Words to the Wise

Not usually, but I like you, so I’ll let you in on a little bit of the magic. Well, MY magic that is. Copywriting isn’t really magic, but to me it’s part science, part art and part luck.

I’m surprised that when people call to inquire about my copywriting services, they don’t ask if I work out of an office or my home. Not that it matters, but I, personally, like to know these things.

So have you ever wondered what copywriting looks like?

Now you know.

And, if you squint hard enough, you’ll see two laptops on my desk. It’s a copywriter secret of mine. I use one for research and email, and I use the other for writing in one of a number of word processors. Of course, you’ll also see me writing on a pad of paper in this picture - another secret of mine.

My blank screen. My blank pad of paper. Nothing drains my inspiration more than these two things. You see, the words that go on the screen and on the paper don’t come FROM the paper, they come from my head. And the ideas in my head can only get there from one place - the world around me.

As a copywriter who gets paid to write web content, ad copy, radio spots and more for my clients, I can’t write “blank screen” on my invoices and charge for that empty time.

Since inspiration rarely comes to me the moment I sit down to write, I have to search for the good ideas that will make a project more than just a mechanical arrangement of words and facts. The good news is that these ideas can be built up for future use, but at the same time, you can never have too many.

My solution is to read. Reading is simply the best defense against an empty head.

For every word I write, I read a thousand more.You know when you sit down in a doctor’s office and read a magazine only to find that someone has ripped out pages? I’m that guy*. People Magazine, Macleans, Newsweek, Time - just to name a few. I read them for both the articles and the ads. Anything to give me a fresh perspective.

Even beyond magazines, I read books about interpersonal relations, human dynamics, history books - you name it. Ok, not romance novels, but you get the idea. I take notes, tuck them away and then read them when I need inspiration.

Reading generates ideas because I’m filling my brain with ideas. My imagination then filters the ideas and re-purposes them into something useful. If I stop reading, I stop getting ideas. The girls at the library know me by name.

*For the record, I have never ripped a page out of a library book or magazine, and I have begun to use my camera phone as a way of recording good ideas.

In my early copywriting and public relations days, I was lucky to have some good bosses. Go and look at my resume, and you’ll see the companies I’ve worked for who gave me good bosses. They’re the ones who gave me the freedom to be creative and offer new, big ideas.

I was also lucky to have some really, REALLY bad bosses. Those you won’t find on my resume. I’m not just talking about people who didn’t understand creative work or who were just trying to put their mark on everything I did, I’m talking about some true knobs of epic proportions. Bosses who offered clients crappy work day-in and day-out. Bosses who said one thing and really meant another. Bosses who berated you in front of clients because your ideas were not what they thought the client wanted to hear.

They know who they are. They read this blog. Welcome back, by the way.

What, me? Smug, you say? Never. Actually, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank these less-than-desireable leaders for teaching me how NOT to do business. During my time at these companies, I sat in meetings where my bosses would NEVER offer new and big ideas. Nothing fresh, nothing outrageous, nothing out of the box. Everything they did lacked courage and creativity. It oozed of complacency and the status quo.

As for me, I just sat back taking notes in those meetings. Notes about what NOT to do, how NOT to act, and how NOT to ever, EVER be like these people, ever.

All the jobs I’ve hated, I’ve learned from. Successful people will tell you that learning happens more when you fail, than when you succeed. While, in hindsight, I wouldn’t call working for Knobs, Inc. et al a failure, in the beginning of these jobs, I was certain I was a failure by going against the company grain, offering fresh ideas, and not settling for the obvious solutions. The truth is, I was learning some of the greatest business lessons of my life.

My lesson today for you is to always fail forward. That means that every time you feel like you’re failing, look for the lesson. It’s there. All the time. When you’ve found it, you’ve advanced. At one ad agency back in Connecticut, I was to come up with some ‘fresh’ radio spots for a client. So that’s what I did. The result - five spots my boss HATED. He wouldn’t even show them to the client. He swore at me, threatened me and then threw my spots in the trash.

Was that a failure? Maybe at the time. Today, those five spots have brought me more freelance copywriting work than I could have ever imagined at the time.

I failed forward. You will too.

A friend of mine uses Facebook to advertise their wedding photography business. Another uses it to promote their real estate agency.

So what does this have to do with description tags? Well, when you insert a URL or link into a Facebook message to another user or in a post to a group, Facebook automatically grabs the description tag of that page and pastes it into the message.

This makes for a new twist on description tags.

Since they hold little or no relevance in search engine ranking, anymore few people pay much mind to them. Yet, they are vital in terms of web traffic via search engines…and now, from Facebook.
Do all of your description tags make sense? Could they use a tune up? Are they too long? Too short? Here’s a quick guide to help you out:

Description Tags, with spaces, should be no more than 70 characters long. Without spaces, they should be no more than 62 characters long.

If you don’t have a description tag for a particular page, search engines typically take the first block of copy they see on the page. This isn’t always a great thing if your first bit of copy is a chart or has little to do with the page topic.