I wrote last week that I never received better than a B+ in any English or Writing class… that I’m writing for a living not on natural talent, but on guts. Well, the main point is still valid, but I stand corrected on the grade thing: I got an A- in a Junior-year college writing course. The class was titled “Writing Out Loud,” and while I spent most of my time eating cookies and writing about construction workers, quite a bit from that class still sticks with me.
Namely, the writing concept at the core of the course: not writing for a stagnant page, or stagnant professors. Writing like you’d talk. Or, writing out loud. Of course, the stuff was solid, and followed basic rules, but you get the point. And really, looking at my own work and at the good startup copy out there, that’s how it reads. It’s casual, engaging, and real. It respects the reader, not as superior to the writer, and not as inferior. As a friend.
I’ve written this before. Startup customers don’t want to be sold. They just want to know who you are, and what you made. Don’t tell them like you’re a great American author, and don’t tell them like you’re an idiot. Just, well, tell them. Write out loud.
I’ve been offline for almost all of the last few days… relaxing through the weekend (finally), and working hard once the week started again. It’s been a little quiet here, but I’ve got some good stuff coming soon.
For now though, here’s what I did yesterday afternoon, and it’s the TwitPic365 for today:
I talk a lot about copywriting (well, duh), and most of the time, I mean it as frontpage copy… what people see when they first get to your site, what they see in the ‘about us’ section, and so on. But I also talk about it as the content that combines to form your brand. For a lot of startups, most of this is on the frontpage. But then again, for a lot of others, it’s not. More and more (especially for startups with a central and visible founder/leader), the brand is being formed elsewhere online, in new media. On blogs, on Qik, on twitter, and on… well…. twitter.
People like AJ Vaynerchuk are doing a good job of covering the basics and the specifics of using social media (and twitter) to build your startup brand, and really, I’m glad, because I don’t want to write about that here. But I will write about it somehow… about how everything you produce - blog posts, tweets, and video scripts included is an opportunity to communicate who you are. An opportunity to do startup writing, and of course (as far as I’m concerned), to do quality startup writing.
