Content Creation

Content helps you tell your organization’s story and connect with your audience in a powerful way.

Here are some posts to help you create custom content for your organization:

How to Kill Creativity With One Simple Phrase: They Already Have That

they already have transportation

Every day, this four-word phrase murders innocent ideas before they had a chance to grow up. It suffocates its victims with a blanket of negativity. It is the leading killer of creativity. It runs rampant in the offices and minds of people in those offices. And it needs to be put behind bars, never to [...]

What’s Your Evil Twin Saying Between the Lines of Your Content?

content between the lines

I don’t want to freak anyone out, but… your evil twin might have co-opted your message. Don’t have an evil twin? I’ll take your word for it, but that leaves me wondering about the contradictory messages in your content. In fact, subtextual messages have been responsible for some of the most fraught, but enlightening, interactions [...]

SEO Killed the Analog Star

seo killed the analog star robot

Someone spouted this thought in the billion-voice echo chamber that is Twitter the other day: “Too many people are writing content for Google and not their readers.” The dude nailed it. Of course, five minutes later he Tweeted: “5 affordable ways to see Paris like a local”…which, of course, is something that’s been covered more [...]

Conquer the Writing Process (Or Let it Conquer You)

writing process

The interesting part about writing is that much of the “writing” process involves staring at a blank document on the computer screen. I rock back in my chair, I play with my hair, I stretch out my back. But all the while, the ideas are churning in my head (and that’s not just what I [...]

All the News That’s Fit to Ignore

newsworthiness criteria

My mom sold my trumpet a couple months ago on EBay and you probably couldn’t care less. Sure, it was a big moment for me – I’d been playing for about one third of my life and the proceeds of the sale would help out my family – but for the rest of the world [...]

4 Tips to Develop Engaging Story Ideas

story ideas for editors

“That’s a story idea,” I would often think as a general assignment newspaper reporter and editor. So many of my friends’ and family’s stories about lively debates at their jobs, old friends they ran into or the TV shows they were obsessed with would often lead to an article idea relevant and interesting to our [...]

5 Ways to Break Creative Block

breaking creative block

The blank Word document taunts me without saying a word. Writer’s block has set in, even though my imagination is working just fine. I close my eyes and picture hurling my computer out the window. I can see the cables, mouse and keyboard trailing behind it for eight stories, then catching up after multiple thwacks [...]

Cut! 4 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Creating Video

creating online video

When my boss approached me recently and asked for my help in producing a convention video for one of our clients, I was ecstatic. Finally, I thought, a chance to tap my inner Scorsese. My only previous directing experience came at age five. (I’ll spare you the details, except to say that it involved Transformers—think [...]

What Being on the Radio Taught Me About Writing

writing lessons learned on air

Everything I learned about writing I learned on the radio. All right, that’s not entirely true. But I’ve learned a lot.

Want Infinite Blog Post Ideas?

infinite blog post ideas

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Facebook. OK, so maybe destroyed is a bit dramatic, but they were at least heavily distracted by it. And so it goes. We in the world of content marketing have a lot of things to click on. There are blog posts to read. There are [...]

How to Make an Editor Happy

how to make an editor happy

Times are tough for freelance writers, so you need every edge to secure work and maintain good relationships with your clients. This is especially important in a custom media environment, where many magazines operate with a small staff. Editors have to know their writers will hit the mark every time. Deadlines are always fast-approaching and [...]

Lead and I Will Follow: On Writing Good Leads

lead and i will follow

You’re making me nervous. You clicked on this link expecting to learn something or to perhaps be entertained. I could boldly hope that you may even retweet or bookmark this article. But a lot of that depends on my lead. Here’s hoping it worked.

Tying It All Together: What a Well-Placed Headline Can Do For A Layout

tying it all together, rugs and headlines

There’s a scene from the Coen Brothers’ 1998 cult classic The Big Lebowski where Jeff Bridges’ character, The Dude, walks into a local bowling alley lamenting the ruination of a living room rug vandalized by intruders. “That rug really tied the room together, did it not?” asks a concerned John Goodman, who plays fellow bowler [...]

Don’t Worry, Be Content: 10 Rules for Creating Quality Editorial

examining quality editorial

No rules, just write, right? Not so fast. Though creating quality editorial is an art, there’s absolutely a science behind it, according to Kim Caviness, VP of content at TMG Custom Media (disclosure: the company behind this blog). Here are her 10 rules for quality editorial:

How to Lose Credibility with One Typoe

a typo in mario and luigi

It seems like common sense: Look over your work before you share it. But sometimes – especially in the era of “do more with less” – that simply doesn’t happen. In the name of timesaving, we skip the review and let it fly. We hit “send” or “submit” or “publish” without giving work a once-over [...]

The Most Interesting Writer in the World

Most Interesting Writer in the World

I dig beer. And if you’re going to concoct an advertising campaign with attendant brand building that appeals to my need for suds, please, for the love of the almighty marketing gods, tell me your pitch man is the most interesting man in the world. That’s audacious. And better yet, tell me things about him [...]

The Quality Mixtape: 20 Web Resources for Content Creation

quality mixtape

Some of my most memorable musical discoveries were made thanks to meticulously compiled and lovingly decorated mixtapes, created for me by friends with the eclectic tastes and artistic fervor of adolescence. I know I’ve just utterly and irrevocably dated myself, but I don’t care; just thinking about those tapes makes me happy, reminds me that [...]

Branded Content: Examples of Getting it Right

branded content right

There’s no question that there’s been an upswing in the trend of brands publishing content to win over consumers. Bypassing traditional avenues of promotion, smart organizations are tapping their internal expertise to create content that entertains, educates, and engages their current and potential customers. Consider the following data from the Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry [...]

7 Grammar Mistakes that Make Editors Hyperventilate

grammar mistakes for editor hyperventilation

It’s time to declare a war on bad grammar, misuse of words and cringeworthy punctuation and capitalization. In today’s fast-paced media environment, perfection seems to have been traded for speed, making room for these unwelcome villains on the pages of publications everywhere. But who is enemy #1? Do all editors loathe the same mistakes, or [...]

Content as Social Currency

content as social currency thumbnail

Think of a funny friend. This is the person you bring to happy hours and parties because you know, despite how awkward it may get, this person is sure to make everyone have a good time. Now think of a self-absorbed friend. This is the person who segues (ahem, forces) every conversation to morph into [...]

Give the Gift of Good Content

give the gift of good content

Is there a more sparkling, party-filled, cookie-eating, holiday-song-playing month than December? Wrapped up in all that fun is gift giving. Do you want to be the person who gives earrings to a woman without pierced ears, a snowblower to your friend in Hawaii or an evergreen-scented candle to someone who sneezes at the first sight [...]

How to Create Unforgettable Content: 4 Tips Inspired by Nicki Minaj

nicki minaj content strategy

You may or may not have heard the news, but there’s a new face in hip-hop and it wears a pink wig. What? Seemingly out of nowhere came a young woman who quickly built a brand and persona in the world of hip hop and in the process resuscitated the dying image of the female [...]

5 Rules of Content That Will Never Change

hammurabi code

At least half of what I do all day long didn’t exist when I studied journalism in college. And I’m not that old. At that time, you wrote an article and it was published. The end. There was no updating it and certainly no tweeting it, no blogging about it, no linking it to other [...]

Bringing Content to Life: 5 Tips for Creating Online Video

better online video content with michael mccarthy

You don’t have to be Martin Scorsese to create online video for your brand. But that doesn’t mean you can just whip out a shaky hand-held camera and videotape a squirrel riding a skateboard with bizarre ambient sounds in the background. So how do you use online video to extend the pages of your print [...]

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