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088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media

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Previous Episode:087 How This Social Media Thing Kicked Web Writing Right in the Feels More Episodes Next Episode:089 The Clear-Copy Rule of Writing for the Web

All Episodes:

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091 This Free App Will Help You Write Bold and Clear Copy

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090 Four Writing Lessons I Learned from This Depressing Music Project

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089 The Clear-Copy Rule of Writing for the Web

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088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media

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087 How This Social Media Thing Kicked Web Writing Right in the Feels

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086 An Elegant Story on Outsmarting Career Obsolescence

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085 Raise the Stakes! 13 Writing Ideas That Really Work

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083 Proof That Stories Can Increase the Value of Even ‘Worthless’ Items

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082 Could Podcasting Make You a Better Writer?

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081 When Do You Abandon the Editing Process?

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080 Four Ways to Get Attention by Rocking the Boat

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079 A Brief Introduction to the Art of Catching Hell

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075 Listener Challenge: Could You Read 100 Books in a Year?

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073 A Lesson in Swagger from a Wooden-Legged Civil War Soldier

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072 Six Ways to Becoming a Completely Original Writer

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071 The Oldest Writing Trick in The Book

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070 Eight Things Every Writer Should Know about Landing Pages

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069 The Fascinating Truth about Boring Topics

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065 A Mildly Spooky Illustration of “Reason Why” Copy

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063 How Every Creative Must Think about Marketing and Advertising

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062 Do Millennials (Really) Hate Long Copy?

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061 These 4 Sales Principles Can Improve Anyone’s Writing

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060 How to Use the 5 Stages of Audience Awareness to Dominate Online

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059 Why The Most Hated Headline Structures Work So Well

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042 10 Odd Books That Will Improve Your Writing

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040 The Shocking Way to Master Any Book

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039 Nine Copywriting Books for Web Writers

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038 The 8 Rules of Ruthless Editing from David Mamet

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037 Revealed: The Perfect Blog Post Length

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036 The Aggressive Work Ethic of Highly Creative People

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035 The 10 Rules of Rough Drafts

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030 The Great Paragraph Hoax

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029 5 Ways to Write a Seductive Sentence

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028 How to Be Smart in a World of Dumb Verbs

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027 How the Perfect Article Is Framed by White Space

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026 The Best Articles Always Have This (and a Great Headline)

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025 The Anatomy of a Hyperlink That Woos Readers

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024 The Beginner’s Guide to Writing Bullet Points That Work

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023 How to Create Exquisite Subheadlines

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022 Four Safe Ways to Find Your Writing Voice (and One Dangerous One)

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021 The Two Kinds of Knowledge Every Writer Needs

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020 The Crazy Thing Writers Do to Become Exceptional

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019 How to Answer the Most Important Question About Becoming an Exceptional Writer

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018 Four Things That Can Make Writers Famous

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017 A Small Gift for Your Dark Days as an Obscure Writer

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016 Steal This Episode

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015 David Sedaris’ Guide to Writing Brilliant First Sentences

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014 Six Proven Ways to Open an Article With a Bang

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013 How I’ll Make You Read Every Single Line of This Article

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012 The Ugly Truth About How People Read Online

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011 The 3 Pillars of Great Web Writing

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010 How to Use RSS to Write Better Headlines

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009 How to Write Headlines that Get Results

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008 Where Headlines Have Gone Horribly Wrong

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007 A 12-Minute Crash Course on Link Building (Ugh)

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006 An Idiot-Proof Guide to Writing Blog Posts That Google Loves

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004 How Search Engines Work, Part Two

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003 How Search Engines Work, Part One

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002 The Unbreakable Law of the Web

March 2, 2015

001 Two Challenges All Digital Content Must Conquer

August 11, 2015

088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media

So the job of the online copywriter is to attract attention, stoke interest, create desire, and incite action. AIDA.

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Attracting attention used to be mainly concerned with stopping the reader dead in his tracks. A good headline will do that.

Before the web — in the world of print — advertisers bought space in magazines and newspapers. Naturally, promoting an ad in spaces with high volumes of traffic would increase the number of times eyeballs saw the ad.

This meant the front page, back page, inside front and so on.

In the early days of the web, the sales letter was static. It sat on a page off of your website. You drove people to it by banner ads and email. It was all about pulling people to your message.

Then along came social media and the meme. You don’t have to pull people to your idea any longer — if it is good, people will spread it for you.

And in this wake, the online copywriter must adjust.

In this 8-minute episode I discuss:

  • The oldest copywriting formula in the world
  • How the Subservient Chicken became an internet sensation
  • Whether social media ideas actually lead to sales
  • Why the 4 Us headline formula is not enough anymore
  • What you need to remember about testing

Listen to Rough Draft below ...

088 Three Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social MediaDemian Farnworth
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The Show Notes

  • The Cadbury Gorilla
  • The Subservient Chicken

The Transcript

3 Ways Writers Must Adjust in a World Dominated by Social Media

Voiceover: Rainmaker.FM is brought to you by The Showrunner Podcasting Course, your step-by-step guide to developing, launching, and running a remarkable show. Registration for the course is open August 3rd through the 14th, 2015. Go to ShowrunnerCourse.com to learn more. That’s ShowrunnerCourse.com.

Demian Farnworth: Howdy, and you are listening to Rough Draft, your daily dose of essential web writing advice. I am Demian Farnworth, the Chief Content Writer for Copyblogger Media. I also happen to be the host of this show.

Thank you for listening.

So let’s review where we are right now. Yesterday we looked at how social media has changed online content. Notably how we write headlines.

And I’ve addressed this in another episode, but it’s important to point out that you can’t just write a humdinger of a headline … you actually have to deliver. You actually have to create compelling content.

That’s where copywriting comes in.

The Oldest Copywriting Formula in the World

So the job of the online copywriter is to attract attention, stoke interest, create desire, and incite action.

AIDA.

Attracting attention used to be concerned with stopping the reader dead in his tracks. A good headline will do that.

Before the web — in the world of print — advertisers bought space in magazines and newspapers. Naturally, promoting an ad in spaces with high volumes of traffic would increase the number of times eyeballs saw the ad.

This meant the front page, back page, inside front and so on.

In the early days of the web the sales letter was static. It sat on a page off of your website. You drove people to it by banner ads and email. It was all about pulling people to your message.

Then along came social media and the meme. You don’t have to pull people to your idea any longer — if it is good, people will spread it for you.

Examples of Successful Viral Marketing Driven by Social Media

Eventually companies began to adopt the meme approach to promotion. Everyone remembers the Cadbury Gorilla, right? Gorilla rocks out to Phil Collins “In the air tonight” …

What about Burger King’s Subservient Chicken? Did some squats. Lift your legs. Grab your groin. He did what millions of people told him to do. Became an internet sensation.

Both examples of successful viral marketing — driven by social media.

More than likely you saw both of those promotions because you saw it in your Twitter or Facebook stream. Or someone emailed it to you. Or maybe you heard about them at the water cooler and then jumped on YouTube when you got back to your desk.

Whether Social Media Ideas Actually Lead to Sales

But are those promotions good closers? Did they results in more sales? Did they take that attention and turn gawkers into clients? This is where the online copywriter comes in.

Granted, very few ideas are going to turn people into customers on the first try. The complexity and price point of your product will determine the length of the sales cycle. Simple and inexpensive products will have short sales cycles. Complex and expensive products, much longer.

But a great web copywriter will know not only how to make ideas attractive — but how to make them shareable. Clear, concise, and compelling is not enough. Copy must now be meme worthy.

Skills That Copywriters Must Adopt

Let me close by sharing with you some skills that copywriters must adopt or modify if they want to compete in an online world dominated by social media.

Here are three:

  • Writing Social Media Ripe Headlines – Using the 4 Us is not enough. You need bizarre. Strange. Gawker and Buzzfeed style headlines. Business Insider and Atlantic Monthly. All online publishers who craft irresistible headlines. And of course Copyblogger.
  • Navigating All Social Media Platforms – Like you needed something else on your plate, but make yourself comfortable on platforms like StumbleUpon, Reddit, Pinterest — even if you are not a target user. Is your audience?
  • Testing Ideas Endlessly – Reddit is a great place to share content and test headlines in the process. Toy with different ways of sharing a headline on Twitter to see which wording gets the most click-throughs and shares.

Now it’s your turn: Can you think of any other relevant skills web writers need to adopt in this new world social media order? And where is my argument off? Am I making needless distinctions?

Let me know on Twitter or in the comments on the blog. And until next time, take care.

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