Hooks: The Most Powerful but Least Understood Writing Tactic
If you don’t spend enough time on your ‘hook’, you are probably wasting all of your time.
Insights & tips
3 simple ways to boost empathy in your content
Emotion is used as a tactic in digital engagement. But Empathy is what drives sustainable strategic audience development.
Digital Storytelling is Tough; Change this One Thing to Make It Simpler
Working backwards from how your post will appear in Search and on Social makes writing much more straightforward.
Groundhog Day
At the start of 2015, I was about to leave Reuters and set myself up as a consultant on digital media strategy. I created this blog as a place to collect my thoughts on how content needed to adapt to how information flows were changing. I even wrote a couple of posts. Then I got offered a job at the World Economic Forum in Geneva and promptly forgot all about it.
Simple SEO: 10 ways to max out on Google traffic
The importance of simple SEO cannot be overstated. Most people publish content without thinking very much about potential readers. Which represents a host of lost opportunities. One study suggests that over 90% of pages get no search traffic at all!… Read More »Simple SEO: 10 ways to max out on Google traffic
Content Families: Make Your Investment in Story Ideas go Further
There are three ideas behind ‘Content Families’: What is a Content Family? Here’s an example of how the World Economic Forum created a ‘Content Family’ on the 2021 Gender Gap Report. The video links to the League Table post… …So… Read More »Content Families: Make Your Investment in Story Ideas go Further
Systems Thinking: the revolutionary way to unlock digital engagement
Systems Thinking is a must-have skill for those driving digital content strategy and audience development
8 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Supercharge Your Writing
ChatGPT is NOT a one-stop solution to all your content production challenges. But it WILL radically cut the time required to produce effective material and supercharge your writing if you use the right prompts. But first, a health warning: Be… Read More »8 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Supercharge Your Writing
Content Marketing: Helping Users and Raising Your Own Profile
What is Content Marketing? The basic idea behind content marketing is that the best way of building an audience is to provide it with useful information that will cement you in their minds as helpful and to indirectly promote the… Read More »Content Marketing: Helping Users and Raising Your Own Profile
6 Simple Ways to Get Your Posts Noticed
1. Face up to reality: the need for a network mindset Like it or not, algorithms drive the majority of your traffic. Every decision you make has to bear that in mind. The good news is that, deep down, we’re all… Read More »6 Simple Ways to Get Your Posts Noticed
5 Big Comms Mistakes from the Pandemic
Most people have been confused by mixed messages on the pandemic from officials, academics, and the media. In a piece for The Atlantic, sociologist and academic Zaynep Tufekci has unpacked what’s been going wrong. It’s a long, fascinating read. Here’s a… Read More »5 Big Comms Mistakes from the Pandemic