GREAT ADAPTATIONS

What follows are rough notes I used to teach a session at BarCamp SF, Social Media Camp on July 15, 2008. I posted them here for the people who were in the session. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then this isn’t going to make much sense, so I recommend you go to the HOME page of this website where you can see stuff that I write for the public. What follows is rough and unedited and may give you an editorial rash. You’ve been warned!

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMP NOTES

Focus your content so your readers love you, trust you, and want to know more from you.

The elements of focused, productive content:

Your topics reflect your own interests deeply. Your passion shows.
Because you have genuine interest in your topic, you naturally learn more about it, which leads to the authority you must have in order to make a living through your writing.

How do you get to that deep interest? How do you know you’re on the right track?

• You know because you learn about this topic whether you are writing about it or not.
• You know because other people have commented that you are a natural when it comes to this particular thing.
• You know because you can’t stop thinking about it.
• You know because of how it makes you feel when you engage your topic.

This level of passion is mandatory. Communicating online for a living means that you live and breathe your topic, at least for a while. You have to be willing to engage your topic for a sustained period of time.

Can you see yourself doing that?

Now this next exercise is actually easier for people who have been around for a few decades. The older you are, the more you know about yourself. Potentially anyway.
Take a moment to think about the things you have done in your life that were really fun. We’re circling around your passion, looking for a view in. Where does your mind go first? Is it a childhood experience? Did you travel somewhere? Was it your dog or cat or fish? How about sports? Recreation? Or are you a researcher? What do you like to learn about? Now write down a few key words. It’s not that important right now what those words are, just be loose and casual. It’s fine if you write down “blue M&Ms.” That will work fine for the next exercise. You just need three words. Make sure at least one of them is a tangible thing, not a concept. River. Potato. Shoe. Something. Okay, everyone have three words? Raise your hand if you don’t have your words. Okay, you write down swing, butter, and Muni. I’ll write that down too. We’re going to do an exercise.

I want you to write for a few minutes, using wild mind technique. Here’s what that means.
Keep the pen moving. Do not think. Just write. Those words you wrote down are home base. That means, if you cannot think of anything to write, you write those words. Here’s the secret. Your brain wants total control, all the time. We’re going to trick it. When you write fast and smooth and don’t go back, don’t read, don’t erase, don’t cross out, your brain will get quite disgusted and walk away. That’s what we want. So here’s where those words come in. If you start to think, you write those words. Write them over and over, and eventually your right brain will say FINE! I’ll think of something! This is harder for some and easier for others. It doesn’t matter. Just keep the pen moving. We’ll keep it short so you don’t freak out. Okay? I’m going to get you started and then it’s up to you. I don’t want to see anyone staring at the ceiling, flipping their foot and chewing on their pen. DON’T THINK. Write. Okay, get comfortable, let’s go. I want you to write “I knew I had to hear this session because swing, butter, Muni, I knew I had to sit down here for blue M&Ms, I knew I wanted… okay, keep going, let yourself write. This is short, get it going now.
Okay, start wrapping up your sentences, you did good.
Now. Whatever you just did, whatever it looks like, it’s perfect. You’re in this room and you wrote at least for a second without your editorial mind telling you anything destructive. Which is what it usually does.

You can keep doing this, and it will lead somewhere. You have to get out of that left brain in order to get to the juicy stuff where your passion is and where your readers want to come read you, you, you, day after day.

Take a breath here, shake out your shoulders. We won’t do anything demanding for a little while.

Now let’s say you have an idea what you want to do. Anyone? Anyone know already or at least suspect what you’d like to write about?

Okay, that’s good, anyone else? Good. Cool! So let’s think about those readers out there. Who are they, the ones who care about _______?

Good! Let’s go see if anyone is searching for that information. Who’s online? Pull up Google keywords. This is a new tool from Google and it is gold. We have wordtracker and overture, but this is so easy and accessible. And free, yes.

Okay, if you would, type in _________. Let’s see what it says. There are some suggested keywords here, and some numbers.

Here’s what I learned recently. I write about brain health and Boomers and technology. I wrote about internet security one day. Look at these numbers. This one has 400 and this one has 400,000. So you can see hot topics, related to your topic, and that can help you know what people are looking for. You want to meet that need.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because you are interested in it, anyone else is. No matter how passionate you are. You have to connect to your readers and give them what THEY want, and it still has to be from your passion. Tricky, yes. But you can do it. The tools are there.

So we’ve got this topic and we’ve got readers looking for this. So let’s drum up a blog title. How about, (something goofy). Anyone think of something we can write about on this? What do you want to write about? Okay, good, there’s a title. Excellent! Let’s look at those keywords again.

When you write this blog, you want to be helpful. How can you help? Can you give some suggestions or solve a problem?

Okay, that’s good, let’s solve a problem. So let’s make the title reflect that. Titles solve a problem. Excellent. Now can you include a number in the title? Search engines love that. Why do you think you see so many numbers in titles? There’s a reason. Use it.

The other thing is that readers online need a lot of places to land and not too much long text. Our eyeballs just can’t do it. We weren’t born with this ability. At least not many of us. Short, short, short. Give the reader something to hold on to. Tell them first what you’re going to do here. Then follow through – faithfully, people, don’t let them down, they’re counting on you.

Be short, funny, real, revealing, precise, and helpful. Give links. Don’t ever end a post without something for them to do at the end. Ever. And if you can think of a snappy p.s., all the better. While they’re reading your blog they are floating around off the floor. Did you know that? You’ve got to give them the floor back. Wrap up your posts with something solid. You can ask a question, that’s fine. But make sure you’ve got the badummp-bump at the end of your post. They won’t like you if you leave them floating around out there! It’s too weird!

Now go read Hugh MacLeod, and when you go home, do wild mind writing. You’re going to be fine.