Transcripts
1. Introduction: everyone has their own experiences in life, and it is so amazing to be able to share these experiences with one another in an amazing way to do that is still for written word. And that is log posts, Lyndon articles, social media, email, newsletters, anything that is gonna involve writing down her story and sharing with the rest of the world. I hear a lot about people letting their fears hold them back for fear of not being a good enough writer or not having anything interesting to write about. And honestly, people just want to hear about your experience, People who believe in what you believe in or want to share in what you've learned. Those are the people that are going to show up and they're gonna read your long or your article. Your newsletter. I honestly weep that anyone with a story anyone experiencing life can write a blogged and it can still be amazing. And I'm here to prove, so let's get started. Hi, I am working Schreiber and I am a writer, a storyteller and a creative entrepreneur. In this class. I am going to tell you about how to write a block post or an article for LinkedIn or newsletter. Any of these that have kind of a standard format and you would be producing on a regular basis. Now I have written a lot of different things. I am a self published author I have written, linked in articles and block posts and a variety of email content for businesses, for my own brand. All sorts of things I have been writing since I was a kid. It is just something that has come naturally to me. I love to do, and I would love to share everything that I've learned with you. In this course, we're gonna cover how to plan and create a block, post or article or whatever it is that you need to write from start to finish. I'm gonna share with you my skills, tips, tricks, anything that I have learned along the way. Hopefully making this process a little bit smoother and faster for you
2. The Project: for this project, we're gonna be writing a block post or linked in article or newsletter. Whatever you need from start to finish. By the end, you will not only have a completed Postwar article ready to upload online, but you should have the skills to continue to do this after this post will probably end up being about two pages long and whatever program that you're writing it in. In this course, we're gonna cover things like planning out your block poster article copyrighting base it's and what to use when it comes to formatting that poster articles that it looks good and also identifying your reader and making sure that you're writing for them, among other things as well. Now, something to keep in mind is that finding your process is in a perfect process. It's a learning experience. I know I have written things that are not my favorite, but I learned from them, and you will, too. So nobody is. It's for this course. You're just gonna need a couple of things a computer, and then you also need some sort of writing program. To write this in, you will need a platform to post this on later. But if you don't have something, you don't have to worry about that right now. E. I highly encourage you to share your projects when you're done with them. I would love to see what you've created, and it's also really great resource to see what other people are doing with their posts in their writings. Now let's get started. I am super excited, and I hope you are as well.
3. Selecting a Topic: No way we're gonna get started with the first part of the project, which is finding a topic. Now, this is something that I know a lot of people get stuck on. I know I struggle with it. Everyone does have a hard time sometimes and what really makes it a lot easier. It's just to remember that there are so many topics out there. There are so many things that you can write about and often times, if you're feeling stuck, you're just thinking too hard about it. So we're going to start with a really basic technique to figure out some topics to write about. First, I want you to grab a piece of paper or your computer, whatever you would like to write with, and I want you to create a list. Just start writing down ideas, anything that you are interested in writing about anything that you have knowledge about. I just want you to get that all out on that piece of paper or on your computer. Another thing that you can look at is what are other people in your field writing about a lot of times if you're stuck, it's a really great idea to go ahead and take a look at what someone else is writing about , because maybe you can write about a similar topic. Or maybe you can write about that same topic. But tell your own story, your own version of it. It's not copying as long as you're telling your own perspective and not just copying every word for word from them. So feel free to get inspiration from other people. And if you're still struggling after that, start broad. Maybe you're looking for something to specific. So if you are an artist, for example, let's start with a certain style of art or a certain technique that you use. It doesn't have to be narrowed down right away. We can narrow that down as we go. Okay, so now you should have a list. It may have all kinds of ideas thrown on their some of them. You may be really excited about some you may be less excited about, and what I want you to do is narrow it down to 3 to 5 topics. The ones that most excites you, the ones that you feel the most prepared to write about. And we're just gonna focus on those. You should now have a list of 3 to 5 topics that you can choose from. I want you to just pick one for today, But I also want you to recognize that you know how he now have topics for future articles or posts or newsletters. You may have been stressing about trying to find a topic to write about, and in just a few minutes you come up with several that you can continue to use.
4. Storytelling is the Oldest Tool in the Book: before we jump into starting to write out our poster, article or newsletter, I just want to focus in on what makes a good news letter or post. Now, the biggest tool that I use and something that I'm a huge advocate of is storytelling. Storytelling is the oldest tool in the book. It is something that humans have used since back, back before we were even speaking English before we were speaking any concise languages when we were still just drawing on walls. That was storytelling. It is in the very nature of who we are. So to completely ignore storytelling in what you're doing in your post in your article in your nudist letter just doesn't make any sense. If you want to connect to someone, to your reader, to your audience, you should definitely be using storytelling to do so. It's going to connect with them on an emotional level. It's going to help get your point across, and it may even teach them a bit of a lesson. We all know that there are plenty of stories with moral endings, things like that, and the point of those was to convey an idea and to teach a lesson to people, and we know how well those have worked. So what makes a good story? First, you need a beginning, middle and end. This is something that is very basic. We learn it even in school. When it comes to writing essays, you've got your introductory paragraph. You've got your middle supporting paragraphs and you've got your conclusion. You've got your middle beginning and end. The other things that tend to make stories really successful are relatable character. Now, this is something that we're also gonna go into a little bit later on in this course. But you want to make sure that even if your character is you, if your telling your own story, you're still making space to include your audience in that story. Another really important thing is to make sure that there is some sort of arc to the story . Most story lines specially in fictional stories. You'll start down here at the normal daily life. Then there will be some sort of cataclysmic event. It may not be as extreme as the word cataclysm makes you think, but there is a point of no return. There is the gradual build as the character and story follows a path they're trying to solve resolve. Whatever the issue is their learning along the way. There is the final peak here at the end, where everything is resolved, you've got your answer, and then we go back to normal daily life in the normal daily life may have changed due to these events, but that is generally how a story flows. You may think, Well, that doesn't really apply to what I want to write about what I'm talking about. But I think ultimately, even if it's not as extreme as, let's say, some sci fi action movie, you'll find that what you're talking about still will follow a general shape of that.
5. Writing For Your Audience: Now we're gonna talk about why it's so important that you write for a specific audience and not just generally everyone. If you're trying to write just something general that catches everybody, you're actually going to catch less people that are good for your brand. Michael Port said it really well in his book Book Yourself. Solid marketing and sales isn't about trying to persuade a bunch of people you want to find the right people and put yourself in front of them. So here we're gonna identify an audience. So this is an example. If I owned a personal shopping service for entrepreneurs and creative, so I have already narrowed it down there and I'm gonna come up with my ideal customer. So Kyle runs a new tech company, designing APS for phones. He is single, 31 very social. When he's not working, he is with friends, family and meeting new people. Because of his busy work life and social life. He doesn't really have time to spend on shopping for clothes for himself, but he still wants to dress well. He's definitely someone who wants high quality, good looking clothing, but he also wants to be comfortable, So this is something very important to him. He I originally said he earns around 75 K a year. However, I will change that later because I decided that he lives in Seattle and I realized that wasn't proportionate, so this is a good example, and I want to do this for your clientele as well.
6. Call To Actions: next, we're gonna talk about something that you may have heard about before. But maybe you don't necessarily understand what it means, and that is a call to action. A call to action is the purpose that you want to achieve when writing this post article or newsletter. It's what you want your audience member to do at the end of it. Let's say that you run a plant store and you want to bring more people in to your physical plant store location. We're going to write a newsletter that is focused on getting people to that point. Let's say that you want to educate people and drive people towards your YouTube, teaching them about how to grow a plant from start to finish from the seat. Then you're going to focus your article on that, and it's going to lead you towards your YouTube link or wherever that may be. A call to action doesn't have to be a super hard core sales. It is obviously moving people in that direction. It is getting them involved in your business in some way, shape or form. But ultimately I have found the most successful technique is just to keep it casual. Nobody likes to feel pressured into buying something or giving away their money or their time or their energy or their focus. So if you keep it very casual and start small, that's probably going to be more successful than if you're trying to get them immediately to sign up for your $1000 course or two by all of these plants that are massive that people don't actually have space for or to invest in your new technology, you anything like that, just get them hooked. We're just starting at the beginning. The other reason that I say it is really important to keep it casual when you are doing your call of action is because anyone can pressure someone into a sale. It is one of the oldest techniques in the book. It is why sales people are taught to ask at least three times whether or not you want that sale. But ultimately it will leave a bad taste in the customer's mouth, and then they may not return to you for future purchases. Now, if you're okay with us, that's fine. But ultimately I find it way more sustainable to have those customers return to buy things from you in the future. They will also tell other people about their experience. And if they had a great experience, encourage those people to support your business. That's why I think it is way more successful to just start small, be casual. If they don't take you up on your call to action, there's always another one.
7. Mapping Out Your Post: away. All right, so now we're actually gonna get to writing and mapping out your blog's article or newsletter. So generally, with any essay type thing, there are five sections. You've got your intro. You've got your three middle supporting paragraphs and you've got your conclusion. We're going to break this up in a similar format. There may be more in the middle. There may be a little bit less, but you definitely want to make sure you've got your intro and your conclusion in there because those air still very key importance to whatever it is that you are writing. So your introduction should focus on how to hook your audience. It should give a brief summary of what they're about to read so that they are not going to waste their time or feel confused about what they're getting into. And it should have something that lures them in that connects with them. Whether that is a question, whether you talk about something that you've struggled with, that they can relate to that they've been struggling with, or whether you challenge them, that is also a really good tactic. It is a little bit risky or sometimes especially If you're talking about something that's controversial but sometimes even controversial things, we'll get those records now. The middle parts of your post or article are going to be the meaty bits. That's gonna be where all of your information is. So you want to make sure that you figure out what are the key things that you are trying to convey to your reader? Go ahead and write those out, and then we're gonna come back. We're gonna fill them in with a little bit more information. Finally, we have your conclusion that is going to once again summarize everything that you've talked about. It's going to really drive home the point that you were trying to make, and it's going to tell your audience what they can do with that information. So for your project, we're going to start from the end. Actually, we're going to start with the conclusion. What is it that you're trying to get your audience to do? What is your call to action? Another note is you should make sure that you're called The action, relates directly to whatever it is that you're writing about. It doesn't make sense to have them do one thing. And when you're talking about something completely different, the second thing we're going to do for this project is we're gonna write out what your main points are. One of the points that you need to get across to convey fully all of the information that you're trying to present to make sure that they understand everything to tell your story from start to finish. What's the meat of this article? And then, finally, we're back at the beginning. I want you to write one sentence that summarizes what this poster article is about. Once you have done these things, you have the map to your post to your article to your newsletter on. We can actually start jumping into other details.
8. Write a Captivating Intro: right now the focus on that and how to write a captivating intro and hook your audience. I already mentioned that important ways to get your audience interested is to connect with them specifically to ask them a question or even to challenge them. But whatever it is, you want to make sure that that first sentence, maybe two if you need two sentences, try to keep it down to one is really focused on hooking that audience. So you want to make sure you're using action words, bold words. You don't want to make the sentence passive. A great example of this is the word. Think versus belief. So let's say we're talking about the color blue and how it can provide a sense of confidence. It is much stronger to say. I believe the Color Blue provides a sense of strong confidence than to say. I think the color blue provides a sense of strong confidence. That is exactly what I mean about using action words. If you are using stronger words, it's going to convey mawr emotion, inspire more thought in your reader, and it's gonna keep them interested longer. And like I said before, you will also want to summarize what is gonna be in the rest of your post or article. So what I want you to do for your project is go ahead and start writing this out. You're gonna have your first line, which is your hook line. You're going to summarize what is gonna be in the rest of this article or post, and you're going to make sure that use action words.
9. Copywriting Basics: before we jump into the meaty middle bits of your block poster. Your article. I want to cover a few topics, one of which is what? What are the basics of good copyrighting? There are a few different things to keep in mind when you're writing anything, anything at all. It doesn't even have to be a block post or an article. It could be something much shorter. It could be something for your website. These are basics that are going to carry you through in anything that you do for your business. Number one I've already talked about previously, and that is writing casually. So another thing that you want to make sure you're doing is writing in your brand voice. That's something that we know you want to make sure you are on Brand. You're speaking as yourself. If you have someone that is writing for you or if you're writing for another brand, we want to make sure that it's still on key with what that company or business or person is presenting themselves as, however, you also want to make sure that you, right casually again unless you're writing some hard core scientific or medical information make sure that you're writing so your audience can actually read it. So they're gonna be interested. If you get too technical or start using words that are too big, People are gonna be working too hard to read. They're not gonna get through the whole thing. You want to make this as easy as possible for them. You also want to write for your audience. You want to make sure that they can see themselves in whatever topic it is that you're writing about. If they can't see themselves in that article or blawg, if they can't relate to it in some way, they're not gonna keep reading. They're only gonna read maybe the first paragraph, and then they're going to switch over to something else. Now, another thing you're gonna focus on is Aida, and that is a I. D. A. That stands for attention, which is that first paragraph you're grabbing their attention with your hook line interest . That's what's gonna keep them reading. So you want to make sure that you're talking about something that your audience is gonna be interested in desire, that's what's really going toe lock them in their now. This could be something as simple as whatever your business or product or something that you've tried. If you recommend things, it's something that makes their life easier or something that relates to them on some sort of personal level. You know, if they have kids and maybe it's something that's gonna help them be closer with their kids or create memories with their kids, that's going to be desire. The final one is action, and that is your call to action, these air. This is the step that they can take to achieve or gain or whatever it is that you are writing about now. There's a lot of other tips and tricks that you can use in good copy writing, but I find that these are some of the basics that are going to carry through in no matter what it is that you write.
10. Formatting for Readability: Theo. Next part you want to focus on is techniques for readability, formatting, you know, things like that. So again focusing on using words that are going to be more readable for your audience, keeping in a middle school or high school reading level. In most cases, the other thing is breaking up your sentences. So we are not writing this like you would an essay for school where you have full paragraphs. You want to make sure that you are breaking it up into conversational pieces. Also feel free to utilize bold and italics. However, it is going to look most aesthetically pleasing. Your goal is to make it as easy and interesting to read as possible. You want to get that reader all the way through that entire post or article or newsletter, something that you can do and focus on also is breaking it up with headers. Now, this is a great way to help people understand the flow of what it is you're gonna be talking about. You can put that header in a slightly larger text or bold whatever your program or software is going to allow. Certain things have restrictions as far as how much you can alter the text, but just separating each section and making it clear what that section is about is really going to increase the readability of your post or article. Another thing that you can play with is fonts. Fonts are generally broken up into three different types. You've got your title phone to you've got your header fonts, and then you've got your main content fund. Now you want to make sure that they are complementary. A great way that you can find a complimentary, said Fonts, is to just google it. You may also already have a set of three fonts that you use for your brand, especially if you used a company who helped you with your branding. But generally, if you can break up your text into those three fonts, that's also going to keep the readability high and make it very aesthetically pleasing to your audience. Now, if you're ever going to pick your three fonts by yourself and you just want a few tips on what to pick, I would recommend for your title. This is where you can get creative. This is going to be the font that represents your brand is probably gonna be the same font as whatever you use on your website or anything like that. It can be a little more flashy or it can be just bold. But really make sure that that is what fits your brand identity. The second front is gonna be the font you use for headers. Usually I recommend something a little more bold for this. I also would go with something with songs Saref. So it doesn't have the little tail to the the A's and letters and things like that. It just keeps it very simple. It's also gonna look cleaner when you are breaking up your text with headers in between each section. The final one is going to be the main content. Now this one can have, sir, if it can have the little tales to the A's. I would also look at what the most readable fonts are because generally you're gonna want to stick with one of those. Since this is going to be where most of your content is, this is gonna be the bulk of what people are reading. You want to make sure that it's something that the eye is very comfortable with way before the project. I want you to go ahead and start writing out that block posed that article. Get the meat of the project in there, and then, after you have written out those meaty center sections, I want you to start dividing them up. I want them to be shorter, readable. It's okay if you just have one sentence on line, it's okay. That sentence is short. Generally, you just want to make sure that it looks good. Make sure that it's conversational is if you were actually in the room speaking to your reader, you want to keep it easy. Keep that flow going, Um, and just have fun with it. If you get a little stuck on this, I would recommend taking a look at other brands or companies or businesses that are in kind of the same realm issue. They have a similar feel to their brand. Look at how they're writing. Look at how it's laid out or just go look at your favorite brand, a favorite company and see how they've written things cause generally, if someone has a good website or blawg or articles or newsletters or anything like that, there's a reason that you love that, that you read multiple times of a week or a day from their content. It's because it's Britain. Beautifully. It's easy to read, and you could definitely look at what they're doing and utilize their ideas, their formatting. Just until you get a better sense of how you want to format your posts, your
11. Using Images for Storytelling: Theo. Next part we're going to talk about is images in your coast or article. I know we've all seen the block post that has a recipe that you want to get to, and it's just filled with images, and sometimes it's a normal amount. Sometimes it's just too many, and you have to scroll and scroll and scroll. Something to keep in mind is that these images should be supporting your story, not overwhelming it. So you want to make sure that you're not using too many. I usually recommend maybe one per section at most. Sometimes you might use less also, really focus on what the best images are, which images really convey the story. If somebody were to just look at the picture alone, would they understand what this post is about? Would they be able to follow the story? The other thing is to make sure that your image isn't too big. Sometimes you go into a block poster newsletter and images huge just takes up the whole screen. It's very easy to resize. Whether you're using snap seed, which is an app for your phone or can va dot com. You can totally resize that image and make sure that it is more appropriate for the page. You just want to make sure again that these images are not overwhelming and taking control of your story. You still want your copy your text to be conveying whatever it is that you're trying to convey to your reader. Here I wrote an example. Blocks. You can see how I would put pictures into it. So the first picture I've already put in its of a small home. It's kind of tricky to find a good picture of a small apartment. So the small home really conveys still what I'm trying to say. The next section and I was talking about knickknacks, so I went ahead and I found an image that has a lot of things on shelves. I stuck that in there and then shifted around. I like to put an extra line between the image and the text. It just creates a little more air, makes it more readable, and I personally also tend to prefer to center my images. However, you can also wrap text around the image. That's an option in Google documents or a lot of times in any platform that you use so just kind of play around with it and see what you would prefer to dio. And then I added my third image, which had to do with Mess. I specifically stuck it in the middle here. After that short line, Teoh really drive home a point again. I'm using the images to help with storytelling. I centered it made sure that it had the spaces around it. And overall, I think that really added to the overall block post. I stuck with three images because I didn't want to get too complicated with it. All right, so for this project, I want you to go ahead and take a look at what images you might have. Now, these could be images that you yourself took that specifically relate to whatever it is that you are writing about. These could be images that you have gotten from a website that are professional, that still relate to whatever it is that you are writing about. But go ahead and just pick a few and start to look at how they're gonna fit into your article or your post. Make sure that again. They are telling that story there following the story there, not overpowering it on. I want you to go ahead and put those in there
12. Citing Sources (If You Have Them): now, this section may not relate to everybody, but we're gonna talk about citing your sources. Things is especially important. If you were talking about anything that is going to be scientific or factual. You want to make sure that you are putting the sources of your information in there. I cannot stress it enough. It is going to provide credibility to you and your brand. It is going to make sure that the information out there is accurate. There is so much misinformation all across the Internet and a lot of people that are presenting themselves as experts on something when really they don't know what they're talking about. So putting citations in your article, whether it is a direct link or something at the bottom of your poster article, is very important if you want to build that trust with your audience, so for your project, if it is containing any information that is factual, especially if it's information that you were pulling from other sources, I want you to go ahead and go through now. Mark those things and make sure that you're putting in your citation again. Whether that is a link directly to whatever earthy resource is or just including information at the bottom of your poster
13. Write a Great Title: Finally, we're coming back to the beginning, and we are riding the title of your post or article or your newsletter. Now, this could be something as simple as the headline in your email. If it is a newsletter, it's just whatever is going to be at the top was the first thing that your audience is going to see before they even start reading the content. Now you want to make sure again that here you are using action, words were using those bold, strong words that are gonna bring people in. You are also going to make sure that it reads easily. I wouldn't get too wordy with this one. Um, it is still going to be something that is hooking your audiences attention just like that first sentence of your introductory paragraph. However, this has gotta be short as possible. There are exceptions to this rule, but in most cases, if you can keep it slick, short, sweet, simple to the point, it's just gonna be so much better. The other thing with this is you want to make sure that it does convey what is going to be in your block or article. People want to know what they're reading about. This goes also, for if it is a newsletter and email, people want to know what's in that email before they open it. Otherwise, they're probably not gonna open it. So for this next part of your project, I want you to go ahead and write the title to your blob, post your article or your newsletter This again. We're gonna use those techniques, those action words, and just make sure that it really conveys what's in the content in the body of your article .
14. Final Thoughts: All right, so at this point, you should have completed blonde post or article or newsletter, whatever it is that you were creating. And I just want you to take a second and recognize that, especially if you were feeling anxious about writing something or you were feeling like you were a great writer or you couldn't write well enough to do this. Hopefully, some of those worries and concerns have dissipated in this process. Hopefully, you understand now that you don't have to be some amazing writer. You're not publishing a book. You're reading a block that needs to connect with people. On an individual level, it means to be readable, which means that it needs to be fairly simple. And I hope that you're proud of the work that you've done. I would love to see the projects that you've created. So if you want to share those in the project section, go right ahead. That's also gonna be great content for helping other people. And if you get stuck at any point, or if you have any questions or want to see what other people have written, go check that section out. It's always good to see what other people have done just to help you learn and improve your own process. So thank you so much for taking this course. And hopefully in the next one, Yeah.
Morgan Schreiber, I create stories
