey.

But here’s the cool, creative part where you get to call the shots: as the brand storyteller, it’s up to you to define what your Hero's characteristics are. 

That’s right: you get to decide who you want to do business with. Isn’t that liberating? Instead of desperately trying to be the perfect match for anyone and everyone (as many businesses mistakenly attempt to do--thus coming off as generic and colorless and...yawn…), you just need to keep on doing you (as defined in the questions above) and send the call out for Heroes whose journey you want to be a part of.

Building Your Hero Character Sheet

Calling all geeks: it’s time to break out your 20-sided die and your Dungeons and Dragons skills. Allow me to explain to those of you who actually had a social life during puberty: before you play a session of famed fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, you have to build a character.

The same goes for pretty much any role-playing adventure video game, from Warcraft (I’m dating myself--do people still play World of Warcraft?) to my all time favorite, Fallout (post-apocalyptic wasteland action FTW). Before you start playing the game, you have to fill out a character sheet with their gender, race (or species), physical attributes, fighting skills, special powers, etc.

In the marketing world, we call such a list of characteristics an Audience Persona. But as a copywriter, I prefer the term Customer Profile--because to me, a “persona” is simply what personality an individual chooses to share with the world. As a copywriter, I want to go deeper into my target’s psyche--beyond the external persona and into his or her internal motivators.

As a business, it’s up to you to find the real-life customer that fits those characteristics so you can sell your product or service to them. So how do you decide on what the ideal characteristics are for the hero of your brand story? How do you fill out that Customer Profile? Through a combination of spycraft, psychology, and imagination.

The first elements of your Customer Profile are the external factors: the things about your customer’s life that aren’t likely to change any time soon. It’s easy to get real-world information on such factors by taking a peek at who’s going to your competitor for the same service or product you offer.

Who’s Your Competitor’s Customer?

The first thing you need to do is identify the top competitors in your niche. That’s super easy: just do a quick Google search for your main product or service. Here’s what comes up  when I Google the niche for one of my clients, a small company that makes modular travel backpacks:

Okay: as you can see from the screenshot above, we have 5 top search results to examine. For now, let’s weed out the non-niche players like REI & eBags since they offer such a huge range of products, each with its own target customer. We’ll take a look at the paid ads at the top and the fifth result.

From looking at the paid ads’ websites, I can see that they offer more than just backpacks, but they have very different target customers.

The first brand, Cotopaxi,  features footage of people outdoors, getting (fashionably) sweaty and dirty. They have the terms “Quest,” “Impact,” and “Explore” in their navigation menu. So the Hero in their brand story is the adventurous type. Take a look at their About page:

So now we know even more about their brand Hero: he or she cares about world poverty and wants to do something about it. They know exactly who they want to star in their brand story.

Now let’s take a look at the next paid result, Herschel.

Totally different Hero in this story, right? While the Cotopaxi Hero isn’t afraid to get his or hands dirty saving the world from poverty, the Herschel Hero is a sophisticated model of urban fashion and taste. Above all, this customer cares about the beauty and craftsmanship of the built world: both in the architectural details of their city and in their clothing.

Finally, let’s take a look at the top competitor in the organic results, Tortuga. Again, I dismissed REI and eBags because they’re eCommerce portals for multiple brands, and we just want to look at specialty brand websites for the sake of this comparison.

It’s clear who the Tortuga travel backpack is for: a traveler (duh). More specifically a savvy frequent traveler who wants to save money and time by carrying one bag without having to check multiple pieces of luggage at the airport.

We also know what publications their customer reads: Conde Nast Traveler and Entrepreneur. So this Hero is a worldly professional: someone who needs to look polished in their various work and leisure scenarios.

Based on the origin story featured on the landing page, we also know what their customer’s motivation is for buying: this traveler fears getting stuck with the inappropriate bag for whatever journey they’re embarking upon. The Tortuga customer fears being inconvenienced and looking bad.

So if those are their fears, what do they love? They love travel. They love seeing the world. But more than anything, they love feeling like they’re in control, even when they’re out of their element.

And Tortuga very wisely plays on their fears with their sales copy, but plays on their passions with their content.

See? They have a blog specifically devoted to packing tips for perfectionist travelers:

And THIS is how they’ve climbed their way to the top of the search results: because they’ve created a richly informative blog with expertly crafted articles that not only provide tips for travelers, but also provide emotional insights about the experience of traveling. In other words, they tell stories that a perfection-oriented traveler can relate to.

The emotional hook is what keeps people like their target customer returning to their site as a resource--and eventually, when it’s time for these people to buy a carry-on bag, no doubt they will seriously consider purchasing a Tortuga backpack.

OK, so even though it took me about an hour (including kid-terruptions) to pull together these images for three websites, it should only take about 15 minutes to take a glance at your competitor’s sites and get a feel for who their target customer is.

But we don’t want to just get a feel. We want to probe.

I feel gross just typing that.

Close Encounters of the Digital Kind

Ok, let’s shake that off.

The point is: we need to get the facts on who is actually visiting our competitors’ website. This is when we turn to our friend Alexa.

For this bit of ninja work, you’re going to need to sign up for a free trial of Alexa’s competitive intelligence tool, but it’s well worth the bit of extra email you’ll get.

Once you’re signed up, log into Alexa and type in  the URL of one of your top competitors.

If you scroll down past the traffic metrics, you’ll find a section with Audience Demographics & Geography. That’s what you want to take a look at.

Here you’ll find almost everything you need to know about the external factors of your competitors’ target customer:

• Sex

• Age

• Educational Level

• Income

• If they browse the web from work or from home

• If they have a family

• Their ethnicity

Pay attention to the points on the graphs that are significantly higher than average: that tells you the company is doing something to attract people with a specific characteristic.

For example, if you take a look at Cotopaxi’s demographics, you’ll see that their audience has a higher-than-average amount of graduate degrees. This makes sense: Cotopaxi’s brand is based on a socially-conscious mission, and people who have more education have higher rates of volunteerism.

Also, notice that all the brands skew high for female, white audiences, but Herschel Supply is the only one that also shows a significant amount of other ethnicities. Considering that Herschel is positioning itself more as a fashion brand for everyday urban use, and urban areas have more diverse populations, this makes sense as well.

Something else of note: Tortuga is the only brand whose users visit their website from a home computer as opposed to work. And if you take a look at the average income, it skews pretty low at $0-$30K.

So what does this tell us? That Toruga’s a favorite brand of unemployed women? Doubtful, with  a $299.00 price tag for the Tortuga Travel Backpack.

No, the answer is found in the top keywords (if you scroll back up the Alexa results page):

Ooooohhh...so lots of Airbnb users (meaning travelers on a budget and/or couch-surfers in the midst of a world tour) are coming to the Tortuga site.

But...how?

When you Google “sites like Airbnb” you find this as the first result:

So a blog post was the #1 doorway through which Tortuga’s target customer entered the online storefront. And Tortuga’s clever marketing team keeps track of such things, because when you click on the search result link, check out what awaits you:

This little side-route off the main competitive intelligence trail has taught us something very important: the best thing you can steal from your competition is  insight and inspiration.

Based on the initial observations, demographic data and keyword results, our picture of Tortuga’s customer is now laser-focused, and Tortuga is playing an integral role in her story:

Imagine a female world traveler. She’s traveling solo, which makes her feel slightly vulnerable in terms of safety. Based on her income data, we know she’s also low on cash--chances are she’s a travel blogger or other such digital nomad that doesn’t make much money, and what little she makes goes back into travel expenses.

She’s worldly enough to know great travel gear when she sees it--and as a constant traveler, the more efficient and organized the system, the better. If there’s anything she’s willing to put her hard-earned cash into, it’s a reliable travel bag that she can live out of.

Our traveler just went to the Airbnb website to reserve lodging at her next destination and has made an unnerving discovery: a festival she’s on her way to has every available apartment in town booked. She needs help, quick, before she drops down from broke and homeless-by-choice to just plain broke and homeless.

Tortuga knows what role it’s going to play in this story: the Beacon. Using super-helpful content that reflects empathy for her situation, Tortuga will guide the lost pilgrim to safety and shelter. And when this errant nomad heads back out to seek her next destination, she’ll be equipped with a Tortuga bag. Better yet, she’ll write an article about it on her travel blog and tell the world about a brand that’s there to help her and others of her ilk.

Steal It and Make Something New

So what do we do with this competitive intelligence? We learn and differentiate ourselves.

1. Pay attention to what’s similar about all of the competitors’ customers (i.e. female, professional, 30’s, no kids, white).

2. Decide what the common need is (i.e. an everyday, stylish backpack that can work for professional travel as well as sightseeing)

3. Fill in the gaps that aren’t represented: that’s our target customer. (i.e. males, families, minorities)

Now we can do one of two things:

a) We could try to create yet another brand story that appeals to kid-less white women in their 30’s, or

b) We could dare to tell different story, with a new protagonist.

Guess which one I’m thinking.

(source)

Yep! Let’s go the contrary route and see what we get.

Building Character

It’s time to channel your inner nerd and rejoice, because it’s spreadsheet time. I’ve created a Customer Profile Worksheet. Go ahead and download it and we’ll fill it out together:

The External Factors

The first section describes all of the external characteristics about our target customer--the things he can’t change about himself unless he were to undergo a major transition.

If we fill in the gaps that my client’s competitors have, we know the following things about our target customer:

1. Gender: Male (because everyone else is targeting women)

2. Age: mid-30’s (because we want our customer old enough to afford a high-end travel backpack but active enough to need it)

3. Profession: IT Consultant (frequent business traveler)

4. Family status: Married with kids

5. Ethnicity: South Asian (because it’s 2016 and it’s time we have a non-white Hero, FFS.)

(Note that I haven’t mentioned geography, but this can also play a major part in defining a target customer. In the previous Alexa searches, all three competitors are based in the US, but my client’s company is based in Switzerland. So let’s make our target customer English-speaking, but from outside the US. )

6.  Nationality: British

Meet Pathman.

Nigel Pathman.

As an IT consultant for manufacturers throughout Asia, Nigel Pathman flies nearly every month from his home in Camden Town, London to various locations in the East. He’s been married for seven years and he and his wife have two young girls, ages 3 and 5. Because Nigel’s elderly parents live in London, and Nigel is an only child, he feels obligated to stay in the UK instead of uprooting his family and moving to Asia.

Just from the external factors, we can understand why our customer would want a versatile travel backpack, right? He’s always on the road, and not just on a quick flight to, say, Majorca on holiday. Nigel here takes hours-long flights to Taipei and Karachi--the kinds of flights that have two or three connections. He needs a bag to live out of on these trips--one that he can carry easily across terminals and take straight from the airport to a client’s office without looking like he’s checking into a hotel...or a hostel, for that matter.

A Matter of Taste

While the External Factors alone may make a peachy-keen customer persona, it’s not good enough. Nigel has plenty of options out there--why would he pick our travel backpack over, say the Tortuga or the Herschel?

Because our backpack design and brand voice suits his taste profile.

Nigel’s a cool guy. He likes things clean, simple, and functional. He’s a sci-fi fan, so if something has a futuristic feel to it, all the better. But he’s not all style and no substance: Nigel’s an amateur photographer and uses his camera to capture moments of beauty on his travels.

These are the details that will dictate the style and tone of our content. Since Nigel is a fan of minimalism and photography, it’s important that any content we produce, both on our website and on social media, reflects that by featuring uncluttered, simple graphics and gorgeous photography of travel settings.

Okay, so now we understand what Nigel likes to surround himself with. Can we stop here?

Nope.

Because we’re not just selling a backpack to a frequent business traveler; we also want Nigel to become a part of a community of brand advocates. We want him to follow us on Twitter and share our content to his Facebook friends. We want him to write a testimonial on his favorite travel forum. We need him to feel connected with our band, which means we need to fulfill an emotional need for him.

What’s His Motivation?

So let’s take a look at his Internal Factors.

Nigel is your classic extrovert. He adores meeting new people in his travels and strives to leave a good impression wherever he goes. The last thing he would want to do is inconvenience or disappoint anyone, so it’s important that he be on-time for meetings.Which is why transferring his items from one bag to another while he’s on the road can be disasterous: he has to check into his hotel room, leave his carry-on roller bag there, grab his laptop case, make sure his important documents are in a safe spot, and then get to a meeting at a client’s office. In some Asian cities, getting from one part of town to another can take hours, depending on the traffic.  It would save him tons of time and panic and  frustration to just be able to walk off the plane and go straight to his client without having the hassle of trading out his bags.

Here’s the core of Nigel’s story: he strives to win the admiration of his friends, and his worst fear is to let them down by being late or failing to keep a promise.

So how can we help him avoid that scenario?

We create a role for ourselves within the context of his story.

Introducing SLICKS (my client), a modular travel backpack designed to transform to match any scenario: work, play, or on the move. Its timeless Swiss design is elegant enough for business travel, yet just sporty enough for Nigel to get away with a day of sightseeing in a tropical locale. Better yet, it converts into a briefcase or a messenger bag so Nigel can look professional for his clients straight off the plane and then trendy when he goes out for drinks after his meeting.

No stopping at the hotel first, no frantic bag changes in the airport, just stress-free travel.

Just like our target customer, our brand is a character with external factors, taste, and internal factors.

In this story, SLICKS acts as an expert travel companion and slightly quirky friend who is obsessed with keeping things efficient and organized. SLICKS is there to make Nigel’s many journeys more enjoyable and less stressful.

Knowing the role SLICKS plays in the life of its target customer will help me as a copywriter to create a Kickstarter campaign, blog post ideas, lead magnets, and countless other forms of content that will drive Nigel through the SLICKS sales funnel.

But it all starts with a story.

It always does.

The final thing we need to figure out: after creating the target customer’s story, where can we find the Real Nigel telling his tale of travel woe? Where do we promote our content?

Follow the Tribe

Nigel’s a business traveler and a fan of great design, so we just have to go where discerning frequent flyers--well, frequent. And since we’ve filled out a nuanced character story for our target customer, we know we have a friendly, relatable, human brand voice with fantastic positioning that will call like a siren song to the millions of Nigels out there wrestling with their luggage and their frantic lives.

Ready to find your match?  Download a FREE target customer profile worksheet and set your perfect customer within your sights using  competitive intelligence tools and some good old-fashioned psychology. The customer of your dreams will be a blog post or landing page away.

*photo credit: By Wurlover - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11410166

Mallie Hart recently let off some steam in her post, 4 Ways Ninjas and Digital Marketing Don’t Mix. She claimed the descriptor “digital marketing ninja” —  sometimes used in social media profiles —  was an irresponsible, inaccurate, and “dangerous” title because of the secrecy and lack of ethics associated with ninja-hood.

I say: eff that noise. Ninjas are awesome. And if you call yourself a digital marketing ninja, you should hold your black-clad head up proud and keep on doing you. Here’s why:

1) Ninjas stick to the shadows.

Let’s say you were the CEO of an SMB B2B LLC. You need a digital marketing expert to help your company shine. Who are you going to pick: a “guru” who is so busy on speaking engagements and selling webinars that his clients are taking a backseat to his self-promotion, or a ninja who quietly plots and executes impeccable marketing strategies, preferring to put the spotlight on his client? Ninjas are the wind beneath their clients’ wings.

2) Ninjas are Vigilant with a capital “V.”

An essential part of marketing and ninja-ness is competitive intelligence, aka spying on your rivals. A digital marketing ninja will watch the competition’s every move, anticipate their next steps, and provide detailed reporting on their movements and interactions. This saves the client thousands of dollars on advertising and hundreds of man hours, trying to figure out what works: the competition has already done this for you. All is clear through the eyes of a ninja.

3) Ninjas are Freelancers.

Do you know the origins of the term “freelance”? It comes from Ye Olde Dayes of Chivarly, when Knights Errant roamed the land, in search of adventure (and moolah). Their bread and butter was in tournaments; specifically, jousting, where they would be hired by the local king to wield a lance and bash the other guy at high velocity. The next month, they could just as easily be hired by the other guy’s king: he was free to sell his lancing services. Thus, “freelancer.”

Ninjas work under the same business model: they’re assassins and spies for hire.  A great digital marketing ninja will have the flexibility to work with clients of various needs, and can switch marketing platforms as easily as an actual ninja can leap from rooftop to rooftop (while gliding through the air with the help of invisible wires).

4) Two words: Throwing Stars.

Ok, so hopefully a digital marketing ninja isn’t tossing sharp-edged projectiles at her client’s competitors, but she should have an impressive arsenal of tools and resources at her disposal. Canva and Buffer are the Bo and poison darts  of marketing. So cool.

5) Ninjas have a Code of Conduct.

Mallie Hart asserted that ninjas had no code of honor. Mallie Hart, have *you* no honor, ma’am? Ninja absolutely have a code: Ninpo. While Ninjutsu is the physical combat and stealth techniques practiced by ninja, Ninpo is the fundamental spiritual training for a ninja. The Gojo are the Treasured Writings within Ninpo.

Here is the Gojo as written by Hatsumi-Soke of the Bujinkan Ninjutsu Organization:

Fumetsu no Fuse 不滅の不施 Everlasting giving

Mamichi no Jikai 真道の持戒　 Vow of the true way

Shizen no Ninniku 自然の忍辱 Natural resolve

Shizen no Choetsu 自然の超越 Transcendance of nature

Komyo no Satori 光明の悟り　　Illumination of the awakening

So basically, ninja believe in being of service, in staying true to themselves, in persevering over difficulty, in finding spiritual purity, and in finding illumination.  That sounds an awful lot like someone seeking growth, to me.

And that’s the ultimate goal of the digital marketing ninja: to use his training, experience, and knowledge of the digital marketplace to help his client’s company grow.

So, digital marketing ninja, wherever you are: continue your silent art. Mallie Hart may squirm at the notion of you, but your clients are reaping the benefits while you hone your throwing stars, waiting…quietly waiting…for the next assignment.

(PS, Mallie, if you’re reading this, thanks for the inspiration. You and Go Creative Go! are awesome — dare I say — digital marketing ninjas.) 

Do you consider yourself a digital marketing ninja?  Spread this post throughout your underground network of spies.

The even better news: my friend, Timothy Hands, editorial manager for Nezibo.com and moderator for the Google+ Content Writing Workshop Community, took over this week because he’s just that cool. He has some words of wisdom to share on making sure your content is full of relevant keywords without looking like a sleazebag.

Before we begin, realize one thing: whatever it is you are going to publish should fulfill a need. What does that mean? It means your target audience is the only priority. Search engines are not your audience. 

Perhaps that sounds a bit over-aggressive and even counter-intuitive. Because hey, chances are you have read enough articles and received enough advice telling you how vital SEO is to your website’s needs. This is a misconception. @@Search engine ranking is not your goal. Interested readers finding what you have to offer is.@@

Folks bring up keywords as if they are this all-important ranking factor. And while the right ones in the right places at the right times can play a role, they are certainly not some kind of panacea for findable content. There is a whole cavalcade of other parameters involved which decide whether or not your articles are friendly for search. We’re talking about things like page design, page loading speed, social media vitality, domain establishment, header placement, categorizing...it is easy to get lost in it all. But the most important? High quality, unique, helpful content that provides users with information that can make a difference.

What Are They Looking For?

By “they”, we mean potential readers. What is it they are trying to find? Think about this for a second. Don’t race to assumptions. Put yourself in the shoes of someone trying to find what it is you want to talk about. What would you search for? You could play all the keyword research games you want but if you cannot instantly come up with an answer, you’re already in trouble.

Don’t get me wrong - there is value in applying analytics to come up with relevant terms and phrases. It’s just that abiding by statistics and copious amounts of word comparisons will lead you down a rabbit hole that can take away from your principal content objective. And no one wants that.

No Need to Repeat

If you were to see one of your friends at a store, and they asked you how your mom was doing, you wouldn’t be robotic in response. You wouldn’t say, “Oh, my mom is doing great! My mom is jogging every morning and eating better. My mom really likes exercising!”

This may seem a bit trite, but you get the point. When you hold it up to the light, keyword stuffing looks pretty ridiculous, doesn’t it? Definitely not natural.

It is possible (and for writers, way, way, way, way easier) to describe the guts of any topic without having to incessantly reuse words. So, how is ole’ “mom” doing?

“Oh, my mom is doing great! Believe it or not, she goes jogging every morning, really likes exercising, and is even eating better.”

Okay, perhaps “mom” is coming off some kind of health scare and this news is a big deal - whatever. The point is, repeating the word “mom” is unnecessary.

In this case, the person who asked how your mother is doing can be construed as the user hopping on Google. He or she just wants to know how mom is and thus, does not require the search query to be slammed back in their face over and over again. They get it.

Now, using sentences as the example is a little too easy. After all, even the laziest or most inexperienced of writers probably wouldn’t repeat a word so blatantly in consecutive sentences. But what about paragraphs? Is it possible to avoid repeating phrases in full paragraphs?

There Is More Than One Way to Say Something

Okay, so we agree that keywords aren’t the end-all be-all; however, there is value to making content easier for searchers to find. Specific words (or phrases) may help encourage such discovery. None of this is the problem. What is a problem, is that many authors assume this is the queue to liberally use these words throughout textual content, aka “stuffing.” They may not even do it on purpose. It could be by presumption. Newbie writers and marketers may be under the impression that if they are writing about a subject, mentioning it by name often has to be good for SEO (which it kind of was, like a decade ago and a half ago).

What we want to do instead is look at keyword synonyms. In most walks of life, there are multiple words available to describe the same thing. There may even be nicknames and slang people use on a regular basis when referring to a place or product. Can you come up with any that make sense for what it is your business or site does? If so, this is the content advantage you’re looking for.

What synonyms help with is latent semantic indexing, but let’s just call this “context” to make it cleaner. Context is what makes any story, description, or explanation worthwhile to read. Without it, you’re lost and might have no idea what you’re looking at. Why would search engines, especially Google, be any different? @@A measly keyword or two repeated a bunch of times does not create context: it creates annoying language.@@

Search engines see synonyms as indicators of supporting details and topic relevancy. What’s more, Google’s Knowledge Graph is more concerned with how helpful and authoritatively a topic is discussed. This helps it get the “gist” of content so users receive the best quality results. Just like you can tell what people are talking about when you overhear them using a couple of words, the same thing applies here.

The best part about all of this? It takes the burden away. You can write with more freedom, more levity, and more confidence. Provided you are an expert in your topic area, it will also allow you to communicate information naturally and effectively because odds are, you use your designated synonyms in everyday conversation. They are part of how you speak.

Description: The Objective to Focus On

It used to be a common practice for  marketers to identify a primary keyword, find a couple of opportunities inside of the text to use it, and move on. But that really isn’t how it is done anymore. The reason comes back to how Google has arranged its ranking signals.

Keywords were once recognized as “strings”, meaning search results were concentrated on the terminology or phrases users typed. This all changed in 2012, when Google first introduced its aforementioned Knowledge Graph, which saw a move towards recognizing and understanding pages and sites on a topical basis. This is where the adage “from strings to things” comes from, which helps us grasp the concept a little more clearly. Google used to rely on word strings to guide search results, but now it places a higher importance on the actual quality of information on pages and websites to produce the best options for users.

Describing what you are writing about in relevant, usable detail is really the only way out of the SEO maze. You can use a keyword or subset of synonyms to guide you, but ask yourself: will it help me write about this better? If you even so much as slightly pause before answering, it is probably not the smoothest course to sail.

Once a topic is decided on, you are likely going to know fairly quickly what the main keyword candidates are. You won’t even have to hit up on Moz, scan your AdWords tools, or any of that baggage. They will be staring you in the face because you know them already.

Your job, as a writer or blogger, is to support the topic. It just so happens that more often than not, the topic and the keyword are one and the same. So here is how to attack the process (and stay away from stuffing your writing full of the same words needlessly):

1. DO NOT worry about anything other than introducing the keyword as the foundation of the text. It helps to do this in the very beginning.

2. Support your topic with plenty of details and examples that illuminate your point.

3. If you find yourself struggling and feel the need to repeat a word, don’t hesitate to do so. Sure, there is more than one way to say most things, but not everything. Once in awhile, there may not be an adequate synonym to use. Don’t stress about it.

4. As you read back your work, pay special attention to its clarity. If you notice repeated words or language patterns, edit accordingly.

At this point, I don’t pay much attention to keywords at all when writing a piece. I’m much more concerned with addressing a topic thoroughly and trusting that I’ll put together a cohesive, easily-understandable article that does the job it’s intended to.

This is a far cry from when I first began ecommerce writing and SEO. Back in the “old days”, I would perform countless hours of research on keywords, test them out, study their competitiveness, and look for every suitable opportunity to fit them in. Yikes. You should never have to “fit in” keywords. It is such a manufactured approach to writing that it would be better off banned. In a sense, I suppose it is.

Thankfully, all of the major search engines place a much higher emphasis on quality and relevance. Stick with that. Keywords are not your enemy, they’re just not your friend. Focusing on offering a valuable perspective with credible supporting points is far and away more important than worrying about whether or not you have used a particular word or phrase too much or not enough.​

Timothy Hands is the content manager for Nezibo.com and the author of the Words and Parts blog. If you'd like more no-BS tips from Tim and other content experts (including yours truly) on how to write content effectively and efficiently, join the Content Writing Workshop on Google +. 

Isn’t that the same goal of every marketer out there? We all want our business messages to not only capture the attention of an audience, but also to be shared with peers, to motivate our customers to action, and to inspire a loyal following. If there’s one thing every marketer out there can learn from TED, it’s this: the best way to sell an idea is to tell a story.

As an unapologetic TED fan-girl, the subject matter of a talk rarely matters to me; I can find a passionate presentation on a new approach to school lunches just as moving as a profound talk on the importance of death with dignity. It’s all in the way the story is told. TED speakers are master storytellers, but they create their speeches within a carefully designed framework.  A framework, I might add, that has been hugely successful: TED talk videos have gotten over 1 billion views since they were launched online in 2006.

The TED Talk Formula

Ultimately, the TED formula is a great sales pitch with storytelling at its center.  This format can be applied to creating persuasive copy for a multitude of marketing applications, including landing pages, blog posts, e-mail campaigns, and yes, marketing videos and sales presentations. Let’s take a look at the fundamental structure of a TED talk:

What’s the Big Idea?

I discovered a playlist of the 20 most-watched TED talks:

Don’t worry, you don’t have to sit through all of them right now (in fact, please don’t—not until you’ve finished reading this post!). I did all the TED binge-watching for you.

Here’s what I discovered: within 30 seconds to 2 minutes into each presentation, the speaker has uttered an essential phrase that encapsulates the message he or she wants the audience to take away. Their “Big Idea.”

I’ll make it easy for you and list the Big Idea of some of the videos and where they happened:

1.       Sir Ken Robinson, Are Schools Killing Creativity? (01:31): “Everybody has an interest in education.”

2.       Jill Bolte Taylor, Jill Bolte Taylor’s Stroke of Insight (00:30): “I can take my dreams, I can connect them to my reality, and I can make my dreams come true.”

3.       Pranav Mistry, The Thrilling Potential of SixthSense Technology (00:43): “We use gestures not only to interact with objects, but also to interact with each other.”

4.       David Gallo, Underwater Astonishment (01:50): “We don’t know much about this planet at all.”

5.       Pattie Maes, Unveiling Game-Changing Wearable Tech (0:19): “We can develop or evolve a sixth sense that will give us seamless access to meta-information…that will help us make the right decisions.”

Most of these sound like pretty good tag lines, don't they?

So here’s a little exercise for you: write down your Big Idea—the thing that makes your product or service worth putting into the world---in a sentence of 15 words or less. 

Here’s mine: When we stop marketing to consumers and start telling stories to people, human connections happen.

What Inspires You?

After unveiling their Big Ideas, it’s now up to the speakers to convince their audience why the ideas are worth spreading. Their first task is to get the audience emotionally engaged.

You should know by now where I’m going with this. The most effective way to create an emotional connection with an audience is to—drumroll, please…

Tell a story.

Most TED speakers share origin stories or reveal mind-blowing examples from history.

Simon Sinek’s minimalist, yet brilliant, presentation exemplifies this. First, he asks the central question of his talk: “How can we explain when others are able to achieve things that defy all the assumptions?” Then, he uses the examples of Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright Brothers. They were all able to achieve a unique (dare I say “mind-blowing”) level of excellence in their respective fields despite the fact that they weren’t the only ones out there doing what they did. What was their magic formula?

Sinek then reveals his theory, which is particularly relevant to this post: Apple, MLK and the Wright Brothers were all great communicators. They all identified the “whys” of what they did, and shared their motivations first, then discussed the “hows” and the “whats.” In other words, by revealing what inspires you, you will inspire others to action.

Take a moment to do some soul-searching: I’ve been inspired to tell stories ever since I was six years old and was given a Greek myths coloring book. The stories I discovered activated my imagination and shaped the way I saw the world. I want to help others communicate their personal myths because I believe stories are the medium through which humanity can find common ground.

Why does your company or brand do what it does? What inspired your company to be different from everyone else? 

What Information Do You Have?

After the Idea and the Inspiration has been shared with the audience, it’s time to present the Information: evidence to support the Big Idea. This is the part when a TED talk turns into a lecture, but it doesn’t have to feel like a lecture. The best TED speakers have a knack for humanizing even the driest of statistical numbers.

Witness Hans Rosling’s presentation of third-world life-expectancy stats: the guy manages to turn logarithmic graphs into breath-taking portraits of our planet. How? He turns the data into stories.

Rosling would never have been able to create the sense of drama about his stats were it not for the graphics he created. Even though TED talkers are at center stage, they typically rely on a well-designed series of slides to help (literally) illustrate their points.

I recently fell in love with Canva: a web-based graphic design tool that makes building infographics child’s play. See?

What statistical information and research do you have to share about your service or product to back up your Big Idea? 

What's Impeding You?

By now, TED talkers have got the audience jazzed. It’s time to create some drama by bringing some conflict to the story. They introduce the Big Problem: the one thing that’s been holding the world back from embracing the Big Idea.

In Dan Pink’s talk, The Puzzle of Motivation, his Big Idea is also his Big Problem: “There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does,” he says. Throughout his presentation, he builds the audience up with a number of examples from sociological and economic research that show that incentives inhibit the performance of creative problem solving tasks.

You can’t help but get caught up in his outrage when he declares halfway through his talk: “Too many organizations are making their decisions [and] their policies about talent and people based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science.” You can almost hear the audience begging “WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW???”

The Big Problem we face as marketers is outdated online optimization shortcuts and conventional approaches to business development. Today’s audience is adept at tuning out overt marketing messages. They’re inundated with advertising, so they’ve developed psychological ad-blockers.

Google has adamantly made it known that keyword-stuffed, low quality content will no longer attract their algorithms.  Yet businesses are still ordering low-quality keyword-based articles from content mills for pennies per word so that their websites, no matter how irrelevant, will get shoved in the faces of people looking for legitimate information.

According to Harvard Business Review, over 90% of C-level executives say they “never” respond to cold-calls or e-mail blasts. Yet tired outbound sales tactics like mindless cold-calling, spammy e-mail blasts, and throw-away snail mail campaigns still prevail.  And all of it appears to adhere to the hackneyed “list features and benefits, overcome objections, and close the deal” sales formula.

Think about the last time you bought a car: was it because you found a flyer from your local dealership on your mailbox declaring you should buy it because it goes from 0-60 in 2 seconds and its side-impact airbags will keep your family safe—and by the way, you’ll get 0% financing if you buy today?  Did it even inspire you to visit the dealership or Google more information about it?

Hmm. Something tells me no. Yet most marketing copy, no matter the product or service, sounds just like this.

So that’s my Big Problem as a copywriter and a business marketer. What’s yours? What’s the battle you and your audience must partner to fight?

What Impact Are You Making?

This is when TED talkers roll out some good news: they have a solution to this problem, and with the help of the audience, they can solve it. Remember the Big Idea? Right! Here’s where we take another look at it now that we’ve been emotionally and intellectually engaged.  

In Jamie Oliver’s impassioned talk on the national obesity epidemic, “Teach Every Child About Food,” he discusses his anti-obesity project in Huntington, WV and the impact he was able to make in the community by helping school cafeterias find locally sourced, sustainable food for $6,500 per school. He knows he’s speaking to an audience of our society’s elite tech and business experts: $6500 per school is pocket change.

He’s a master salesperson as he tells his audience, “There are angels around America doing great things…the problem is, they all want to roll out what they’re doing to the next school and the next, but there’s no cash.” At this point, you can almost hear the audience pulling out their checkbooks.

How can you and your audience work together to solve a Big Problem in your industry?

What Is Your Audience Invited To Do?

So here’s the big close: the TED speaker has shared their ideas, told their story, revealed their challenges, and imparted what they need to move past those obstacles. Now it’s time to ask for help.

The TED audience is invited to complete the journey with the speaker by taking action. In digital marketing terms, you can visualize a TED talk as a beautifully designed landing page with great copy and eye-grabbing graphics all leading the visitor to the Call-to-Action button.

In Nobel Laureat Leymah Gbowee’s case, her call to action is simple: she asks the audience to create, in their communities, opportunities for girls to achieve excellence.

“I don’t have much to ask of you,” she says. “Will you journey with me to help that girl, be it an African girl or an American girl or a Japanese girl, fulfill her wish, fulfill her dream, achieve that dream? Because all of these great innovators and inventors that we’ve talked to and seen over the last few days also are sitting in tiny corners in different parts of the world, and all they’re asking us to do is create that space to unlock the intelligence, unlock the passion, unlock all of the great things they hold within themselves.  Let’s journey together. Let’s journey together.”

TED speakers are adept at creating a sense of urgency by laying out their cases for change: the people in the TED audience are society’s great innovators and naturally want to be the first to adopt emerging technology or to claim they are on the front lines of a philanthropic cause.

Think about your target audience: what’s irresistible to them as a call to action? More information? A great bargain? Taking a risk that could pay off? The opportunity to join a community or to help others? If you need help identifying your audience’s buying motivations, you’ll want to take a look at my recent post on Rolf Jensen’s 6 Emotional Markets.

Now that I’ve laid out the elements of a great TED talk, does this inspire you apply them to creating a great landing page, e-mail campaign or your own TED-like video presentation? This guy, motivational speaker Jeremy Gutsche, not only filmed himself doing a TED-esque speech as a teaser trailer for his book, he made sure to place the ad on the TED YouTube channel. The man knows his audience: lovers of great storytelling who want to change themselves and their world for the better.

So to sum up the TED Pitch Formula, it looks like this:

1)      Idea- The core message you want your audience to agree with and buy into.

2)      Inspiration- Your origin story or source of motivation for what you do.

3)      Information- The evidence you have to prove why your idea is awesome.

4)      Impediment- The obstacles you and your audience must overcome to make this idea work.

5)      Impact- The change that can happen as a result of your idea working.

6)      Invitation- The call-to-action for your audience.

So, in the spirit of a TED talk, here’s my invitation to you: if you, like me, are tired of business-as-usual marketing and are inspired by the connections that great storytelling can bring about both in business and in life, I urge you to connect with me. I want to help change how your brand is marketed by giving it a human voice.

If you can’t hire me, no problem: let’s spread our ideas together (see what I did there?). Follow me and share this post on Twitter. The more we can preach the storytelling gospel, the more we can infuse our brand messages with the human element.

Want to learn more about how to apply storytelling approaches to your business? Subscribe to The Yarn. Each month, you’ll get a multi-media copywriting care-package on a different theme. 

Do you remember George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart’s everyman character from the holiday classic It’s a Wonderful Life? He was born with his eyes on the prize. At a very early age, George knew what he wanted from life: to travel the world. He was a star athlete and the pride of Bedford Falls; he had nowhere to go but up.

But somewhere on George Bailey's march toward success, the day-to-day got in his way. His seemingly straight path became snarled with the realities of life: losing his father, then keeping his family business afloat through the choppy waters of a Depression-era economy. So George hunkered down for a while, helping the people of Bedford Falls achieve their dreams while he watched his own dreams drift further and further away.

Brad Russell's Wonderful Life

Network marketing entrepreneur and SEO expert Brad Russell is like George Bailey: he was born with his eyes on the prize, too.  Making money was his hobby and his passion. When he was 12 years old, Brad collected stocks like they were baseball cards. “I would ask for shares in companies rather than traditional birthday presents,” the Perth, Western Australia native told me in our interview. “I was always thinking about ways to make extra pocket money including doing lawn mowing rounds, delivering newspapers, et cetera.”

The future was wide open for the athletic Aussie. “Straight out of university I created a multiple six-figure eBay business selling entertainment packages. When that died down I created Swish Plastic [a website selling polycarbonate glassware to the hospitality industry] with a friend of mine.” Brad was proud of his successful business ventures--with good reason. It appeared the life he dreamed of was just on the horizon.

When Life Gets in the Way of Your Dreams

Like George Bailey, unfortunately, Brad’s goal of owning his own business became obscured by the realities of life. Lured by the promise of steady money, he began working a 9-to-5 desk job for a kitchen supply company. His SEO expertise helped a small family-owned business sky-rocket into one of Australia’s top online retailers.

The company’s success had a bittersweet effect on Brad, however. While his employers enjoyed the fruit of his labors, Brad says, “I always felt that I was working hard to realize the long-term dreams and goals of my boss, rather than myself. For example, if we had a great month and achieved new sales records, it was great for the company - but my income stayed the same.”

Watching someone else achieve their dreams while your life is in a holding pattern takes its toll. “There was no incentive to work harder as I had already achieved the highest possible position in the company (besides owning it).” Brad told me.  “Over the course of five years I became unmotivated and unwilling to extend myself.”

Taking the Plunge into Self-Employment

In It’s a Wonderful Life, when George Bailey realized the business for which he had sacrificed his dreams was about to fall into ruin, he contemplated taking a long jump from a toll bridge into icy waters. Brad Russell contemplated taking a risky plunge, as well— when a friend approached him about a network marketing opportunity, he decided to shut his eyes and make the leap from employee to business owner.

“I thought ‘what have I got to lose’ so signed up and started using the products,” Brad told me. “Five weeks later and I had quit my 9 to 5 forever!”

If you think his decision to make the jump from full-time employment to at-home network marketing sounds a bit impulsive, you aren’t alone.

“When I first told my friends and family I was quitting a well-paid 9 to 5 to work from home on a network marketing venture, some supported the decision and some did not,” Brad confessed. “No one ever explicitly told me not to do it, but I definitely had my doubters. My mum was one of those but she quickly came around as just 3 months in to the project I was earning double what I previously had.”

Is This Guy For Real?

Let’s stop here for a minute.

I have something to confess: as I was putting this article together, a cynical voice in my head kept asking, “Where’s the story here? This guy never seems to trip up in his climb toward his goals; he just got side-tracked for a few years. Where’s the struggle?”

But then I realized something: Brad Russell’s story isn’t in his struggle. Just like George Bailey, Brad’s story is in his dedication. He refused to let life erode his dreams into nothing. His journey took a momentary detour, but he found his way back to his path. And his dedication to his work is so authentic we can’t help but root him on.

“I personally never had any self doubt in my decision. I had a list of goals to achieve in the first 12 months and even though these were quite lofty, I achieved every single one of them,” Brad said.

That’s the thing I’ve noticed about people when they discover their purpose: it’s like falling in love. They can’t stop thinking about it, they want to be near their source of inspiration all the time, and even when people doubt it will work out, they pay the naysayers no mind.

The Harsh Realities of Multi-Level Marketing

Network marketing has plenty of naysayers out there. Depending on where you get your information, the success rates on Multi-level marketing (MLM) businesses earning profits within the first twelve months can fluctuate from 50 percent to less than 5 percent. Either way, the numbers show that simply signing up for an MLM company doesn’t ensure automatic earnings.

The Secrets of Online Network Marketing Success

Brad Russell, however, took to network marketing like a koala bear to eucalyptus. He decided to invest in companies that reflect his passions for fitness and wellness; over the past five years, Brad has become Australia and New Zealand’s top distributor for Isagenix health products. He’s also the owner of FitCoffee.com.au, an online distributor of Organo Gold beverages, and SkinStyle.com.au, which distributes Jeunesse personal care products.

When I asked how he managed to bring qualified traffic to so many websites, he replied: “My skills lie in SEO (search engine optimization). A huge part of this is content creation. As such, I aim to publish at least 2-3 pieces of content across my network of sites per week.”

It’s important to note that while he creates much of the content on his websites on his own (he’s a top contributor on Moz.com), he occasionally brings on a hired hand to write blog posts or to produce captivating copy for landing pages.

Personal Brand as a Product

What makes Brad different from your typical direct salesperson is his approach to network sales. He stands behind his products but more importantly, he stands behind his personal brand. His story is his biggest product to sell: he’s a young guy who retired from the corporate world at the age of 29 to pursue his dreams of financial freedom. “My blog portrays me as the leader in online network marketing in Australia. This drives a lot of quality leads,” he says.

And like George Bailey, Brad’s biggest source of pride isn’t in the dreams he’s realized, but in helping others find financial freedom. “My greatest passion in life (other than football) is helping entrepreneurs reach their full potential,” his website says.  

Shooting for the Moon

His next step, he tells me, will be taking that passion for helping entrepreneurs succeed and turning it into yet another online endeavor. “I am creating a website with a business partner called Sponsor Monster. We hope this attracts some big players in the network marketing industry. The site will feature videos/interviews, network marketing training and more.”

So what are some of the biggest lessons Brad thinks entrepreneurs seeking digital marketing success can learn from his story?

1. No matter what you do, there will always be competition. “I learnt this the hard way when my Isagenix business was flying along in leaps and bounds, until someone started outranking me in Google. I had to learn to adapt, work hard and regain that top position. It’s a constant struggle, but it’s taught me not to rest on my laurels.”

2. Don’t use a scattershot approach. “I research trends and Google search volume to come up with suitable topics. Once the content is written I ensure it has the correct keywords in it so that Google finds it and I rank high for my chosen terms.”

3. Considering working for yourself? It can’t hurt to try. “Go for it, you only live once! If it doesn’t pay off, brush yourself off and try something else!”

If you’re thinking of taking your own leap of faith into the world of entrepreneurship, feel free to get in touch with Brad. Nowadays, he’s less like George Bailey and more like Clarence, the guardian angel who helped George to see just how wonderful his life could be. “If you’re a fellow entrepreneur on the road to personal success, I can be your guide.”

If you have a personal narrative about your decision to become your own boss, I’d love to help you tell it!  Check out The Yarn submission guidelines here. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to get in touch to discuss how I can help create meaningful content for your business blog.

It's in the story they help their audience tell about themselves. The Disney audience is seeking a sense of comfort and safety: even in the face of danger, you know if you're watching a Disney movie or experiencing a Disney theme park ride, there will be a happily ever after at the end. Disney takes us on adventures, but always brings us home after the adventure is done. 

So how can we get our audience to connect with our brands as deeply as folks connect with Disney? It's quite simple, actually: we just need to figure out what emotion to sell.

The Dream Society

I’m reading  The Dream Society, the 1999 futurist essay by Rolf Jensen of the Copenhagen Institute of Futures Studies. It bears the subtitle “How the Coming Shift from Information to Imagination Will Transform Your Business," and it’s magical in one of those “this guy has put into words almost everything that I’ve been observing as a 21st century freelance copywriter” kind of ways.

In the space of little more than 200 pages, Jensen has captured the storytelling zeitgeist that our world is in the process of embracing. He’s also provided some insights about millennial audiences that I’ve found to be a wonderful resource as a copywriter and blogger.

Farewell, Information Society

Jensen observes that the twentieth century was characterized by the emergence of the Information Society, in which “knowledge becomes more important than capital,” and in which “numbers are better than words because they are concrete; they reflect measurable, physical realities.”

But, Jensen contends, the Information Society by its very nature is rendering itself obsolete by the automation of computational services, thus carving out room for humanity to find value in ideas and stories over raw data.  He asserts that the emerging new era, The Dream Society, will have more in common with hunter-gatherer societies than with the Industrial or Information ages in terms of finding meaning in the mundane and using mythology to create guideposts for navigating the world.

Tomorrowland is Today

Keep in mind, this book was written in 1999, before “tribes,” “authenticity,” and “storytelling” became the rallying cries for twenty-first century digital marketing approaches. This was before almost every business had a blog—or even a website, for that matter. This was before social networking—essentially, the real-time exchange of ideas and stories and the campfire around which we gather as tribes---became the hub of business marketing. Just three years after Bill Gates proclaimed “Content is king,” and five years before the founding of Facebook, Jensen saw that our post-materialist world would use stories and connection as currency. The guy is a visionary.

Jensen predicted that  consumers will become more politically and socially aware through access to the internet and the most successful Dream Society companies will align their bottom lines with social, philanthropic, or political causes. We see his prediction coming true today in companies like TOMS and Warby-Parker, whose business models are built around donating portions of their profits to helping people in need. 

According to Jensen, these companies won’t succeed due to their philanthropic efforts (which are commendable) or the quality of their products (which, let's be honest,  are meh), but because their biggest commodities are emotions. With each TOMS shoe purchase or Warby-Parker eyeglass order, the customer gets a sense of well-being and compassion. Who cares that a canvas shoe is priced at least 30 percent higher than comparable items? That 30 percent just bought her some warm fuzzies, with the knowledge of helping impoverished kids on the side. You could say that Tom’s shoes are “super-sized” with a story.

Stories for Sale

We all seek emotional fulfillment. Some of us are the most fulfilled when we feel like we’re doing good in the world. Some of us--like my husband, who is about to embark on a bike-packing trip of his dreams-- are the most fulfilled when we feel like we’re on an adventure.  Jensen has identified some categories that he terms “the emotional markets” that can help businesses take advantage of this demand for stories and adapt their brand messages to the audiences they seek.

1)     A Thirst for Adventure: The Market for Stories

As I mentioned, my husband is an adventure-seeker. We spent our honeymoon in a tent in the Wonder Lake area of Denali National Park, covered in mosquitos, within sight of North America’s tallest mountain. It was amazing.

When he isn’t working or spending time with his family, my hubs is riding his bike, working on his bike (or bikes, because we have 5 stuffed into our tiny garage workshop), or browsing the internet for bike parts. He watches what I refer to as “bike porn;” beautifully filmed videos of mountain bikers rolling at break-neck speeds through the lush forests of British Columbia or the red-tinged desert rocks of Moab, Utah.  

In addition to his love of the outdoors, my husband is an unapologetic fan of Pixar (our first date was to see Finding Nemo) and action films. He’s more likely to buy a car that has a strong reputation for ruggedness off-road: we’ve owned a Jeep Wrangler and a Land Rover. He drinks Fat Tire ale. He reads Outside magazine when he’s on the toilet.

Are you getting who this guy is yet? He’s a prime example of someone who lives in the Adventure market.

If I were writing a blog post or website copy with him as my audience member, I’d keep my sentences short and use words like “gear,” “journey,” and “risk.” He doesn’t need flowery language, he likes a good picture (either literally or in words), and he needs to feel invigorated or awed by life. He seeks a connection to the experience of being alive.

Companies like REI, Cabela’s and Nike serve the needs of adventurers. But function doesn’t have to define a brand: Fat Tire ale, Red Bull, and Canon all cater to the adventure market.

This is how niches are built and tribes are found: if adventure is the language you speak, you may want to consider targeting your brand to other lovers of action.

Sell health insurance? Why not create a brand for sport and outdoor-lovers?

Are you running a restaurant? Why not design a bar or cafe that caters to cyclists?

Are you a fan of spy movies? How about creating a nightclub with James Bond villain themed rooms?

I actually went to the spy-themed night club in Edinburgh the summer of 2000. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about the cocktails I spent money on, but 15 years later, I still remember the plush booths, the mood lighting, the general feel of secrecy and coolness that pervaded all five floors of the club. Even though I spent many pounds sterling on drinks, the story is what I took with me.

In fact, Jensen compared the business models of the Dream Society to those of theme parks. Our new economy will no longer be based upon the business of making products or selling services—companies will create immersive experiences built around their monetized products that will give their audience stories to share and remember.

Check out this IKEA commercial. It shows how a simple piece of modular furniture can lead to an adventure of a lifetime:

IKEA invites you to start something new. Because THIS is the moment, let's get going. Change something, do something different, big or smalls things. What's important is to start. Get some inspirantion and DO it. ***************************************************** Subscribe to this channel and discover the best ads of the world every week!

2)    Let’s Be Friends: The Market for Togetherness

While some of us are the heroes in our own life adventure, others of us find emotional fulfillment in the connections we make with others.  Jensen refers to this group as “The Market for Togetherness, Friendship, and Love.”

I’m all about this one. My whole vibe is about reaching out to humanity and telling people “you aren’t alone.” I love to figure out how people tick and examine the inner workings of society. And while I’m not necessarily a political activist, I’m a social one: I believe that acceptance, empowerment, and education are the keys to overcoming the gender and economic inequalities that cause suffering in the world.

My favorite brands are the ones that support this message. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign has captured the truths of so many women and their negative body identities. Take a look at this Dove commercial:

What will your beauty legacy be? In our Dove film Legacy, we look at how our beauty confidence can echo through the women in our lives... especially our children. Subscribe to our YouTube channel [http://goo.gl/Gm2XKY] Dove.com [https://www.dove.com] Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/DoveUS] Twitter [https://twitter.com/dove]

Note that their products aren’t mentioned or shown on camera once. All we see are mothers dealing with the disconnect between how they feel about themselves versus what they want for their daughters. Then we see them connecting with their girls over the beauty that they share. I feel a physical tingle and lump in my throat as I watch the story unfold.

Dove’s message is “we want you to feel beautiful, because you are.” The implication is that this beauty product company is different because it refuses to perpetuate the negative body imagery embraced by the beauty industry. How can I not support that with my money?  

But you don’t have to have a social mission to create a brand that appeals to individuals motivated by Togetherness, Friendship, and Love. Let's use the example of Disney again.  It's one of the biggest brands in the world: families come together for movie nights to watch the latest Disney DVD release; little girls (and plenty of boys) play princess together in their Elsa and Anna dresses; we see three generations of relatives partying on Disney cruises and at theme parks.

That said, can you name one political or social cause that Disney stands for? No? That’s because the people at Disney have been very careful to avoid taking sides in the culture wars: they want their company to capture the universal emotions of togetherness, family, and love that go beyond religious or political convictions.

3)    My Personal Brand: The Who-I-Am Market

Are you a PC person or a Mac person? That was the central question at the heart of Apple’s early 2000’s TV ad campaign featuring the brilliant John Hodgman (of The Daily Show fame and author of many hysterically sardonic and silly books) and the adorable Justin Long (who, in addition to being The Mac Guy, has been in every film or TV show requiring an unassuming 20-something white guy).  The commercials embodied the notion that people often project their self identity through the things they surround themselves with.

Here's a Mac vs. PC Windows 7 vs. Mac Ad called broken promises. Thank you all of you so much for the views! Please friend me and subscribe!

Jensen called this category the “Who-I-Am” market. These are people who broadcast their inner lives through the mediums of products. They want to be admired and respected for their buying choices. The brands that cater to their emotional needs often tell stories about the “type of person” who uses their product or services.

When you think of someone who reads The Wall Street Journal, chances are you’ll think of an educated professional; a go-getter who is motivated by money and success. A recent commercial for WSJ tells us that people who read WSJ “don’t have time to read The Wall Street Journal” because they’re so busy moving and shaking our entrepreneurial economy.

Wall Street Journal Adverts & Commercials Archive Tory Burch The TV Commercial Ad titled Tory Burch was done by Gorgeous advertising agency for brand: Wall Street Journal in United States. It was released in the Mar 2015.

Brands that target “Who-I-Am” audiences often use exclusivity or identity as their message. The Mascola Group ad agency took a look at three print ads by car companies Hyundai, Jaguar, and Porsche.

All are selling on price, but Hyundai’s is the most successful at creating a sense of luxury with the tag line “a luxury sedan for those with money to burn but the good sense not to.” It’s giving the reader an opportunity to tell a story about himself: he’s an affluent guy who is sensible with the money he’s been earning. Meanwhile, Jaguar’s ad, which lists the design components, awards the new model has won, and the MSRP, tells readers nothing new about the brand or themselves in relationship to the brand.

And Porsche’s awkward print ad reaches a bit with its appeal to the togetherness, friendship, and love market. It depicts a guy loading several bags of mulch into the small luxury convertible with the tag line “And somehow, there’s still room for complete and utter fulfillment.” Let’s not fool ourselves: people who can afford Porsches can afford to pay other people to deliver mulch to their beautiful, spacious homes where hired landscapers work on their carefully manicured lawns. And that’s okay: that’s the story Porsche buyers want to tell about themselves.

4)    The Good Old Days: The Market for Peace-of-Mind

When your society is changing at the break-neck pace of technological innovations introduced on a daily basis, there’s a certain comfort in identifying with things that will never change, or to reach back in time to an era when life seemed to stand still. That’s the emotional appeal of the “Peace of Mind” market. People who live in this arena are seeking comfort and assurance. They want to feel safe in uncertain times and admire companies that have withstood the test of time.

The look of Jack Daniels whiskey labels haven’t changed in 150 years. Even in 1908, the Tennessee whiskey was being sold as “old time sour mash whiskey,” “the kind your father and grandfather and his father drank.” Take a look:

Here’s a 1908 ad from the Nashville Globe.

And here’s a picture of an empty bottle of JD, taken recently. I didn’t do the emptying. I swear.

Isn’t it comforting to know that some things never change?

Even newer companies know the value of nostalgia. One of the hipster memes for startups is “authenticity.” The shaving product subscription service Dollar Shave Club capitalizes on the coolness factor of the lumberjack trend with its Dr. Carver personal product brand. The look and labeling of the products harkens to a time when such items were homemade and sold from the back of a horse-drawn wagon or over the marble counters of a pharmacy/soda shop; an era when life was slow enough to be able to take the time to read the dense descriptions printed in old-time font on each label. The tag line: “Shave peacefully Dr. Carver’s.” 

5)    I’ve Got Your Back: The Market for Caring

Some people are just born caregivers. These people crave appreciation and the warmth that goes with knowing that they’ve helped someone. The TOMS business model I mentioned earlier is the perfect example of a brand that appeals to the Caring market.

Additionally, plenty of family brands exploit the need of new parents to feel like they’re giving their children the best possible things for their health and well-being. Check out this spot by Target pluggingPlum Organics baby food. Not only is it appealing to the desire to provide our children with the perfect nutritional components, but it’s also touching the do-gooder nerve: us mamas want to make sure the world is a better place for our kids.

Chief Dad Neil Grimmer chats about why we're so proud to be a part of Target's Made to Matter collection of 16 better-for-you brands - and why Plum believes in the very best food from the very first bite.

People who want to feel cared for also live in this Caring world. One of the timeless tag lines of the twentieth century is “Calgon! Take me away!” from the TV commercials featuring a familiar story that plays out in every household in America: a harried mother gets pulled in 500 different directions by the demands of her family. Her desperate plea for escape touches a universal truth about all caregivers: we give and we give, but who will care for us? Calgon will.

http://internetlurker.blogspot.com/ If you have information about this video like voices or actors please leave a comment. Help document for the great archive.Also if you have a story about this video please share it. Thank you.

6)    This I Believe: The Market for Convictions

The Millennial generation grew up with 9/11 as a defining moment of their childhood. They're more politically aware than previous generations—even the Baby Boomers. The growth of social networks such as Twitter allows peers to share news from around the world at the speed of light, which means stories of conflict, oppression and inequality pop up in our feeds every minute.

In response to the pervasiveness of injustice in our world, people create hashtags that inspire social movements, and the people who adopt the hashtags become part of the story. People begin to identify themselves by the causes that they are champions for. They want to feel a sense of justice and awareness. They want to see change happen in the world and are more likely to gravitate to brands that support their causes. 

Does this mean it would be a wise move for a consumer brand to exploit the hashtags of social movements to market to Millenials? 

Noooooo. Don't do it. Just don't.  So disrespectful. These are, for the most part, life and death issues. Unless your brand's mission is tied to making social impact, just do the world a favor and don't go there. 

Consciencous consumers, by nature (and many may argue with good reason), have a major disdain for the traditional mechanisms of capitalism, such as mass production for mass consumption and the creation of scarcity to increase demand.  To a socially conscious person, these fundamentals of capitalism are the key contributors of poverty, inequality, and environmental disaster. 

So is it any wonder people with deep convictions are repulsed by blatant  marketing? After all, old-school outbound marketing is chiefly concerned with interruption--  hijacking attention away from issues and onto commercial brands, In the eyes of a social innovator, marketing leads to empty commerce. The best thing you can do to reach people who want to see a change in the world is to actually make a change in the world. 

As an outdoor clothing outfitter, Patagonia could easily create a blog directed to the Adventure market with fast-paced articles from the field written by extreme rock climbers and ultra-light backpackers. Instead, their blog, The Cleanest Line, is a sober discussion of issues concerning environmental stewardship and conservation and their place in the environmental big picture as a manufacturer of goods. The message Patagonia sends to the world is: we care about the impact we’re making on our planet, and you should too.

Which brings me to a final point: determining the market in which you should focus your brand, content creation, and company values doesn’t have to be an “all-or-nothing” decision. Just like the individual audience members Dream Society companies serve, there are overlaps in markets.

Patagonia is again a great example: the company’s products serve the Adventure market, as do many of their print ads, which means that they sell to a broad range of individuals, but they’ve made the decision to position their content in the Conviction market—which means the members of the Patagonia tribe fall into a unique category of environmentalist adventurers—these folks don’t just talk about environmental impact, they are on the front lines.

At least that’s the story they’re telling. Which, in the Dream Society, is the most important thing.

So what’s your emotional market? If you're running a business or a blog, where do you think your audience lives in the Dream Society?

If you'd like a tool to give you a way of defining your audience, feel free to check out the Client Discovery Questionnaire that I ask all of my new copywriting and blogging clients fill out: http://www.wordweaverfreelance.com/client-discovery-form . I created it using Jensen's emotional markets as a foundation. And while you're at it, if you need help with content creation for your business, go ahead: fill one out and submit it and I'll be in touch.

So. 

We're often told that having a great career, a beautiful family, and a cool place to live is the equivalent to "having it all."  But what happens when you have it all, but there's still something missing? This week's guest, Ashley Gartland, discovered that "good enough" sometimes just isn't good enough and found a way to make an okay life a Hell Yes Life. Take it, Ashley!

Admittedly, I had it pretty good. I was working as an established food writer in Portland, Oregon – arguably America’s hottest food city at the time. I had an interesting job, a flexible schedule and a very loose “office” dress code to adhere to. And the perks were pretty good, too. I’d stayed at luxury hotels, hobnobbed with food scene celebrities and gone backstage into the kitchens of Portland’s finest restaurants all thanks to my media credentials.

And yet, about six years into my food writing career, the glamour started to fade. It was around that time I had a little girl and started feeling like my work as a writer paled in comparison to my role as her mother. I’d had doubts about my career before having Addie but they were nowhere near as strong or as magnified as they became during that hazy postpartum period.

But anyone who’s been a new parent knows those postpartum months feel like a lousy time to make a leap. I was so busy keeping up with the baby and my writing gigs that it never seemed like a good time to explore a new career. So I kept punching the clock. I told myself I was placing too much importance on my career (the old it’s just a job argument) and that I should start acting grateful for what I had.

I didn’t think my family deserved to deal with the risk that was inherent in any job change. So I settled, reasoning that I’d have time to consider other paths someday down the road.

Treading Water

The problem was I didn’t really believe the stories I was spinning in my head. And I didn’t like the fact that someday didn’t have a real date attached to it. The truth was I wanted to have passion for my career again. I wanted to feel like I was serving some purpose beyond highlighting the latest restaurant trends or profiling a popular chef. I wanted to do something important to help people and, for me, food writing wasn’t it.

Every time I sat down to work, I fought back from yelling “is this all there is?”

That went on for 3 years. Yes, 3 years. (Again as a mom, I believed my family needed stability. If food writing provided that, who was I to argue?) So, I wrote copy for a new email newsletter. I penned a cocktail column that provided plenty of supplies for our home bar. I worked on a cookbook that should have been my dream project. The job still had its perks, to be sure, but through it all I felt trapped in a career I no longer wanted.

Second Chances

It was around this time that I popped out another kid. Like her big sister, my daughter Kennedy has been a gift in so many ways. But one of the most important things she’s given me is the chance to right the wrongs I made as a first-time mom. And by wrongs I’m not talking about all the “mistakes” I made trying to navigate life as a new parent. I’m talking about the way I treated myself during those early years of Addie’s childhood.

I acted like I was the least important person in our lives.

The biggest mistake I made as a first-time mom was trying to be everything for everyone except myself. I was self-sacrificing to a fault and ignored my needs and wants because I was so wedded to the idea that it wasn’t my time. And by constantly feeding myself that line, I was all but ensuring that my time would never come.

That scared me shitless. I saw my future unfolding in front of me and I didn’t like how it looked. I pictured a middle aged version of me who was still waiting for her time to come. She was still stuck in the same unfulfilling career and still neglecting her wants and needs in work, and life. And she’d sacrificed it all to provide for her family without realizing that the most important thing she could do for them is take care of herself.

Finding My Path

I wish I could say that was my “aha moment” – that I pictured a future I didn’t like, immediately quit my writing gigs and found my true calling. But the reality is that it took me many months to shed my identity as a food writer and decide what I wanted to do next.

Though I knew I needed to take action, I struggled to find the time. And when I did carve out an hour or two, I was consumed with guilt for taking time away from my family to figure out my life. But I also wanted to believe that taking care of me – including finding time and ways to pursue my dreams now, not later – was essential to my happiness and my family’s happiness as well. So I sought help from my friends and family, started working with a life coach and fought like hell to change my mindset so I could start making space for me in my life.

The ironic thing is that my greatest struggle as a mom has become my greatest gift. Eventually, I started looking into new careers and decided that I wanted to become a life coach. When it came time to define who I wanted to work with, I didn’t hesitate for one minute. My calling is working with new moms so they can find ways to be great parents and individuals too.

My tribe was waiting for me – I just had to find them.

Ashley Gartland is a life and wellness coach who works with new moms to find ways to be a great mom without losing themselves. She works with clients to navigate the pressures of being a modern day supermom and learn to give more to themselves so they can realize their dreams, desires and needs now. If you’re a mom who wants to learn more about her work or sign up for a free introductory coaching call, visit www.ashleymgartland.com. 

(All photos by Hazel & Pine: www.hazelandpine.com)

Do you have a personal story of a life challenge you overcame to start a new career? Please submit your story to The Yarn. Here are the submission guidelines.

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I hope it's not a symptom of mania. This weekend, I had this...creative urge to make something pretty. To make something new. To make something that's purely me. So I ditched my original blog idea and ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep while I dove into a new copywriting project that I'm really, REALLY excited about. 

Typically, these creative urges come with a hefty price-tag because I'll end up  re-doing my wardrobe or re-decorating my home. It's terribly inconvenient when the impulses happen when I'm broke. 

This was one of those terribly inconvenient times.

However, my creative spirit seemed to understand my financial straits because she reminded me that I had a spare Squarespace account that I had already paid for...what if I did something with it? You know...just to fool around. 

But..my Yarn post. I needed to work on it and get it published by Monday.

Oh, that's right (the spirit took a moment to drum her fingers pensively upon my frontal lobe). Well, what if your Yarn post is about working on this hypothetical new website?

What if...Ooo! What if this website will help you target that tribe that you've been trying to define in your previous posts? 

As someone who works in a creative field, it's my job to take heed when a creative spirit chooses to advise me. Her plan was sound. 

So, I came up with www.mommybloggerforhire.com.

It's a specialty site for female entrepreneurs in parenting/baby/children's/maternity product and services industries who need fresh blog posts written from a mom's point of view. It's a niche that I'd love to pursue since I have so much to say on the subject of motherhood and all the issues facing modern moms. That isn't to say I want to pursue the niche to the exclusion of my freelance copywriting services for marketing professionals and SME businesses; Mommy Blogger for Hire is one brand of my overall freelance business. 

My little sprite wasn't through with me, apparently, because as I was putting the finishing touches on the About page for Mommy Blogger for Hire, a little whisper said:

"You need a blog to go with that site, you know.

A mommy blog.

But not just any mommy blog.

A mommy blog about stuff that you're genuinely curious about. A mommy blog about discovering awesome moms throughout history that can act as role models to modern mamas.

A blog about bad-ass mothers."

Thus Bad-Ass Motherblogger was born.

That's right.

Bad. Ass. Mother. Blogger.

I love it so much, you guys. I don't care if I get a quadrillion readers or a trickle of a couple dozen (okay, I care a little bit); I get to write Bad-ass motherblogging posts about the history of motherhood. 

so am i insane or inspired?

I know I'm not alone in getting caught up in a wave of creativity, nor am I the only one to anthropomorphize the source of ideas that sometimes flood me: one of my favorite songwriters, Tori Amos, famously thanks "the faeries" in most of her album acknowledgements. Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert gave a TED Talk on the origins of genius and how the ancients believed that a genius was a kind of  guiding house spirit that acted as a steward for ideas (kind of like a "Dobby the House Elf of Innovation".) If you'd like to see the Gilbert's TED Talk, you can watch it in its entirety on my previous post on creativity.

Also, the very origin of the word "inspiration"  has the connotation that ideas spring from an external source: according to the Online Etymology Dictionary (one of my favorite sources of word geekery), the word comes from:

c. 1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from Old French inspiracion "inhaling, breathing in; inspiration," from Late Latin inspirationem (nominative inspiratio), noun of action from past participle stem of Latin inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in- "in" (see in- (2)) +spirare "to breathe" (see spirit). Literal sense "act of inhaling" attested in English from 1560s. Meaning "one who inspires others" is attested by 1867.

Throughout history, however, creativity has often been associated with madness.  The "mad genius" archetype exists in literature for a reason. Father of mathematics Pythagoras, for example, not only came up with the quadratic equation, he also founded his own religion in which the consumption of beans, the use of highways, and stepping over crossbars were forbidden. By most accounts, Winston Churchill suffered from bipolar disorder and was at his most prolific when he was in a hypomanic period. He penned 43 books on political discourse and countless correspondences.  

Since I have a family history of depression (and my own mental illness inspired me to follow my passion for writing), maybe these surges of creativity that seize me and won't let me go until I act upon them are a symptom of hypomania., after all. But considering the rich legacy that artistic and scientific maniacs throughout time have given the world,  I'm going to choose to breathe in and embrace my mania...or my House Elf...or whatever it is...and see where it takes me.

And while I really love those moments when I'm visited by the Frenzied Spirit of Creativity, I have to say, I'm glad she doesn't stay for long. Because while she loves a good idea, that chick sure hates sleep.

I'm going to bed now.

Were these good ideas or am I having some sort of manic episode? Diagnose me at @WordWeaverFree or post to my Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/wordweaverfreelance

I’m going to be perfectly honest with you: I’m still trying to fit into my professional tribe as a copywriter. That’s why I’ve been having such a hard time writing this post.

My plan was to write at least 1500 words using the little corner of Neil Gaiman fandom to which I belong as an example of the relationship between finding one’s niche and using that niche to serve a community that shares an interest (aka a digital tribe)-- and I actually did write that post---but then I realized something:

The majority of you probably don’t care.

I mean, yes, in the previous post I discussed how Gaiman was able to find his professional niche by identifying his talents (comic book writing), discovering his passions (folklore, mythology, and horror), and offering it to the world in a way that only he can (genre-defying graphic novels). But what do you care that he gained a huge fandom and his brand was strong enough for him to seamlessly change his platform from writing horror comics to writing children’s books?  Why should you invest any consideration to the fact that he gained even more popularity and acclaim as his original goth-geek teen fans grew into book-buying parents and a new generation of fans was spawned? What do you care that he is regarded, along with Joss Whedon, Wil Wheaton, and Felicia Day as a Voice of Geekdom?

I mean, how is that pertinent to you as an entrepreneur or a marketer?

Ok, I’ll tell you why: in order to be successful in your niche, you need to find an audience that will embrace you and evolve as a community to support and encourage you in your work. That group of people, according to The Godfather of Tribal Marketing (aka Seth Godin), is called a digital tribe.

And the way you find your tribe is to follow your passions and to be true to yourself.

But like I said, I’m still trying to fit into a tribe as a copywriter. So all I have to offer today is how I'm still looking for my tribe, and what mistakes I’ve made as I’ve struggled to fit in.

Where My People At?

Social media is a natural gathering place for digital tribes, as are discussion forums. As I’ve begun my quest to find a tribe for my niche (No-B.S. copywriting and blogging with a focus on business storytelling), I’ve done some digging around Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus. Turns out, there’s a group for everything these days.

I even discovered a group of fans of the Longest Shortest Time podcast who are also moms and entrepreneurs. Bingo, right? Bring on the assignments!

Not right. At least, not yet.

Tribal Initiation Rites

One thing I’m learning is that if you want to get accepted in an online group, the worst thing you can do at the start is promote yourself. There are tons of people bursting on the scene shouting “Visit my website!” “Subcribe to my blog!” “Read this post!” Heck, I’ve been guilty of it as well.

No, the best thing you can do when you first join any community—be it online or in meat-space—is watch and listen. Learn the ways of the tribe. Listen to their stories. Watch their interactions. And sometimes, ask for help.

People love to help, especially when someone is new to a community. It makes them feel important and, well, good. In my family’s religion, an opportunity to help others is a blessing--a mitzvah. So the first contribution you can make to a tribe is not your service or product or blog post but a request for others to be of service to you.

For example, when I joined the Longest Shortest Time Entrepreneur and Freelancer group, I started out by posting links to my blog posts (“Hey you guys! I’m here! Lookatme!”), and was mostly ignored. Then  I allowed myself to be vulnerable (there’s that word again…it’s such a good word…). I confessed that I was having difficulty finding a balance between giving my kids the attention they need and giving my business the attention it needs.  The other members opened up and shared their own difficulties, offered advice, and daydreamed about having a co-working space where moms could have their kids play happily while they worked nearby.

Well, it turned out that one of the members is in the process of developing such a co-working/childcare space in the Denver area, called The Coterie. She shared the website with us and got free publicity out of it. She had a mitzvah.

And eventually, when she opens her shared workspace and needs someone to write the copy for her website, guess what tribe member plans to pitch her some landing page and blog ideas?

Just saying.

Once You’ve Joined a Tribe, Find a Role

Everyone has a contribution to make to their community. I found this fantastic infographic on the roles within a tribe from Tribaling:

I recommend bookmarking this link to Tribaling’s Tribal Marketing Playbook. It has beautifully designed infographics and a clear, simple message on the importance of tribes to one’s marketing plan.

See that? I was being a Chum for the Tribal Marketing Tribe.

Once you find a role to play in your tribe, does that role remain static? Heck, no. Our identities within our tribes transform as many times as they can in our lives. Through making connections and contributions, we can go from entry-level cubicle drones to being our own bosses, from free-wheeling singles to sleep-deprived parents.

For example, because I had a lot of compassionate advice to offer some of the younger women on the Gaiman board, I went from a newbie community member to becoming a Board Goddess (seriously: I had a cult of Alaurians. I highly recommend having a cult. It does wonders for one’s self-esteem).

Don’t Exploit Your Tribe

Do you remember like, every 80's movie ever  where the popular guy is dared to take the unpopular  girl ( usually played by Molly Ringwald) out on a date and falls in love with her, but before he can tell her she finds out about the dare and dumps him? Meanwhile, Duckie is there just loving Molly Ringwald for who she is?

Don’t be the popular guy on the dare. Be Duckie. ALWAYS be Duckie.

If you join a tribe, do it because you feel a genuine connection to its members and can’t help but want to be a part of what is happening in that group. If you join it at first as a superficial marketing opportunity, the members will figure it out and it will be really hard to gain their trust.

If you made the same mistake that I did and self-promoted before getting to know the group, do yourself and your tribe a favor and just back off a little bit. Give them some space. Then just…be yourself. Marisa Murgatroyd, in her video about Niche vs. Tribe, says when we make choices that are congruent with who we are and what we can get behind, we’ll draw people around us. No self-promotion necessary--at least, not much: people will see and like what you do because, frankly, they like *you.*

Still Geeky After All These Years

As a postscript, I should let you know that the members of the Neil Gaiman Message Board, who call themselves the Worlds Enders (or WE-ers) after the discussion forum we frequented the most, have remained in contact for going-on 15 years. We experienced historic world events (9/11, the 2008 election, the Arab Spring) together. We intermarried and created geeklings of our own. We’ve attended each others’ weddings and memorial services. We mostly stay in touch via Facebook, but the board is still active, just not as much as its hey-day.

All the while, we dropped in at every Neil Gaiman reading or signing bearing a red balloon: our House sigil (to borrow from George RR Martin, another Voice of the Geek World). We bought every book Gaiman put out and donated to the causes that Neil endorsed.  The love and acceptance we've experienced together is All Because of Neil, and we want to show him our support and appreciation.

My goal here isn’t to be another Neil Gaiman; it’s to be Alaura Weaver and to find a community that I can serve and give voice to with my writing so that they will support me as I grow in my career. Here’s hoping you can find a tribe like that, or inspire others to form a tribe devoted to your work.

By the way, if you haven't seen this, you should. It's Seth Godin's TED Talk on tribes; considered tribal marketing canon.

I'd love to hear if you've found your tribe yet, and if so, how and where you found it. Hit me up on my Facebook Page, Tweet me, or reach out to me by leaving a comment below. 

Over generations, this tribe has evolved its own symbols, initiation rites, tribal elders, even sacred texts. The texts are central to our community because this tribe revolves around the works of a storyteller. 

You might have heard of him. His name is Neil Gaiman.

If you haven’t heard of Neil, it’s probably because you aren’t much of a reader or a geek. That’s okay; you don’t have to be a book-worm or a fanboy/girl to appreciate his story, or rather our story because over the next few posts…

…I’m going to tell you the story of my people.

Actually, I’m going to tell you the story of how Neil Gaiman found his niche and thus found his tribe, of which I am a proud, red balloon-carrying member.

 I’m going to give you some ideas on how you can find your own niche and create a tribe, too; and you don’t even have to top the New York Times bestseller list or win the Newbery Medal to do so.

We Are The Knights Who Say "Niche"

First of all, full disclosure: my career as a freelance writer is still in it’s infancy. I’m still getting to know myself as a writer and I’m carefully nurturing my business like a newborn infant, even down to the sleepless nights (she says as she blearily puts the finishing touches on this post at 2:00 am). 

Which means I’m in the process of carving out my own niche. Part of the purpose of this post (and, frankly, of most of my posts) is to help me further define myself as a writer and entrepreneur. 

So let’s figure this out together, shall we?

Let’s take a look at the word “niche”: I float between pronouncing it “neesh” and “nitch,” depending on which side of the Mason Dixon line I rolled out of in the morning. Quite simply, it’s the French word for “that little recessed shelf people put tchotchkes on.” 

Huh. I personally think the world of business would be a brighter place if we could replace the term “niche market” with the term “tchotchke-shelf market.”

 Anyway. 

The Three Rules of Niche-dom

I found an incredibly helpful video by Marisa Murgatroyd of Live Your Message; she's a branding coach and downright brilliant and passionate person. A lot of what I’m going to discuss over the next couple posts will be based on what she had to say, so please take about 40 minutes to watch Marisa break down “niching.” (Ok, I’m squirming at the use of "niche" as a gerund, so we’ll just pretend that we never saw that and move on.)

Tad Hargrave interviews Marisa Murgatroyd about niching. (Visit us at http://www.liveyourmessage.com/niche-vs-tribe-how-to-get-known-and-get-paid-for-who-you-are to download the transcripts and mp3 audio files!)

Murgatroyd says that in order to have a niche, you have to have the following things:

1) Something people want and are willing to pay for.
    
Using our friend Neil Gaiman as an example: back in the late 1980’s, Neil had just ended a career in journalism and happened to have a talent for  “taking a voice that already existed and parodying or pastiching it." This skill was quite handy for writing comic books, since comics writers have to sometimes pick up where their predecessors left off in a series. It took a deft hand to create a seamless transition while gradually adding their own voice and point of view to the comics universe they help create.
 
2) A passion so deep for what you do that you could do it every day for the rest of your life.

In this instance, Neil and I have the same passion (which is why I know we belong to the same tribe): a worship of stories and language. Comic books provided a laboratory for Gaiman to experiment with the form of storytelling. He could break down a story moment by moment, play with perspective and time, delve into character back-stories, retell myths and fairy tales, and all with deadlines looming overhead. As a self described “feral child who was raised in libraries,” storytelling is in this man’s blood. 

3) Something no one can do the way you can or better than you can.

Gaiman happened to appear on the comic book scene at a moment when bright little superhero fans of the eighties were growing up into moody teenage comic book fans of the nineties. These were the high school outcasts who listened to The Cure and Souxie and the Banshees and were desperate to find characters in pop culture to relate to. They were looking for a place to fit in.(If this sounds familiar, welcome, fellow tribesman.)
  
Neil Gaiman’s quirky, dark, horror-fueled narrative style was exactly what those kids were looking for. He was at the epicenter of a shift from sophomoric superhero antics to deep explorations of the psyche and the archetypes behind superhero myths. He took a Jack Kirby character from DC Comic vaults, The Sandman, and re-imagined the superhero as a living personification of Dreams: Morpheus, who wore all black and looked like a cross between David Bowie and Robert Smith of The Cure. 

Gaiman nailed it. For all eight years of Sandman’s run, he not only found his niche, he made something that has yet to be imitated: a graphic novel series that transcended gender, age, and appreciation for the comic book form.

Finding What Isn't Your Niche

Okay. You might be thinking that Gaiman had a combo of talent, connections, and “right place-right time” that only a tiny percentage of people get a chance to have in this fragmented world of ours. And you would be correct. But he also has something that we all have, or should develop: a strong sense of who he is, what he loves,  and what he wants to put out into the world.

Take a moment to think about where you are in your career: do you feel like you’ve found your place in the world? If not, what’s keeping you in the uncomfortable spot you’re in?  Money? Obligation to the years you spent training? Fear of the unknown? 

I love the three rules of niche-dom because they force people to really examine their career and be honest with themselves about how content they are. Yes, money matters. Yes, education matters. Yes, stability matters. But at some point you have to ask: at what cost? 

At one point in my pre-writing career, I was an advertising sales rep for a phone book company. I was good at it. I was a top rep for our office. And jeez…the money was good. I could have had a thriving career if I wanted one. I tried so damned hard to convince myself that I could be happy making a career out advertising sales. 

But it was all lies…lies! 

The thought of showing up every day and convincing business owners that my (increasingly obsolete) product could change their lives just filled me with dread. Yes, I had a talent for sales, but my passion wasn’t there.

Not my niche.

I was also an actress since the age of five.  I spent years performing in productions and took out thousands of dollars in student loans to fund my training. I loved doing theatre and by most accounts I was a pretty entertaining performer. If I had been able to make a career out of it, I could have conceivably done it for the rest of my life.  

But did I have something that no one else had? Was I better than most at what I did? Nope. I had fun, but I had to face the facts: acting was not my niche.

A Niche is a Haven

Fast-forward a few years and a couple babies later: my fingers *itch* to tap away at my keyboard every morning. My very patient and supportive (not to mention incredibly handsome) husband has to beg me to tear myself away from reading up on content marketing and business storytelling and writing blogs and for God’s sake, woman, get to bed.

I may be at the first twinkling of my career, but I see building my freelance writing business as a defining moment: this was what I was born to do, I just never knew it until now. 

As I gain more feedback from clients and readers, I’m discovering that my particular take on digital content (”stop marketing to consumers and start telling stories to people”) is fairly unique and well-timed: the market is crying out for copywriting storytellers because digital audiences are more responsive to emotional marketing (more about that later). 

So here I sit happily in my tchotchke-shelf. 

Where My People At?

Although I’m still figuring things out, there’s something I’m learning with each blog post I publish: the more you embrace who you are, the more focused and vivid your presence will be, and the easier it will be for your fellow tribesmen to find you.

My new friend Marisa Murgatroyd (she doesn't know it yet, but she totally is) also has this piece of wisdom to bestow: “Niche” is the doorway to “tribe.” 

Scratch Your Niche

I’m going to stop here in Niche-world and continue on to Tribe-land next week. For now, just take a few minutes to consider the following questions:

1) What do you have that people want and are willing to pay for? (Oh, get your mind out of the gutter…)
2) What comes so naturally to you that it’s simply a part of who you are?
3) What do you have such a passion for that you could never tire of it?
4) What is something that you can do better than most people? 
5) What makes you unique from most people?

6) What is it that you bring to the world?

Here’s a tip: don’t over-think this. If you don’t know the answers to these things, it’s okay: ask a friend or loved one what they think. You may just discover something new about yourself. 

If you’ve found your niche and would like to share how you discovered it, please leave a comment, twitter a tweet at @WordWeaverFree, or drop by and say “hi” on my Facebook Page.

“Smug, greedy well-fed white people have invented a language that’s intended to conceal their sins,” he said.

Oh, alright. I just have to get this out of my system before we go any further (skip this video if you don't have 7 minutes to spare):

Man, he was good.

Moving on…

Why Does Jargon Even Exist?

According to Merriam-Webster, jargon is:

a :  confused unintelligible language

b :  a strange, outlandish, or barbarous language or dialect

c :  a hybrid language or dialect simplified in vocabulary and grammar and used for communication between peoples of different speech

2:  the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group

3:  obscure and often pretentious language marked by circumlocutions and long words

So the only practical use of jargon is as specialized vocabulary between professionals in highly-trained fields such as medicine or technology. That makes sense, but in terms of business storytelling, jargon in no way inspires human connections between customers and organizations or brands. 

We’re all guilty of using buzzwords from time to time.

Before we go any further, look: I know. I know that we’ve all at some point used one or two or all of the words I’m going to dissect below, and I swear I’m not judging you. You aren’t a bad person for falling under the heady spell of marketing buzz-language.

Using buzzwords and jargon is the same thing as wanting to fit in with the popular clique in high school, despite the fact that they were actually vacuous douches who were experiencing the best years of their lives and had nowhere to go but down from there.  

It’s irresistible. No one’s a bad person for wanting to fit in.

But we can do better. We owe our audience more than generic doublespeak we’ve picked up from the marketing hive-mind. We owe them our genuine, vulnerable, passionate, individual voices.  

Jargon is a trust-killer.

The first step in creating an audience relationship is to gain trust. Connection, confidence, and transparency are what trust is built upon.

Jargon undermines all of this. By using slick, buzzword-laden language, companies risk alienating the clients they seek. It makes people feel confused, suspicious, and left out.

For the most part, especially in business storytelling, jargon needs to die, die, die.

And also be killed. 

Buzzwords are jargon with beards, ironic t-shirts, and skinny jeans.

Is there a difference between buzzwords and jargon? Nah. Buzzwords are just trendy marketing terms adopted into business vernacular that eventually become good old-fashioned corporate B.S.

The use of buzzwords, unfortunately, is endemic in the world of digital copywriting. I can’t begin to count the times in the past week I’ve seen the term “thought leader” in my Twitter feed--as a self-description in one’s profile.

It’s the same thing as if I introduced myself like this: “Congratulations: you are in the presence of a content writing guru. Go ahead and shed your worldly goods, ‘subscribe’ to my ‘blog’ (translation: join my cult), and prepare to be Enlightened. You’re welcome.”

Really inspires trust, doesn’t it? Don’t you feel like you’ve gotten to know the kind of person I am?

(But seriously, subscribe to my blog because it’s the cool thing to do. No worldly-good-shedding required.)

Copywriting gobbledygook

Ok, so I was out of the corporate world for a few years while I stayed at home to raise my boys. Maybe I missed the “We’re All Corporate Cyborgs Now” conference. But honestly, guys: what happened to just saying what you mean?

I recently took on a blogging project for a client who works in the technology industry. I researched some websites and as I scanned a tech company landing page, my eyes started to glaze, then cross, then bleed, then I ripped both eyeballs out and I apologized to them and promised I had done the right thing for putting them out of their misery.

At least that’s what happened in my head.

What happened in reality is I read this:

“…is your complete solution provider for turnkey [removed for anonymity] solutions.”

And then I read this:

“…helps internal stakeholders develop [redacted] management solutions to manage [censored] while also improving their operational efficiencies and reducing risk. We work with clients to pinpoint the ideal technological, data-based solution that is then customized to meet their [bleep] for optimal engagement.”

Now, I realize I removed some identifying nouns to protect the innocent, but…

Does anyone have a freaking clue as to what this company does?

Anyone?

…Anyone?

I didn’t think so.

The Obligatory List of Bullsh*t Buzzwords

I’ve been reluctant to make a list of clichéd vocabulary for this post; after all, the “listicle” blog post format has become a cliché unto itself.

But I’m feeling pretty meta, so here we go:

(Note: some of these terms are legitimate when used as they were originally intended, i.e. “growth hacker” as coined by Sean Ellis, but have become over-used and often misinterpreted.)

Actionable

B.S. usage: We’ve created a list of actionable concepts for growth hacking.

Silly usage: Our home-distilled absinthe is an intoxicating and actionable alternative to grain alcohol.

No-B.S. alternative: Practical, applicable, ready-to-use, easily implemented.

Agnostic (in anything other than religion or IT)

             B.S. usage: Our current advertising budget is media-agnostic.

             Silly usage: Switzerland was an ally-agnostic nation in World War II.

             No-B.S. alternative: Compatible, equal opportunity, unbiased, neutral.

Trivial side-note: Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, grandfather of Brave New World author Aldous Huxley, created the term “agnostic” to describe his doubt of the existence of God and his willingness to reserve conclusion until verifiable evidence one way or the other is presented. It’s a remarkable coincidence the word is now part of the techno-babble of our brave new world.

Bandwidth (again, in anything other than IT)

                B.S. usage: Do you have the bandwidth to implement this inbound marketing campaign?

                Silly usage: These jeans lack the bandwidth to contain my substantial booty.

                No-B.S. alternative: Time, availability, space in schedule, room, capacity.

Big Data

                B.S. usage: We provide the analytics to manage your firm’s big data.

Silly usage: Yo mama’s android’s positronic brain has so much memory, she calls him Lieutenant Commander Big Data. 

No-B.S. alternative: (Unless you’re Google or Facebook, the chances of your firm actually having terabytes of data to analyze are minimal) Information, data sets, marketing feedback.

Buzzword

                B.S. usage: We’re the next big buzzword in social.

                Silly usage: “Buzzword” is the latest buzzword in buzzwords.

                No-B.S. alternative: trend, fashion, innovative idea, jargon

Bootstrap (as a verb)

                B.S. usage: We bootstrapped our way from startup to success.

Silly usage: My pappy bootstrapped his way up yonder mountain in 10 feet of snow with no straps on his boots.

                No-B.S. alternative: worked, earned, struggled, was resourceful,

Core Competencies

B.S. usage: Our core competencies are exceptional client-centric deliverables and disruptive innovation.

Silly usage: See above.

No-B.S. alternative: Competitive edge, unique strengths, distinguishing factors

“-centric”

                B.S. usage: We pride ourselves in our user-centric solutions.

Silly usage: I don’t want to sound self-centric, but I wish my husband would be more wife-centric and less football-centric.

                No-B.S. alternative: Centered, focused, supportive.

Deliverables

                B.S. usage: Our external stakeholders demand deliverables immediately upon completion.

Silly usage: Your deliverables are free if they aren’t hot, fresh, and at your door in 30 minutes or less.

No-B.S. alternative: Product, result, report, goods

Disruptive

                B.S. usage: The viral social media approach is so bleeding-edge it’s disruptive.

Silly usage: The aglet was the most disruptive invention in the shoelace space.

No-B.S. alternative: Innovative, ground-breaking, revolutionary, radical

Drill-down (in anything other than IT)

                B.S. usage: Let’s get together and drill-down the issues with this client.

Silly usage: I need to have a serious drill-down on where that smell is coming from.

No-B.S. alternative: Discuss, investigate, explore, hash out.

Evangelist/Evangelize

                B.S. usage: Our unpaid intern is the social media evangelist for our blog.

Silly usage: There’s nothing more exciting than getting cornered by a CrossFit evangelist at a party.

No-B.S. alternative: Promote, market, sell, recommend

Growth Hacking/Hacker

B.S. usage: Here are some growth-hacking tips for your Fortune 500 corporation’s Facebook page.

Silly usage: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce were the original growth hackers.

                No-B.S.: Social media marketing, search engine optimization, online marketing.

Hack

                B.S. usage: Here are some simple hacks to get the most out of your e-mail marketing.

Silly usage: My Bubbe gave me some great hacks for making matzoh-ball soup.

                No-B.S. alternative: Shortcuts, tips, advice, ideas

Ideate

                B.S. usage: We’re having a strategy meeting to ideate blog topics.

Silly usage: Archemides ideated the law of displacement in his bathtub.

                No-B.S. alternative: Brainstorm, dream up, think of, imagine, conceive

Leverage

                B.S. usage: Increased customer satisfaction will help brands leverage testimonials.

                Silly usage: Preschoolers use tantrums to leverage more TV time out of their exhausted

parents.

                No-B.S. : gain, create, manipulate, exploit, utilize, use, position, take advantage

Synergy

B.S. usage: The merger created a disruptive synergy of channel-agnostic, user-centric ideation that leveraged more bandwidth for growth-hacking.

                Silly usage: The skort is an example of skirt-short synergy.

No-B.S. alternative: Combination, collaboration, cooperation, interaction.

Solution

                B.S. usage: We’re your complete provider of actionable customer engagement solutions.

                Silly usage: Starbucks provides caffeine-deficiency solutions.

                No-B.S. alternative:  Tools, products, software, processes, technologies.

Turnkey

                B.S usage: The turnkey software solution can be integrated with any OS-agnostic system.

                Silly usage: The public library is a turnkey information solution.

                No-B.S. alternative:  Comprehensive, ready-to-use, complete

Thought Leader

                B.S. usage: We regard ourselves as a thought leader in the growth hacking space.

                Silly usage: My Uncle Ernie is a thought leader in the Fox News comment section.

                No-B.S. alternatives: Expert, authority, influencer, advisor, mentor

Unicorn

                B.S. usage: Here are some hacks for making your startup a unicorn

Silly usage: If I win big in Vegas, I’ll be on my way to becoming a self-made unicorn!

                No-B.S.: $1-billion startup. Guess what “decacorn” means. No, really. “Decacorn.”

Newspeak vs. You-speak

I remember reading Orwell’s 1984 as a middle-schooler. I was chilled by the notion of Newspeak, the abbreviated language invented by the totalitarian state of Oceana that suppressed revolutionary thoughts such as freedom, individuality, and truth. It was the first time I realized the act of thinking isn’t just an internal process. Thought is external, too; the language we are taught shapes the way we perceive the world.

If you pay attention not only to what people say, but also to how they say it, so many things can be revealed about who they are: what they believe in, how they want the world to see them, even what scares them about the world. It’s what I love about language; there’s so much that can be said with a single, carefully chosen word.

So the next time you’re writing an article, e-mail, blog post, or tweet, (or you’re having content written for you), ask yourself:

·         Is this written like I’m talking to my mom/best friend/sibling?

·         Is this word essential to the story I want to tell?

·         Is this how the voice in my head sounds?

·         Will my audience need a definition for this word?

·         Does this sound natural when read aloud?

·         Is this written at around an eighth-grade level? 

·         Is there any reason using a buzzword instead of saying what I really mean will win the trust of my audience?

When you avoid the use of jargon, you let your voice and your story shine through. So let’s all make a promise to ourselves and our audience: from now on, no more B.S. Let’s start using revelatory language that creates lasting emotional connections.

In other words, let’s implement an actionable content solution that will leverage synergistic deliverables.

Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

On that note, take it, Weird Al!

Do you have any bullsh*t buzzwords to add to the List of Cliches? Feel free to post a message to my Facebook Page , tweet at me, or leave a comment. 

“I could never do what you do; I’m not creative enough.”

At the risk of making my job as a freelance copywriter sound unnecessary, I deeply disagree with this statement. Creativity isn’t a superpower granted by the Gods of Inspiration unto a select few.

Creativity is a tool. With practice and discipline, anyone can use it.

Does what I do require creativity? Yes. Do I have more creativity than the average person? No. What I have that many people have lost over time is an ability to access my creativity, focus it, and then unleash it upon a writing assignment. What I also have is:

a)      time to devote to writing, and

b)      confidence in my writing skills.

That’s my unique selling proposition: I save time and I act as a proxy for people who aren’t in touch with their own creativity. 

So what can you do to regain access to your long-forgotten font of creativity? Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1)      When was I at my most creative?

According to a recent study, famous painters over the past 200 years appear to have created their greatest works, on average, around the age of 42. If you’re under 40, there’s hope that your best work has yet to come. If you’re over 42, bear in mind that the age is just an average; Francisco Goya and Henri Matisse both sold their most expensive works in their 70’s.

However, the practitioners of fine and performing arts have social permission to experiment and innovate in ways that would prove impractical with some other professions. An insurance adjuster just doesn’t get the chance to improvise with numbers the way that a jazz musician does with sound.

Chances are, unless you’re in a creative career, the time when you were most encouraged to take risks, improvise and explore was in your childhood.  That's the time of life when most people not only have permission to create their own imaginary worlds, solve puzzles, and draw pictures, they're also encouraged to do so.

Researchers now understand the relationship between play, life-long learning, and innovation. Play-based and game-based learning is now, with STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics—another approach designed to increase innovation), one of the biggest buzz-words in education.

So what does that tell you? When it comes to creativity, the more child-like you are the better.

2)      What did I love to do as a kid?

I’ll tell you what I loved to do: write stories (duh), act out Greek myths with my toys (you’ve never truly experienced the story of Psyche and Cupid until you’ve seen it acted out by Barbie and Ken), and sing my heart out to my mother’s vast Broadway musical cast album collection as I imagined the staging behind my eyelids.

I loved to explore the wilds of my backyard, plucking blades of grass and sniffing them—sometimes I struck gold and pulled a wild onion. I loved to draw and experiment with rubbing pencil marks to create shadows.

I liked to pretend I was a radio host; my cassette recorder was a precious object that not only recorded my voice, but also captured staticky musical treasures from the Dr. Demento Show and 99.1 WHFS playing on my boom box radio. I also produced a whole network full of TV programming with my best friend, using her dad’s camcorder and a trunk full of her mom’s old clothes.

Can you imagine if I did these things now?

Can you imagine if you did what you loved as a child now that you’re an adult? How crazy would your life seem to anyone on the outside looking in?

Actually, now that I think of it, that sounds like a life full of joy and wonder. That doesn’t sound bad at all.

3)      How can I do those things as an adult?

Okay, so acting out Greek myths with Barbie dolls may be a little too kooky to get away with at 38. Luckily, I have a few kids, so I can legitimately play with dolls and action figures without seeming totally insane.

But some of the other things; the writing, the recording, the nature exploration; these are things I do almost every day. I never lost touch with those activities, they just evolved with me.

My writing is now in the form of freelance work and blog posts. My love of radio is now an active interest in the world of podcasting (and I’m thinking about starting a podcast of my own as part of this blog; should I? Tell me what you think.). My interest in nature has grown into a love of hiking and backpacking. All of these pursuits continue to inspire in me a sense of wonder that is absolutely essential to accessing creativity.

As an adult, do you have passions that are extensions of your interests as a child? If not, now might be a good time to google a few local meetups and events to get involved in so you can revisit the joy of your youth.

4)      Where can I find wonder?

This is something you can do right now: take 30-60 seconds to pick up and explore a small object closest to you. Really look at it.

 Try to identify all of the colors, explore the texture and weight of the object with your hand. Does the object have a smell or a taste? Allow yourself to experience the object as though you have never seen it before.

That was a mindfulness exercise. Mindfulness may sound new-agey, but the techniques used in mindfulness practice have long been used by artists to unlock creativity.

As an acting student, I remember sitting in a circle with my classmates, peeling and eating an orange while our teacher encouraged us to allow our senses to fully experience the taste, smell, texture and color of the orange. The memory of the exercise still evokes the phantom scent of orange zest in my nostrils.

Did you feel a little bit silly as you were exploring your object in your hand? That’s perfectly normal; as adults, we’ve built up our defenses to the point where we find ourselves apologizing to invisible audiences for strange behavior.

Here’s the thing: creativity requires you to take risks. It requires you to be willing to fail over and over again and to be grateful for the lessons failure has to offer. So, here’s a kind of scary question to ask yourself:

5)      What can I do to fail spectacularly?

When I taught an acting class for a small rural extension campus of Ohio University, I had students who had never set foot in a theater, let alone on a stage. On the first day of class, I always started off by making them do something ridiculous. I had them stand in a circle and told them at the count of three, they were to dance the most ridiculous dance, make the weirdest face, and sing the loudest song they knew.

After they were done, I congratulated them: “You’ll never look as silly as you did just now.”

The relief in the room was palpable. They understood: they had permission to fail. And those kids, who had never performed in public before, found the courage and confidence to perform scenes from Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, and Oscar Wilde in front of their educational community after only two months of Saturday morning classes.

So I’m encouraging you to find something you’ve always wanted to try and give yourself permission to be terrible. It’s not about skill, it’s about confidence. It’s about putting yourself out there and trusting yourself to learn from your mistakes.

6)      How can I best express my creativity?

Now that you’ve awoken your long-dormant creative self, how will you share your inspiration with the world? Will you write a graphic novel about your career at an ad agency? Will you document your work as a hospice nurse through photo-journalism? Are you going to design that marketing app you’ve been wishing for?

It’s up to you. You see, ideas are rarely unique: self expression and innovation is all about the medium through which you communicate your ideas.

All of this to say: you’re absolutely creative enough to do what I do, but more importantly, you’re creative enough to do what you want to do.

You’re creative enough to take a look at your life and decide for yourself if there’s enough wonder in it. You’re creative enough to have the courage to try something new. You’re creative enough to share the insights you’ve learned along the way and inspire others to find wonder in their own lives.

I’d love to hear what has helped you access your own creativity. Feel free to leave a comment or contact me.

PS: If you still need some inspiration, here's a TED Talk to spark your creativity:

I've also had quite a few requests for rates from potential copywriting clients, which tells me that sharing my story and letting the world know what brought me to my profession as a freelance copywriter is an effective marketing tool. By putting myself out there, I've started to build relationships with others who can either relate to me or would like to work with me.

I'll be honest: I was concerned that exposing my history of mental illness would have a negative impact on my professional life. But I felt compelled to share my story, not only because it's a guidepost in my life to make sure others dealing with depression or anxiety know they're not alone, but also because I needed potential clients to understand the depth of my passion for writing.  It was a risk worth taking: those 1200 words have put my career on course and have given my blog a new, more focused direction. 

Now it's your turn.

I want you to have a similar experience of audience connection and career growth through the act of storytelling. If you’ve experienced a personal struggle that changed the course of your professional life, I'd like to share your story. That's why I'm creating a new weekly feature in my blog called Tapestry: a series of personal stories of struggle and growth that, when woven together, create a picture of the human condition.  You can contribute to the series as a guest blogger, or I can write the post on your behalf. It's up to you.

Why should you tell strangers your story?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Alaura,” you may be thinking. “It's all well and good for you to be vulnerable in public, but what could  putting the stuff I've had to overcome out there on the internet possibly do for me or my business?”

Well, plenty.

First of all, if you're still dealing with the fallout of a personal crisis, creating a narrative can help you come to terms with things and move on. On a personal level, this is an opportunity for you to examine where you've been and where you're going. On a spiritual level, this is a way for you to look back at the person you dreamed of being and find appreciation for the person you're becoming. On a social level, this is a way to reassure people who are currently dealing with a similar problem that they’re not alone and that there’s hope.

Second of all, as I've mentioned in almost every blog post I've written, storytelling is good for business. Personal stories, when told right, not only can win sales, they can also win followers.

The Art of Asking

Take rock star Amanda Palmer, for example.

Her masterful TEDTalk on "The Art of Asking" has inspired millions to spread her story of how she went from living day-to-day as a penniless street performer to leading a crowdfunding revolution. What makes her TED Talk work on so many levels was how vulnerable and human she came across: although her presentation is motivational, she doesn't come across as a guru or even as someone who has it all figured out. She's still on her journey, and she makes us want to join her on it.

The Power of Vulnerability

The word “vulnerability” belies weakness.  In fact, it shows a deep sense of personal strength, confidence, and trust in one’s fellow man. When we investigate the origins of the word “vulnerable,” we discover that the Latin root, vulnero means “I wound.”

Words can have power. Words can wound and they can also heal. Making yourself vulnerable by telling your story can expose your audience's vulnerability as well, thus creating a deep connection between storyteller and listener. In another fascinating TED talk, researcher Brene Brown has suggested that vulnerability can increase human connection and inspire empathy and loyalty.

These are all things we want from our business relationships, aren’t they?

So what are you waiting for? It’s time to share the story that's been sitting in your heart, waiting to be told. You’ll be all the better and so will those to whom you tell it.

If you'd like to write a guest post for the Tapestry series, great: just email me a pitch. I'm looking for stories (1000-1200 words) that explore how one's professional and personal identity changes after a struggle with physical or mental illness, addiction, financial setbacks, or the loss of a relationship. If you have a great story to share that doesn't deal with those issues but still exemplifies a personal journey, I'd be willing to consider it as well. In exchange, I’ll make sure you have a byline, bio, and link to your blog.

If you have a powerful story to share but aren't confident in your writing skills or don't have time to write it, no problem: just send me an email and I'll reply with some questions for you to answer. I'll craft your words into a compelling post (with your final approval, of course) with links to your business website.

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]]>Your Story Is In Your Struggle: Submit to The YarnInspirationStorytellingAlaura WeaverWed, 08 Jul 2015 17:04:01 +0000https://www.wordweaverfreelance.com/blog/how-sorrow-set-me-free5571e7dde4b00447c3c2ba1c:55721f66e4b0ce968a7913b9:559d4a88e4b0ff7423bb765eThis is a slight departure from the tone of my previous posts related to business storytelling and copywriting. I’m sharing my personal narrative about my struggle with postpartum depression so you’ll understand led me to my career as a freelance copywriter. I encourage you to examine your own path and what personal factors have influenced you in your career; it can help make your business story all the more unique and can create another avenue for connection with your audience.

I’ve seen Lisa Endlich Heffernan’s confessional essay “9 Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Became a Stay-at-Home Mom” posted in almost every online moms group I belong to. It’s a raw, frank look at the regrets many women experience as they come to terms with the shift from the focused life of an accomplished career woman to the undefined existence of the modern SAHM. Heffernan’s honest account of her bittersweet journey has hit close to home with millions of readers, including me.

One thought in particular caused a pang of recognition: “There is nothing quite as demoralizing as trying to convince your kid that you had once been something, done something. That you had once mattered in some very small way in the larger world.”

I read these words and see myself nine months ago: crumpled on the shower floor sobbing as a deadpan voice in my head repeated “you don’t matter, you don’t matter” like the world’s shittiest mantra. I read these words and feel a sense of sisterhood with this woman, not only because I’ve been in her shoes, but also because her desolate, rueful thoughts are those of someone who, like me, has suffered from a postpartum mood disorder. 

The End of Me

My anxiety and depression had always lurked beneath the surface of my life. As the daughter of an alcoholic/bipolar father, I wasn’t surprised when the symptoms finally emerged after the birth of my first child, but I was in denial.  At first, I dismissed my tearfulness and obsessive thoughts as mere side-effects of the sleep deprivation and hormonal rush that all new moms experience in the weeks immediately after giving birth.

I was a freaking mess: not only was I recovering from a traumatic birth experience that had ended in a C-section, I was also dealing with major breastfeeding issues. I felt cheated of that soft, glowing maternal bliss that I had been promised in all of the birth stories I read during my gestation.

One moment stands out to me from those first days. My best friend had flown in from Germany to meet my son and help out. She arrived at our house while I was upstairs trying to force myself to think happy, maternal thoughts. I carefully descended the stairs; my stitches tugged with every step and my empty breasts were sore from desperate, round-the-clock pumping sessions. I took one look at my BFF standing in the doorway and emitted a deep, mournful howl of sorrow. “Please save me!” I keened. “This sucks so much!”

My Sadness Was Physical

When my husband started work again, I was totally overwhelmed by the demands of my beautiful but spirited infant. Depression lived in my bones. It hurt to hold my child because my arms felt so heavy. Whenever I put him down, he would emit a shriek at such an irritating frequency that my skin felt as though it had been rubbed raw with a wire brush. This was not what I had bargained for.

The Old Me

Before I had my child, I was a colorful, free spirit who loved books, theatre, and all things geek.

Before I had my child, I was always cast as the quirky character role, which I played with exuberance, in experimental theatre pieces, improv comedy, and musicals.

Before I had my child, my husband and I went camping in places like Denali National Park and while we cuddled in our sleeping bags, I would pour words about our adventures into leather-bound journals.

Before I had my child, I had been a top sales rep for a book review service and had represented the company at prestigious events such as the annual American Library Association conference: the Oscars of the book world.

After I had my child, I found myself deeper and deeper in mourning for the death of the person I had been.

My Life as a Work-at-Home Mom, Part 1

The agreement with my office was after my maternity leave was done, I would telecommute for 90 days as part of a pilot program. As long as I met my goals, I would continue to work from home.

I lasted less than two weeks. Every time I picked up the phone to prospect, I froze. Even though he was in the same room, I felt like I was neglecting my baby. I was caught between the pressure of having to meet my numbers and the guilt I felt whenever I placed my son in his baby swing instead of holding him while I worked.

The Guilt Won

I called my boss and told her that I wanted to give my son my undivided attention in his first years. That I hadn’t realized just how all-encompassing being a mother would be. That I was sorry to have wasted company resources and that I didn’t want my experience to prevent anyone else from being able to work from home. She pleaded with me to stay on a part-time basis in a different role, but I refused her offer. With an amicable good-bye and a tap of the “End” button, my sales career was over.

I didn’t realize it then, but that was also when I had fallen deeper into my depression rabbit hole; when I cut off my career, I had also disconnected from my former self. I no longer had an anchor to my identity as the woman I wanted to be. I was fumbling around in the dark for some way to become the mother I thought I should be.

My Life as a Baby Slave

The quirky colorful adventurer had been replaced with a robot programmed to out-mother all of the mothers who had ever mothered. All in the name of giving my son the best start, of course. I hyper-focused upon motherhood as a kind of career and tried to disregard the undertow of the mood disorder that always threatened to pull me under.  I was on a constant balancing act between trying to find joy in my son’s first years and feeling like I was deficient as a mother because I was so unhappy.

Eventually, I sought help from a support group for mothers with PPMD. Finding other mothers who were lost in their own ways was a comfort to me and I felt less alone, but I still wasn’t happy with who I was. While I was able to alleviate some of the symptoms through exercise and a better sleep schedule, I still felt powerless. I still felt like I didn’t matter.

My Second Chance

When I became pregnant with our second child, I put all my energy into finding ways to avoid having post-partum depression and anxiety symptoms again.

I planned for a VBAC (vaginal delivery after cesarean); that didn’t happen.

I joined La Leche League so I could prepare to successfully breastfeed; that didn’t happen.

I even encapsulated my placenta in the hopes that the hormones and nutrients would keep my mood elevated; that didn’t happen.

I slid deeper into the pit. This time the intrusive thoughts became so insidious (“you don’t matter, you don’t matter”) that I knew I needed to make a choice: I could give my children memories of their mother as a miserable, bitter woman who stuffed her soul away in the name of motherhood, or I could kill that bitch and bring back the old me.

The Old Me Won

No, I take that back: the new, improved me won.

After seeking the help of a therapist and getting on the right track with medication, I started wanting things for myself again. I realized that I would never be happy being just a stay-at-home mom, but I being a sales rep or an actress no longer defined who I was, either. 

I needed to be something more. I was something more. I wanted to do something that mattered because I. Fucking. Mattered.

So I started freelance writing and helping businesses connect with their audiences through the power of words.

And I got a tattoo.

My Life as a Work-at-Home Mom, Redux

I now work from home without guilt while my silly, wonderful boys chase each other around the dining room table.

I now take on every writing assignment with the same exuberance I had for those quirky character roles I kept getting cast in.

I now look at my new life with the same sense of adventure I felt when I saw Denali’s peak towering over our campsite the first day of our honeymoon.

And that’s how you see me today: a refugee of stay-at-home motherhood who had to lose her way to find herself.

By the way, my tattoo says “Write Your Own Story.” I’m now doing that with every word I type and every choice I make.

What’s the story you want to write?

Leave a comment or send me a tweet: @WordWeaverFree

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]]>How Sorrow Set Me Free: My Victory Over Postpartum DepressionMarketingStorytellingAlaura WeaverMon, 29 Jun 2015 21:14:42 +0000https://www.wordweaverfreelance.com/blog/how-to-make-an-epic-about-page-part-25571e7dde4b00447c3c2ba1c:55721f66e4b0ce968a7913b9:5591ab4de4b0b3c42508656eMy previous post was an exploration of a storytelling tool I use as a digital copywriter: the Hero's Journey narrative structure. It's best if you read that post first.

I’ll wait here while you do so.

Are you ready?

Excellent! Let’s continue down the road together. We’re going to look at the rest of the elements of the Hero’s Journey and how to apply them to your business story. Then, we’ll take a look at how to get your message across with a style that reflects your brand.

Okay: our heroes were last seen accepting the supernatural aid of a benefactor in the form of help or wisdom. They crossed the threshold into adventure and found themselves in…

4) The Belly of the Whale

(Cue dramatic dum-dum-DUM!!!) Without adversity, there’s no struggle, and without struggle, there’s no story. Every great narrative contains some formidable challenge upon which the hero must prove his or her worth. If the Death Star hadn’t caught them in its tractor beams, Luke, Han and Chewbacca would never have met Leia and their fight against the Empire would never have begun. (That’s a reference to Star Wars, for any under-rock dwellers out there.)

What was a moment of adversity at the start of your business journey? What threatened to swallow you up? What did you gain from the experience?

As a new freelance writer, I naively found myself churning out ghostwritten assignments through low-paying “content mill” websites. Despite the drawbacks of content mills, I learned the keys to creating buzz-worthy content on a tight schedule.

5) The Road of Trials

This is the heart of the journey: the series of adventures that ultimately lead to the hero’s triumph. In A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, we follow Arthur, Ford, and the rest of the crew of the Heart of Gold as they plummet through space and time on their search for the planet Magrathea. Each episode on that journey is part of their road of trials.

What adventures have you been on thus far? What case studies do you have to share? What testimonials have you earned? 

My writing has appeared as copy for retail websites as well as professional services websites. An opportunity to learn and research something new is one of the things I’m most passionate about, both in my life and in my work. If you’d like to see what I’ve done, here’s a link to my portfolio.

6) The Ultimate Boon

This is the climax of the adventure. The hero has now gained greater wisdom through his experiences and finally achieves victory.

Harry Potter, after seven adventure-filled years at Hogwart’s, finally defeats Voldermort with a combination of the love he’s won from his friends and the knowledge he’s gained as a wizard.

What’s your business goal? Have you achieved it yet? Where are you on your business journey?

With the launch of my freelance writing website, strong social media presence and weekly blog on the power of storytelling, WordWeaver Freelance is well on its way to becoming a popular resource for clients in need of freelance writing services. To learn more about what I can do for you and your business, click here or please contact me at alaura.weaver@gmail.com.

The End.

Just kidding.

That Hero’s Journey thing was a way for you to reflect upon your own business story so it has a structure. Now we need to craft it into an interesting presentation your audience can interact with. It’s time to stop making your About page about you and start making it about the client you’re hoping to attract.

Here are some things other companies have done to make that happen:

•  Define your audience and their needs- Who’s your typical client? A bargain-hunting retail warrior? A profit-seeking entrepreneur? A busy homeowner who needs to save time? Start with the answer to this question: why should they want to learn more about you? This About page from Apptopia opens with a simple description of what drives them and what problems they solve for their customers.

• Define your storytelling medium- As a freelance writer, an About page with mostly text makes sense for me and my audience since words are my medium. But if I were a photographer or graphic designer, I had better present my story through images. As pained as I am to admit this as a self-described word-geek, visuals are just as effective as words at storytelling, and depending on the subject matter, can sometimes be more powerful. This minimalist About page from GoPro tells its story through an artfully produced video.

• Imagine your About page as your office décor- What’s the feeling you want your client to have as they look around the room? Do you want them to see a quirky, creative company? A civic-minded fundraising organization? A family-run business with a human touch? The narrative voice you use and the imagery you provide will give your audience a sense of your company culture.

• Communicate your beliefs- It’s important for your potential customers to know what drives you so they can feel comfortable doing business with you. Think about the companies you’ve chosen to do business with; chances are their beliefs have aligned with your own. Speaker and author Simon Sinek’s About page has a strong, clear message on his world view.

• Avoid industry jargon- The best way to distance your audience is to speak a different language, or to make yourself look like a know-it-all. Even if you’re in a high-tech niche that serves other tech-heads, it’s best to dispose of the corporate double-speak: people like to connect with other people, not corporations. This high-tech company keeps it nice and simple.

•  Keep the story of your business concise and easy to navigate. While it’s important for your audience to understand the journey of your company and how they fit into the story, it’s doubtful the typical website visitor will stick around to read a novel. Compelling headings, bullet points and links to your portfolio and testimonials will keep a customer engaged without losing track. Here’s a great example of an innovative About page from Swedish design firm Doberman  that tells a business story in bite-sized chunks.

• Keep your staff bios short and sweet but full of personality. The people behind your company are key characters in the story you’re telling. Make them come alive with well-done photos (or illustrations) and a few sentences highlighting their qualifications and what makes them tick. This is one of my favorite examples of a Team page; I'd love to work with these guys, wouldn’t you?

•  Always leave them wanting more. You’re inviting your audience to help complete the story. There's no “The End” unless they decide to do business with you; then the ending should be “…and they lived happily ever after.” Your about page should provide ways for your customer to contact you, subscribe to your e-mail list, join your social media feed, etc.

• If you don’t feel confident doing it yourself, have someone do it for you. A talented copywriter will know the proper questions to ask and will collaborate with you to tell your story in an innovative way. Learn more about what I do here.

That's the end of our journey together so far, brave business adventurer! By now, you should have some ideas brewing on what you want for your About page. Go forth and triumph!

Let me know the story you want tell. E-mail me at alaura.weaver@gmail.com or leave a comment.

If you haven’t already, check out my website. I hope you’ve enjoyed this story enough to want to hear more.

If you like this post, please “like” this post and share it on Facebook.

If you want to learn more about the power of storytelling in business and in life, subscribe to my blog and follow me on Twitter.

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