Everyone wants to be a better writer. A LinkedIn Contact wants to write a book but thinks his writing is dry so he’s looking for a ghostwriter. A colleague feels his blog is more of an obligation than an opportunity. A Yovia.com friend says she wants to be a writer but hates grammar. [Good luck with that!]

The best advice ever given to me was: Writing makes you a better writer, so write. The act of writing teaches you that good writing is just clear thinking. Clear thoughts produce clear words that produce clear sentences that produce clear paragraphs…you get the picture. The best way to learn to think and write clearly, to hone your talent, to find you rvoice and gain confidence is to write. That’s the strategic part of writing, the 20,000-foot view. There are tactical ways to improve your writing as well.

I have over 30 writing books in my office. If you who don’t want to read 30 books (and a gazillion articles) here are my top 25 tips for becoming a better writer:

1. Start a blog or journal. It’s the learn-by-doing thing again.
2. Create an outline before you start writing and then stick to the outline. It saves time and keeps you focused.
3. Understand that writing and editing are two different tasks that need to be separated.
4. Short, simple, declarative sentences are best.
5. Avoid passive voice.
6. Minimize the use of adjectives and adverbs. Amateurs claim they enrich and professionals claim they dilute. Who you gonna believe?
7. Edit it until your work bursts off the page with clarity and force.
8. Edit in steps: (1) logical flow, (2) paragraph transition, (3) grammar and (4) spelling. It’s tedious but it really helps when you’re learning.
9. Do the Johnny Cochran: When in doubt, cut it out.
10. Show what you write to friends and family. They will be supportive and eventually provide the honest criticism you need to improve.
11. Accept criticism as neutral feedback and not a personal attack. Learn and grow from the feedback.
12. Read, read and then read some more, especially great authors like Dickens, Doyle, and Steinbeck.
13. Learn grammar even if you can only swallow small doses.
14. Watch movies and notice how the plot twists, how characters are introduced, how they make you care about them, how they get into trouble and then more trouble before, finally, the crisis is resolved.
15. Live with excitement, honesty and curiosity about others and your surroundings.
16. Listen to the way people talk, how they tell their stories and then think about them as children.
17. Read your previous work and celebrate your improvements.
18. Make writing a priority.
19. Cowboy up! Recognize your insecurities, know you have limits and keep on writing.
20. Comment on blogs.
21. Write wild and unique metaphors. See my blog about Octomom’s Lips.
22. Designate time to research new topics and follow your muse.
23. Ask someone else to proofread. My wife is a great proofreader…who knew?
24. Approach your writing with a sense of joy and responsibility, never as an obligation.
25. Make notes listing subjects and ideas you want to explore. Maintaining a sense of urgency and exploration in your writing is fun.

While researching the subject of aligning blogging and business strategy one of my favorite bloggers, Chris Brogan, sent me the following.  Chris is one of the most successful bloggers in the world and someone I listen to on social media matters.

Strategic Blogging and Some Tactics to Nail It
Posted: 30 Jun 2009 03:30 AM PDT on www.chrisbrogan.com
Written by Chris Brogan

Once you get past the “should my company be blogging” hurdle and into the “okay, so now what?” part of the race, the next question you might find yourself facing is, “What should I be doing to marry my blogging to my business goals?” If you’re in charge of making blogs deliver a business value to your organization, here’s some thoughts to consider. (Note: this is a business-minded post. You can use blogs however you like.)

A Strategy is the Path You Choose to Take

Before we dive in, just realize this: strategy is a word that’s rarely used properly. Check out Erika Andersen’s Being Strategic if you need more on the right way to think about strategy. If not, just accept that strategy just means “the best way I can think of to get to the goal.”

Strategies are flexible. People don’t realize this. If your goal is to land more sales, then making one decision and sticking to it is not likely going to be the best way to plan your blogging methods. For instance, if you decide to write about product features every post, and that doesn’t convert to sales, would you still do it? No. You’d adjust your strategy and try new content approaches.

With that all said, let’s go in a bit more.

Sample Goals to Start our Strategies

Here’s a quick list of some ways one could use a blog in alignment with business strategy:

• Customer Loyalty
• Product/Service education
• Lead Generation
• Organic Keyword Marketing Assistance (SEO/SEM)
• Entertainment
• Awareness
• Thought leadership
• Announcements

There are, obviously, many more ways to use blogs, but you get the picture. From these goals, we can devise strategies.

Blogging Strategies

• Customer Loyalty – make a “customer of the week” post. Write about and promote others.
• Product/Service education – write several how-to posts
• Lead Generation – write posts that attempt to move people to a conversion point.
• Organic Keyword Marketing Assistance (SEO/SEM) – write blog posts that help you rate better for the search terms that matter to you.
• Entertainment – create interesting posts that keep up people’s good will
• Awareness – write frequent posts that maybe dip into many of these categories, to try and keep people interested
• Thought Leadership – write posts that establish you or your leaders as credible industry voices with great value.
• Announcements – use the blog as a glorified press release engine.

Again. I could write another 12 strategies each for the above-mentioned, but that’s not the point. I’m illustrating ways you can think about strategies for your blogging. Let’s go another layer down.

Tactics to Consider

• Customer Loyalty – include pictures in every post. Link to the customer often.
• Product/Service education – build good category support. Use sharethis.com or similar.
• Lead Generation – make simple calls to action. Don’t confuse with too many links, pictures, or other distractions.
• Organic Keyword Marketing Assistance (SEO/SEM) – learn which keywords you want to rank for and blog accordingly. (I’m not very into this method).
• Entertainment – build cross-promotional efforts, like tying posts to facebook and friendfeed for more exposure. The name of the game is eyeballs.
• Awareness – find ways to share and distribute. Look for external sharing mechanisms. The more you can cross-pollenate the message without seeming spammy, the better.
• Thought leadership – empower your leader (whoever you choose) to share as much as possible with the community. Comments help this cause lots.
• Announcements – be concise, and be able to share as much as possible.

What Works For You?

One thing to never forget is that you should always discount anything I say by tempering it with the understanding of what works best for you. You might be having tons of success by writing huge posts with no visual breaks. Who knows? Go with what works for you.
If you want more about the mechanics blogging, here is my best advice about blogging. Some of that might help, too.
Was this useful to you? What else did you want to share with everyone about your own successes? What’s worked or not worked for you?

Thanks, Chris.

Steve

Let’s pretend you’re shopping for a new suit. You walk into a small shop that just opened up and are greeted by a short round man with a bushy mustache. His name, he says proudly, is Enzo. While Enzo shows you his small shop he tells you that he learned his craft from his father, who learned it from his father. Then he begins asking about your business, how long you’ve lived in the community,. He asks about your family. Finally he bellows that, "an Enzo suit will fit you, and only you, better than any suit you’ve ever owned. "He leans in and whispers, "I will lower my price 10% because I know you that once you own an Enzo-suit you will be a customer for life " Enzo seems to truly enjoy himself. You can't help but like Enzo and you thank him for his time.

Your next stop is at the mall. The name of the store doesn’t really matter so let’s call it Brookstrom’s. An expressionless man stands behind the counter and as you approach he says flatly, “May I help you?” You tell him you are shopping for a suit. He says nothing and begins walking to the back of the store. You’re trained, so you follow. The back of his head asks your size and you say, “44, I think.” John, that may be what his nametag said, points to a rack of similar looking suits stuffed tightly together and says, “these are our 44’s.” As you wade through the suits you notice John is standing 6 feet behind you trying to look nonchalant. Being an experienced shopper you know John is not nonchalant. He is ready to pounce on you the second you linger too long on a particular suit and, in the blink of an eye start wrestling you into a jacket. In your mind's eye you see an image of Enzo. He's beaming. You begin planning your escape.

You get the picture? Those are two very different shopping experiences. One is personal, warm and comforting, while the other is sterile, cold and stressful.

This is Sales 101. People do business with people they like. Yet website after website and blog after blog are filled with boring, lifeless and dry text, much of it recycled. There are two factors driving the dullness epidemic.

First, what you and I know are commodities. Sorry, but it’s true. The world is far too big for your, mine and our knowledge to be cosmically  special. If you write about Corvettes, there are thousands, maybe more, competing webpages. Even if you focus on a niche like 1967 Corvettes there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of worthy competitors.

Many (most?) of those competitors will be good or excellent, while some will be truly exceptional. So even if you’re excellent in your niched niche, you’re still just one among the many. Excellence is not enough to define you and make you stand out above all the rest when you're competing globally. In the overall scheme of things, we’re all a little dull.

To be popular on the web, to sell on the web, you need to be like Enzo. You need to be likable and passionate. You need to show your personality. The hard part is you’ll need to rely on your writing (whether as text, a podcast, or  video) to show your personality, express your emotion and overcome your inherent dullness. Gadzooks!

Fortunately, that isn’t as hard as it sounds. It’s actually more about letting go than it is about gaining a new skill. It's about being yourself and writing in a conversational style.

I’m not recommending cursing in your writing or just throwing up verbal sludge if that happens to be how you communicate day-to-day. I certainly don’t do that, at least not on purpose. What I am saying is don’t hide who you are in an attempt to sound “professional.” If you normally use warm Southern expressions in conversation or burst out with an occasional forget-about-it, do the same in your writing. Genuine speech conveys authenticity and allows your audience to connect with you. I’ve gotten many comments on my blogs saying, “I can actually hear your voice when I read your blog.” That's the best!

So, short version: You want to be popular on the web? Stop being such a stiff.

Steve