Yoh. Content gets prettier every day. Back in 2008, when I started blogging, my highest priorities were capital letters, full stops and paragraph spacing. Today, we’re not in Copy Kansas anymore, Toto.
The words that accompany your YouTube videos, once you’ve created them*, are a big part of how hard your channel, video and/or YouTube community at large will work for your brand or message. So never discount, half-arse, or rush the writing part. Every YouTube video can, and should be, organically optimised to derive the most value.
You should know, to start with, that I’m a hard-ass about most things when it comes to business writing:
• The phrase “I trust this email finds you well” (I hate it)
• The incorrect use of the verb “revert” (this makes me itch)
• Two spaces after a full stop (which should’ve vanished when women got the vote).
But, in a development that surprises many people, I’m no hard-ass when it comes to emojis.
Sh*t out of ideas for content marketing? Sick of your usual methods? Unsure where to start to generate some fresh nuggets or new items of value?
Whichever it is, here are some methods that work for me (and sometimes I generate 40 ideas at a time, so I know what I’m talking about).
First things first: You have to tell us stuff.
Ever heard the expression, “Garbage in, garbage out”? If your writer doesn’t have solid, accurate facts to work from, the job’s gonna be a #fail.
A client of mine got very cross today. Not with me, thank goodness… But because her firm traditionally addresses its own clients as “Dear Sirs”.
Even when they are female or when they have not specified a preferred gender.
In 2021, this won’t do.
Why use descriptive writing in the first place? Because your readers are busy. Distracted. Overwhelmed with messaging. And it’s incredibly hard for your writing to stand out amidst the clamour and racket.
Everything! This is the bit people usually obsess over when starting something new. As it happens, I didn’t.
What I’m about to say is unlikely to shock you.
In 2018, we hit the point of “content shock”; i.e. the moment when more content is published each day than there are humans alive to consume it.
If you’re reading this and you’re a creative, odds are you’ve seen a couple of bad briefs in your time — as in, “I dunno. Maybe make it blue? No, a less-blue blue.”
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