Kacee’s Posts – Page 13

Are You a Social Media Wallflower?

August 29, 2013 Beth Devine

If you’re worried about being a social media wallflower, anxious that your online social skills come up short, then it’s time to get off the wall.

Learn how to step into the spotlight of social media storytelling and deadhead your wallflower days forever.

The New World of Social Media Storytelling Wants You

You don’t have to be boring and unpopular. With storytelling and “emotional” sharing, you can unveil the soul and spirit of your business through social media.

The 5 Emotions That Get More Shares

There are five emotions that are most likely to motivate people to share:

1. Awe

2. Surprise

3. Amusement

4. Anxiety

5. Anger

Because positive emotions are more likely to be shared than negative, promoting awe, surprise, and amusement are safe bets in increasing social media shares and interaction. Using anxiety-producing or anger-inducing stories can also be effective when they are used to promote social togetherness.

Like telling a story, sharing to promote social community allows people to feel connected to others and to something outside themselves.

The more emotion your story inspires, the more likely people will notice you and let others in on your story.

Social Media is a Giant Graffiti Wall

Look at social media as one giant wall of graffiti. The best graffiti will be the ones that stir the most emotions and cause us to feel the most united in a common cause.

This is also part of what’s known at the “herd mentality.” When it’s obvious others are actively engaged in sharing something, others will follow suit. Let’s face it, our digital-age society relies on the collective opinions of others to make decisions.

The More They “Like” You, the More You Will be Liked

“Is something popular because it is actually good, or is it popular just because it is popular?” The mass-approval syndrome was measured in a study on a news website to investigate how positive votes or likes influenced the overall rating of a social share.

It turns out that by earning a positive vote initially, more positive votes would follow. A negative vote didn’t make a difference. If anything, an initial negative vote would prompt follow-up positive votes and end up measuring the same as the control group.

So marketing a message will be more successful if you can lead the pack with a positive vote by someone.

Leading the Pack With a Good Story

Telling your story and getting others to like and re-share not only involves sparking an emotional reaction. It also means communicating a message with traditional storytelling features.

Who’s the hero of the story? What is the plot? The setting? And don’t forget the inevitable and necessary story conflict. Apple computer’s “1984” video tells a story steeped in conflict, brazenly marketing its original thinking.

Who’s leading the pack in this story? Don’t be afraid of introducing conflict into your storyline to inspire emotion and social communion. Get off the wall and get noticed. Dig into your archives, your creative reserves, and your inner bard. There’s a story in there somewhere.

How to Build a Landing Page

August 19, 2013 Beth Devine

A landing page is made to get your visitor to do something specific. Everything about a landing page is meant to persuade the visitor to a desired action.

Know the Purpose

What do you want your visitor’s to do?

The purpose of your landing page could be to sell a product or service, get emails or subscribers, or sign up trial users. Find one goal and one goal only.

Whatever your goal is, make it straightforward. No sales pitch. No gimmicks. No confusion. Everything on the landing page is designed to entice visitors toward this goal.

Ask yourself: What’s the purpose, what am I offering, and how will they benefit?

Create Copy that Converts

Use a headline and possible subheads that are consistent with your goal.

Give your visitors a clear headline with a solution to a specific problem. People are usually in research mode when they are looking for something online. Show them the benefit to selecting you in a few words.

Write in second person using you and your.

Showcase your product or service to get visitors to empathize with a real-life scenario where they’re using what you’re offering. By focusing on visitors and not your product using the words you and your, you are helping them to envision what they will get out of the deal, increasing the perceived value of your offer.

Call to action – tell your visitors what they need to do.

Don’t use general call to actions like download now, submit, or click here. Be specific and include exactly what clicking on the graphic button will do for your visitor

The call to action should jump out from the landing page. It’s okay to include it more than once, especially if there is more scroll-down content. Add another CTA button beneath the layer of content “below the fold.”

Design for Simplicity

Less is more when your objective is singular.

Minimize all visual elements on the landing page. Eliminate anything that doesn’t support the desired action. Your landing page is very different from your home page.

No cutesy photos, no extraneous graphics, nothing that will distract the visitor from the goal. Think wide open space.

Use one column of text. Any additional columns should be placed to the side and used only as support for the objective. This could include testimonials, endorsements, client lists,

Include a hero shot.

The hero shot is the visual that sums up your offer at a glance. It can be a photo, diagram, chart, or graphic that captures your visitors’ attention and keeps their focus on the goal.

The hero shot can also help to create the real-life scenario that induces a feeling of what it would be like to use what you’re offering.

Speaking of heroes, check out Web Savvy Marketers’ own super heroes for website design and marketing. We make it fun, all extraordinary powers included.

Many landing pages feature one large photo with a bare minimum of text. Videos provide visitors a passive engagement medium, so don’t dismiss them as an option, particularly as the popularity of Vine and Instagram continue to grow.

For the Visitors Who Opt Out

Adding social media invite buttons give your visitors a back up to selecting your offer. Other back-up plans include giving something away or including a remind me later option where visitors can receive a reminder via email at a future date of their choosing.

Re-Build as Necessary

If it isn’t performing, change it. Improve a landing page that’s not working in your marketing plan.

“Landing pages are the new direct marketing, and everyone with a website is a direct marketer.” Seth Godin

If You Build It, They Will Come.

Build momentum toward one clear goal for your visitors, and they will come to your landing page with a clear expectation of what they will get from you.

Use With Caution: How to Avoid Image Copyright Violation

August 9, 2013 Beth Devine

Are you the paranoid type? Someone who looked into signing up for Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse after watching World War Z? Then you’ll understand the concern over image copyright violation.

For both zombie apocalypse and image copyright violation, however, it’s hardly overreacting to know the facts and stay safe.

As far as a zombie apocalypse goes, the CDC is your best bet for information. When it comes to avoiding a lawsuit over image use, it’s best to be very, very careful and use only images you are certain won’t come back to haunt you.

Like a zombie infection, it takes only one misuse to get caught. If you think it won’t happen to you, that it’s just paranoia, then go ahead. Post those photos from Google images. Share those pictures of celebrities. Misappropriate AP pictures for fun.

Good luck, my brazen friends of the Web, because you’re gonna need it.

Googling search terms on the subject proves it’s a topic with many warning labels applied. So, yes, use all images with caution.

Here are a few tips to use with your own impeccable common sense:

1. Know the Rules

Just like with safe sex, the only 100% way to avoid contamination is abstinence. But who wants to do that? I’m referring to using images here, by the way.

We already know that using images on your website and blog posts will improve search engine results, so abstinence is not recommended.

Start by familiarizing yourself with the rules of use for any website you use for images. They are all different. Some free photos require attribution, some require a link back, some aren’t for commercial use. Use your own photos where possible.

You know the drill by now. Use it properly. Know the risks. Stay safe.

I’m still talking about images.

2. Stay Safe with Creative Commons

When it comes to knowing your options, the Creative Commons license is a starting point, and their Creative Commons search page provides an all-access starting point for your image subject.

Remember to check each image for its CC license by following the link. This is only a search engine that directs you to content. You are responsible for determining that the images are actually registered under a CC license.

My favorite go-to site is Flickr’s Creative Commons, with six different license categories to choose from.

3. Use Free Image Sites

For every free photo site there are certain terms and conditions. Again, be sure to check each image for its “free” status. Another resource is Wikipedia’s list of public domain image resources. Read each site’s terms carefully.

The second largest resource, Pixabay, includes the warning, “Pixabay cannot be held responsible for any copyright violations, and cannot guarantee the legality of the Images stored in its system. If you want to make sure, always contact the photographers. You use the site and the photos at your own risk!”

These are the fears that compel us to abstinence.

Wikimedia Commons terms of use advises, among other things, “To determine the license that applies to the content that you seek to re-use or re-distribute, you should review the page footer, page history, and discussion page.”

When using images from Wikigallery.org, there are additional requirements, such as no alteration of the image or removal of the Wikigallery watermark.

A favorite of mine is Morguefile.com, whose license reads as liberally as it gets for creative use.

4. Delete All Images You’re Unsure Of

If you have any images that remain questionable, remove them! Going back through your site and reassessing each image for its appropriate use may aggravate you now, but a copyright lawsuit later will annoy you more.

As a Blogher who was sued writes, “If you’ve been using images without approval from the Internet on your blogs, know that you are probably violating copyright and could be sued for it.”

Don’t forget to also delete them from your server. In WordPress, this is simple. Just go to your media library, and under each photo you removed from your pages and posts, hit the delete permanently option.

5. What About Pinterest?

If you’ve pinned images to Pinterest that you deleted from your posts or web pages, delete these from your boards as well.

Pinterest is its own hotbed of potential liability. As the terms read, “You … are solely responsible for … Content you post to Pinterest.” The Legal Genealogist advises prudence in pinning which is similar to what you use for posting images to your own site.

6. Do a Reverse Image Check

Use TinEye.com to search for the origins of any images you wish to investigate. You can do up to 50 searches a day, or 150 searches per week, for free.

Proceed with caution, observe the fine print, and stay vigilant. The zombies are the least of your worries.

Flickr photo courtesy of csc1950.

Social Media Gaffes That Scream No.

August 5, 2013 Beth Devine

Everywhere you turn people and brands are making glaring gaffes that lead to social media scorn and disrepute. Sometimes the best way to avoid making mistakes is to learn from those with the egg on their face.

Posting with intent to titillate.

Anthony Weiner takes the cake with yet another sexting scandal as he embarks on his mayoral bid.

This has to be a favorite among the plain and simple don’t do it social media gaffes. If you’re thinking that anyone with common sense would know better than to repeat such a morally questionable maneuver, then you can join me in the dumbstruck category.

Say no and feel good about it. Anne Lamott compares saying yes when you mean no to a “martyred mentally ill position” akin to the tainted area a mile north of Chernobyl.

In this case, however, I think Weiner’s yes’s mean yes, and that adds up to the same mentally deranged outcome as Lamott’s metaphor.

Don’t over think this. (I’ve done that for you.) There’s no room for behavior that might jeopardize your reputation and integrity. Even texting will return to haunt you.

Sharing (fake) lies.

Staging fake posts to garner attention can be misconstrued as telling lies, and you will risk losing followers’ trust as a result.

When Chipotle’s Twitter account recently appeared hacked, it gained 4,000 new followers in one day, compared to its average of 250, and the hacked tweets earned 12,000 retweets, when it normally sees 75 retweets a day.

Such a sweet outcome is unpredictable, and its success has to do with Chipotle’s treasure hunt, its clues hiding in the Tweets.

The lesson learned here is be very clever in your social media sharing, and your followers won’t suspect outright lies. Anything veering from transparency and authenticity could quickly bring on the reproach brigade.

Just do what feels right.

While this sounds a lot like Weiner’s behavior again, let’s pretend this is about real decisions that are meant to be effective money makers and relationship builders.

The phenomenon of people or organizations who do what they feel is right in the short run and don’t bother considering alternatives or how it will pan out in the long run have what Seth Godin calls impulse control issues.

He compares this to Stoogecraft, the Three Stooges’ method of madness in all decision making. Moe, Larry, and Curly perfected a comedy of errors in their impulse management. Social media and content marketing require a consideration of alternatives and implications, not a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants brouhaha.

Sappy quotes are passé.

It appears the era of the inspirational quote has come to an end. For social media marketing purposes, you are better off with short and funny quotes.

When you Google while in incognito mode “inspirational quotes are,” the recent search results indicate they are considered annoying, stupid, for the uninspired, and bullsh*t.

Clearly Pinterest, with its inspiration quote stronghold, is comprised of less Google search users than one might think.

Googling “inspirational quotes that are,” brings up funny, short, aren’t cheesy, and uplifting.

It makes me wonder if cohorts of the truly uninspired are conspiring to warp Google search results by punching in these queries over and over, day and night, from sheer inanity.

However you choose to inspire your audience, try to encourage them by walking the fine line of uplifting but not cheesy, funny but not stupid, and short on the bullsh*t.

Let me know how that works out for you.

Follow the 4 E’s of Social Media and Be Loved

July 31, 2013 Beth Devine

If you want to win people’s affection, appreciation, and approval – the three A’s – there’s another set of vowels to adhere to. The 4 E’s of Social Media.

Apply them to your online persona, and your followers will learn to value your input and trust you as a conscientious and reliable source.

The Four E’s of Social Media to win friends’ and followers’ loyalty start with having some fun.

1. Entertainment

We love to be amused. Entertain and divert us from our daily regimen of tasks and more tasks, and we will gladly accept the distraction.

Give your audience something to smile about. Make them giddy. At the very least, show them your fun side.

Sharing visuals is an easy way to entertain. Create your own Pinterest pin or meme to express your whimsy, or share a video with giggle potential. Check out Buzzfeed’s collection for inspiration.

2. Education

Whenever possible, take the opportunity to enlighten your audience with information they didn’t know they wanted.

Take the Transportation Security Administration’s latest educational ploy. Despite the annnoyance we may have over security check hassles, their Instagram photos of confiscated contraband ranging from loaded guns to inert grenades gives us reason to check our own discontent.

It’s also a chance to answer your customer’s questions. Be a teacher and give them the information they need to make informed choices. Even if it means sharing your family jewels.

3. Engagement

A new study by the Internet Advertising Bureau found that 90% of customers would recommend a brand to others after interacting with them on social media.

Surprise, surprise. Social media paves the road to two-way conversation, allowing both parties to share their point of view.

This is a good time to remember the premier Social Media Engagement rule. As any good social media cocktail mix will warn you – it’s not about you.

For other ideas on engaging with your audience, check out Socially Stacked’s infographic on 10 Quick Tips and Examples for Better Status Updates.

4. Etiquette

The list of propriety no-no’s will continue to grow despite the efforts of the Condescending Corporate Brand Page to put a stopper on it.

Like stop asking people to “Like” your page. The new etiquette for Facebook is to be less shallow and more content-driven. Rather than settling for a cheap click of approval, focus on the previous three E’s and share valuable content.

This doesn’t mean you never include a call to action. Just give them in small doses.

One of the most obvious codes of etiquette is keep it friendly and positive. Somehow this isn’t as straightforward as one would think.

Okay, so no one’s thinking it’s at all straightforward. If you have a Facebook account, I don’t doubt you’ve experienced the depths people will lower themselves in order to mock, insult, and generally flaunt their bad manners, all in the name of sharing.

Don’t go there. Share your good side and leave your scorn at home, no matter how hilarious you think it may be. For those unwilling to behave, going completely invisible on Facebook is a solid option .

The loyalty you hope to achieve with the 4 E’s of Social Media can only bring you better business and better relationships.

“By making people love, not just like your brand, you’re more likely to drive future purchases and increase sales,” said Ian Ralph, Director of Marketing Sciences.

Who doesn’t want to be loved?

Sign-In With Google+. Or Else.

July 25, 2013 Beth Devine

Admit it. You despise having to sign in to sites, remember your password, your username, and authenticate you’re human.

So show some empathy. Make it simple for your site visitors by installing Google+ Sign-In. Next to Facebook, Google+ has the largest percentage of social logins, more than Twitter and LinkedIn.

For users, Google+ Sign-In lowers the barriers to logging in. For website owners, when you offer login and registration with an existing social identity like Google+, drop-off during registration disappears, you increase referral traffic, and you learn more detailed information about your users.

Link Up With the Network

While the old version of Google sign-in is still working, Google+ Sign-In links directly to Google’s social network and profiles, adding another layer of social sharing potential. With their permission, users give access to the basic information from their Google+ public profile, including the list of people in their circles.

If you have a mobile app for your site, Google+ will prompt anyone who logs in to your site through the Google+ Sign-In to download it. Results show that 40% of users are accepting the offer to install a website’s mobile app when offered in the Google+ sign-in process.

People trust Google as a secure provider of their online identity. Using Google+ as your sign-in service also gives site owners the benefits of any improvements and bug fixes that roll out.

It’s a win-win scenario for Google, who clearly is encouraging Google+ participation. If you haven’t created a Google+ profile, it’s not too late to jump on the Google bandwagon and reap its benefits. Authorship markup and author rank are two significant benefits for a website owner.

Google+ Isn’t Just Another Social Site

If you own a website and are interested in content marketing, then you should jump on quickly.Your family jewels may be at stake. In fact, your entire future may be at stake, for Google+ is not merely some silly social network where you make snarky comments and share inane drivel.

Google+, my fellow friends of the Net, is being compared to The Matrix.

As Mike Elgan writes on his Google+ page, The Matrix analogy assumes the “synthetic world around us that exists not for our benefit but for the benefit of the machines, a.k.a. Google,” who “uses Google+ and the Google+ Sign-In to harvest signals from users, and that’s the whole point of the ubiquitous Google social layer.”

Elgan disagrees with this analogy. He says The Matrix is the opposite of what Google+ offers. With The Matrix, humans are stuck in the past as their energy is harvested for exploitation by the machines. Instead, Google helps us to move forward, offering us all of its services for free, a far cry from deceiving us into a virtual reality existence.

Adding Google+ Sign-In begins to sound entirely reasonable, rather like making a simple choice.

Blue pill or red pill? Sign in or sign out?

Change Your Website, Change the World

July 18, 2013 Beth Devine

You don’t have to be Buddhist to appreciate the Dalai Lama’s Change Your Mind, Change the World conference. In fact, his basic premise to global well-being is to put aside such labels and focus on our common humanity.

How can we encourage this common good for humanity in our websites, our businesses, and our daily efforts to interact with others?

Michael Holmes, author of I Shall Raise Thee Up: Ancient Principles for Lasting Greatness, supplied three universal laws for achieving change.

Anyone who wishes to avoid repeated and lasting failure knows these laws. As Cecil B. DeMille said, “It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law.”

3 Laws to Change the World

1. Purpose

“The Law that states no person can achieve maximum effectiveness without knowing who and why they are.”

To know your purpose is to know how your unique gifts and position will affect change.

When determining your purpose, always consider your audience. When considering your audience, always ask what’s in it for them.

If you’re stuck in finding your purpose, think about what’s holding you back. Max Simon of Big Business Vision suggests that rather than focusing on how much it will cost to update your website or create a marketing plan, ask “what’s the cost of doing nothing?”

Focus on your purpose and how it will benefit your audience. How will your leadership bring them something worthwhile?

In “Modern Laws of Global Life, the Law of Purpose,” “the end result of an action is already contained in the original thought.” If we want to change the world, we must first change the purpose behind the action.

So make it a good one.

2. Persistence

“The law that states only through consistent and continuous effort can any plan, vision, or achievement be realized.”

As Paul Jun explains for any craftmanship: it’s a journey, not a destination. You’re in it for the long haul.

So what do you do for this long haul? Apply the Rule of Five.

Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul tells how he used this persistence principle to get his book onto the bestseller list for over a year. He uses the analogy of chopping down a tree.

“If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp ax, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”

The Rule of Five for you might include

emailing 5 potential customers
writing 5 blog posts
scheduling 5 interviews
calling 5 current customers

Like climbing a mountain, keep your eye on the summit or your purpose, but begin with taking measured steps and doing five specific things to get there.

Because you will get there.

3. Service

“The Law that states in order to be greatest of all one must be servant of all.”

A business owner wanting to make his company great.
An artist looking for recognition.
A speaker trying to make a difference.
A musician bending the rules.
A service provider going the extra mile.
A writer writing to impact for a common good.

What do the success of these people have in common? They make awesome!

(Seriously, check that link out. You do want to make awesome, don’t you?)

How you choose to interact with your audience becomes a way for you to engage in service for others. Changing the world, as Margaret Mead said, requires thoughtful and committed citizens.

Communicate something useful and true and don’t stop. For them. That’s the beginning of service, and making awesome.

The Dalai Lama believes “if we make consistent effort, based on proper education, we can change the world. We are selfish, that’s natural, but we need to be wisely selfish, not foolishly selfish. We have to concern ourselves more with others’ well-being, that’s the way to be wisely selfish.”

Sounds to me a lot like the 3 Laws to Change the World. Now let’s go out there and begin.

If You Hate Reverse Psychology Marketing, Then Don’t Read This

July 8, 2013 Beth Devine

Reverse psychology marketing won’t work for you, so you can just fuhgeddaboudit.

Do you get the feeling that you’re being bombarded with messages that are telling you to do one thing, but suggesting you do another?

Like a cat, who flounces her tail in typical cat-mode as she slinks away, as if to say, Don’t even bother trying to pet me, when you know she’s dying for a tummy rub.

This is reverse psychology marketing, when you desire something simply because it’s being touted as unavailable, unwelcome, or undesirable.

In an age where people are tired of having marketing spiels thrown in their faces, taking this back alley approach becomes more effective than traditional methods. The success of this strategy relies on having customers come to you, rather than you chasing after them.

Are You Special Enough?

Take Tom Sawyer, for example. He had his buddies begging to take over his fence painting job. The tedious task of whitewashing his aunt’s fence became appealing by doing two things. He appeared to enjoy it, and he acted as if it was a special privilege.

Cats have this down to a science. They behave as if they enjoy snubbing you, and when you finally chase them down, you’d think they bestowed you with the honor of petting royalty.

As Mark Twain wrote, Tom “had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”

This play into our innate desire to be included, to be in-the-know, leads people to drop their defenses and crave the suddenly indispensable object they never knew they desired. Reverse psychology hits home with the unsuspecting, resistant, and contrary individual – in other words, all of us at some time or another.

It’s All Over for Paper

One of the best reverse psychology marketing strategies is Domtar’s “Paper Because.” Office Guy #1 hands a thick paper report, “The Paperless Office,” to Office Guy #2, telling him it’s all over for paper. They quickly decide to make a copy, and another copy.

“Paper is dead,” after all, yet they remind you that “paper is sustainable, renewable, and recyclable.” Make me a copy too, while you’re at it.

Seth Godin’s Knock Knock book wasn’t free at one time, and the reverse psychology he employed to prompt sales and awareness of it before it became free came with the simple email, “Please don’t buy my new ebook.”

It’s hard not to love a guy who’s so straightforward and honest (and even encouraging you to donate to Red Cross while you’re checking out the free PDF file he’s so generously shared).

Don’t Push the Button!

The trick is not to appear manipulative. If your audience gets a whiff of this, then reverse reverse psychology will come into play, and they will do what you were asking them not to do, like not buy the book, or not push the button.

A cat can get away with this because she knows reverse reverse psychology means you don’t get to pet her highness. This is simply not an option.

Don’t pet the cat. I dare you to not pet the cat.

How to Keep Your WordPress Usernames Safe

June 28, 2013 Beth Devine

There’s a simple way for hackers to phish your username and then attempt to log in through your log in page.

First, finding your WordPress log in page is as easy as typing in this:

yourdomain.com/wp-login.php

Second, they can phish for your username by entering what’s called the author archive’s URL into the address bar:

yoursitename.com/?author=1

All hackers have to do is change the author number until the usernames come up. When I tried this on two different sites I have admin access to, not only did the usernames of authors come up, but the usernames of subscribers were also exposed.

As I changed the author number, the subscriber names either popped up on the web page with “Archives for” preceding the name (even though there are no archives/content for the names), or they appeared in a drop down box beneath the address bar, or in the browser tab.

Avoid the Danger of Username Theft

In the meantime, when an author is identified with admin rights, the hacker can attempt to access your site by brute force password attacks. This loophole for finding usernames in WordPress sites confirms the danger of two things.

1. A weak password needs updated.

WordPress offers password strength help here.

Your WordPress password is easily changed in your Users Profile under About Yourself.

2. For your username, don’t choose author name, admin, administrator, or any one of the targeted usernames.

See the list of targeted usernames in the recent brute-force attack here.

Your username can’t be changed in your WordPress profile. Follow my simple steps in How to Change Your WordPress Username through your Cpanel.

For every loophole there is an equally effective loophole filler. In a perfect World Wide Web, that is. Staying abreast of countermeasures against hackers requires constant vigilance and a few WordPress plugins to keep the invasion at bay and your usernames safe.

Keep Hackers Away With a Safe Slug

While the World Wide Web isn’t perfect, there are steps you can take to keep your site secure. The WordPress plugin that works to keep your usernames safe is WP Author Slug.

By automatically creating a different display name from the username, hackers are prevented from figuring out your log in name through the author archive’s URL. Instead, the URL will show a set display name and not the username that’s used to log in.

In case you’re wondering, the author “slug” is also known as your “nicename” and is the URL-friendly version of the website title with the author name. It is automatically generated by WordPress to look like this: example.com/author/authorname.

Just wanted to clear that bit of potential slug-confusion up. Nothing like visions of a slimy slug in your URL to ruin your day.

Good luck keeping your WordPress site secure and the loopholes plugged with safe slugs.

3 Rules to Killing Your Monster and Writing Better

June 25, 2013 Beth Devine

The thought of writing a blog post can send the average self-possessed person into fits of apoplexy.

That monster who hides under your bed? It’s as if he’s crawled out and wants to breathe the air in your shirt collar as soon as you set pen to paper. Or fingers to keyboard.

We’re not all Simon Cowell material, who remains unperturbed even through an ecstatic barrage of egg-bombs. (Just look at the perpetrator’s face in the YouTube video. Have you ever seen an expression of such gleeful retribution?)

However suave and steady you happen to be, sitting down to write, egg-free, can upend your calm state of zen. It’s time to chill and learn the 3 Rules for Writing Better.

Killing your monster is the added perk.

The internet is filled with advice on how to make your writing better, faster, and easier. There’s one thing everyone seems to agree on. It’s probably going to irritate the cowplop right out of you.

Ultimate Rule: Just Write.

In case you harbor any doubt, Brian Clark of Copyblogger created the 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer. This should really clear things up for you.

Being the generous writer he is, he even gave us a downloadable PDF to hang near our writing space.

Your aversion to writing, your bona fide fear, is about as real as that large red-eyed monster lurking behind you. If you turn around and it snares you in its lethal grip, then I’ll have to admit, you have a real excuse.

Otherwise, you just need to follow the ten steps. And take Stephen King’s advice in On Writing.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”

So start. Just write.

The second rule is revolutionary. You will be equally peeved when you realize how straightforward this technique is, and yet, somehow, you’ve managed to remain oblivious.

Revolutionary Rule: Write in longhand.

What? But that’s for grandmas.

Writing in longhand has the remarkable effect of helping you to think better. Now go and tell Grandma that.

Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way compares writing to driving a car. When you are typing on the computer, it’s like driving 80 miles per hour and missing the exit. Writing by hand is like driving 60 miles per hour and seeing the exit up ahead. You even notice the surrounding sites as you approach your turnoff.

“The act of slowing down brings us to real and surprising clarity, offering insights we would have otherwise missed,” Cameron says at juliacameronlive.com.

Now that you’re determined to travel the scenic route, try using your memory muscle.

Awesome Cheat Rule: Copy the Masters.

When you copy in longhand the writing you admire, you’re exercising your memory muscle. This is the best way to cheat and learn from the masters at the craft.

Find writers who write like you want to write, and spend a half hour to an hour every day copying their work. Your brain will learn the writing style and you’ll be able to mimic it.

Studies of pictures of the brain show “that sequential finger movements activated massive regions involved in thinking, language and working memory—the system for temporarily storing and managing information.”

Repetitive drills, like practicing your golf swing, become part of your memory. Writing better has never been so simple. Practice, use longhand, and learn from the pros.

No one said writing was easy. But it can be simple when you apply methods that work.

How’s your monster? Still breathing?