Creating Value for Others With Writing
Most recently, I Interviewed Jillian Smith in my latest video webinar (check out our interview HERE.) Jillian works at Propllr, where she is a senior media relations specialist. We met on Twitter, where I really enjoyed her tweets and writing style. I invited her to do a webinar about creating value for others through writing. This essay is geared more towards people focused on business writing, not fiction writing. Here are some of my takeaways:
Be a credible, consistent, and authentic voice. It's difficult to break through all the noise that exists in the world. Many people think that just because they have something to say that others will read it. That isn't the case. You need to be someone that continually delivers value to the audience, and provides a real voice. A voice that people can rely on and relate to. If you can do this, people won't only read your writing, they'll trust what you write.
Solve the problem for the reader right away. When you are writing in a business context, your reader is expecting an answer to their problem. It's essential to have as few words as possible between the problem and the solution in your writing. To demonstrate this, I wanted to share two instances relating to journalism and HR professionals.
Jillian remarked that journalists receive tons of pitches. One journalist she knows receives 400 a day. There isn't enough time each day to read them all. Your audience and HR professionals have the same issues. They'll receive an enormous amount of resumes for a job posting and have to make a quick decision. One study on resume reading shows that recruiters make a decision on a CV in six seconds.
These examples aren't the exception, but the norm. Audiences are getting inundated with information left and right. Get to the point quickly, and your readers will be hooked.
How to get started writing? The most significant problem people have with writing is getting started. I wrote about the concept of Imposter Syndrome in a previous essay. Start small. Maybe you tweet once a day or write one headline. Keep doing that until you get comfortable, and you want to expand to two tweets a day or perhaps a headline and then a subheadline. Eventually, you'll get to the point of writing multiple essays a week, or even a book. The most important thing is consistency and accountability. In the words of Anne Lamott, "Don't be afraid to write a shitty first draft."
Create a framework for writing. Jillian likes to use the Who, What, When, Why, and How framework.
Who is the audience you are writing for?
What are you trying to tell them?
When did it happen?
Why should they care?
How did it happen?
This framework will help create a good starting point for your work. She also suggested some add-ons to the framework. Jillian likes to compare efficient writing to the efficiency of a potato that generates electricity; it's not necessarily pretty, but it just takes a few electrons for electricity to happen. Your writing doesn't have to be beautiful to start, but if it generates value, it's a success. As Albert Einstein says, "If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, you don't understand it yourself."
Engage your readers. If you are looking to build a following, create a community. Make sure that your writing has a call to action that engages readers for the future. Good readers are good writers. Read and learn what others are doing. Imitation is the best form of flattery. I'm not saying plagiarize, but think of it as Jillian says as, "Pachelbel's Canon." Pachelbel's Canon was written in the late 17th century by composer Johann Pachelbel. It's become one of the most famous classical music songs and has been used in musical pieces by artists such as Mozart to Maroon 5. They took the parts they liked and added their own personal touch to make it their own.
Some resources Jillian recommends that helped shape her thinking: