These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar's Story Artist. Number 9 on the list - When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn't happen next - is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres.
A couple of recent dispatches suggest that the big, consumer-oriented social media platforms may not always work the business-boosting wonders that many companies anticipate, while other Internet venues, including firms’ own websites, may be more effective in attracting business clients or retail customers.
Sure, there are major brands and individual professionals who use YouTube, Facebook or Twitter to amazing effect, and there’s no doubt these can be effective tools. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that everyone should blindly jump onto these platforms and expect miracles in their own businesses.
Writing for SocialMedia Examiner, Patricia Redsicker recently noted a Technorati report that said consumers rank blogs third — following retail and brand sites — among online venues most likely to influence a purchase. That puts blogs and companies’ own sites ahead of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and other web destinations in consumer influence. Facebook was a close fourth, however.
Consumers trust bloggers to provide sincere and unbiased information, including pros and cons, about products and services, the article says. A vast majority of social media “influencers” write blogs, according to the SocialMedia Examiner article.
On a different facet of social media marketing, consultant Gordon Andrew recently wrote on his blog, Marketing Craftsmanship, that small and medium-sized business-to-business firms may be wasting their time on Facebook and Twitter rather than building a strong LinkedIn presence and assuring that their own company websites are top notch.
A B2B firm’s website, he wrote, “is the online mothership of your brand. Don’t bother with social media tactics unless this tool is all that it can be.” This means refreshing old, neglected company sites and frequently updating and promoting firm blogs, he adds.
LinkedIn, Andrew says, is now a fundamental aspect of business due diligence and far more effective than Facebook or Twitter in drawing B2B clients. Most companies, however, aren’t tapping its full potential, he adds.
It’s all good food for thought and further exploration. There’s no doubt that most businesses, at bare minimum, need a good, polished website.
My thought is that whatever social media tools businesses use, they need a clear idea of how to use them — there is no shortage of articles, books and consultants to help — and to be sure they’re using those tools to build rapport and trust among current and potential customers. - By Dinah Wisenberg Brin
Sandra Day O’Connor’s current book tour reminds me of my favorite D.C. celebrity sighting, now a short video-clip of a memory from a time before mobile phones, the Internet and Comedy Central.
Back in the mid- and late ’80s, when I was a young reporter covering the Hill, I spotted all manner of political muckety-mucks and highfalutin’ talking heads in ordinary places: George Will in a bookstore, Ted Koppel outside a theater (or was that George Will, too?), Iran-Contra figure Elliott Abrams in the airport, Michael Kinsley at the table next to me in a café.
Sure, I covered senators and other powerful folk as part of my job, but always got a nerdy thrill spotting political and Sunday-morning-talk-show celebrities out in the regular world.
(c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / dc_slim
The coolest sighting happened one day at the Chevy Chase Circle Safeway (not to be confused with other Washington, D.C., Safeways with nicknames like the Soviet Safeway and the Social Safeway).
There, on the pay phone just inside the entrance, was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the high court, and she was giving someone instructions: Put the chicken in the oven at such-and-such degrees.
Wow, I thought, Sandra Day O’Connor is calling home, telling someone to put the chicken in the oven, and how to cook the chicken in the oven.
It was so extraordinarily ordinary, so homemaker-like, something my own wonderful mom might have done. Could then-Chief Justice Rehnquist be seen calling home from a grocery store, telling someone to put the chicken in the oven? Could any of the other justices?
Here she was, one of the most powerful people in the land, deciding the most important issues of the day for the most powerful democracy on Earth — and, apparently, attending to the day-to-day management of her household.
As the now-retired justice makes the media rounds, visiting Charlie Rose, Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, I wonder if her book, Out of Order, makes reference to O’Connor’s work-home balance, her juggling of constitutional analysis and culinary oversight.
At minimum, I appreciate the memory of my supermarket brush with history.
(c) Can Stock Photo Inc. / thesupe87
Here’s my latest contribution to CNBC.com, a feature on IT outsourcing in rural America.
My latest piece for Entrepreneur.com explains how small business owners — and others — can share their views on the Affordable Care Act (aka health reform and Obamacare) with federal agencies writing the regulations that will govern the law’s implementation. While the legislation became law in 2010, it’s being phased in and regulators haven’t finished writing the many rules detailing how it will work.
I’m pleased to have written the cover story for the first issue of MHI Solutions, a new magazine of industry association MHI (the Material Handling Industry). The article takes a close look at what companies are doing to improve the visibility and nimbleness of their supply chains, from factory to store.
I’m now writing about healthcare — and specifically health reform — for Entrepreneur.com. Here’s my first piece on the topic for the site, an overview of the law’s implications for business owners and how they can prepare this year for the big changes coming in 2014.
Thanks for visiting my professional online home, whether this is your first time or you regularly check in here!
We just rang out the first full calendar year of my freelance writing business and rang in what should be an even more exciting and productive run around the sun.
I was pleased to see how quickly this business grew in 2012, and look forward to more growth, more good projects, and more work with wonderful clients in 2013.
Over the past year, as throughout my journalism career, I endeavored to produce excellent material for clients in a collegial, straightforward professional process. I enjoyed providing good copy and service to editors and others who needed a strong, reliable writer, researcher or writing coach.
The New Year promises expansion of existing relationships and opportunities to serve new clients!
May 2013 be a happy, healthy, fulfilling and prosperous New Year for you, and a time of understanding, compassion and friendship for all of us!
Stay tuned!
- Dinah
The quickly developing field of personalized medicine is changing diagnostics, treatment and the interplay between the two. This creates challenges for the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates diagnostic tests and drugs quite differently. Could it also mean a change in the economic balance of power between drug and diagnostics companies? I recently covered a Wharton School discussion on the topic for Penn’s LDI Health Economist. — Dinah Wisenberg Brin
Here’s my latest story for SHRM Online, a look at how the proliferation of mobile apps creates new opportunities for hackers.
