3 ways to easily improve your writing

1) Make a blueprint
Use a clear, possibly predetermined structure

Your words constitute a building: as a writer, you are the architect (could this sound any cornier? It’s true though). Before construction starts, the plan has to be ready. Create a clear structure. You might discover the right one as you go, but you can also choose to map it out before you start writing. For instance, if you need to get your reader to do something, go for the well-known AIDA-formula: get Attention first, create Interest and Desire next and finally make sure your reader takes Action. And if you’re in an innovative mood, try the AICPBSAWN-formula (whut?!)!

2) Be creative
Reconsider your first choice once in a while

Structuring is one thing, formulating is another. Challenge yourself there. I bet you’ve heard about courses in creative writing – you will not necessarily need one, if you just try to rethink everything you’re writing down while you’re writing it down. Ask yourself questions like Maybe there’s a synonym that sounds more appropriate in this context? or simply Isn’t there a more original way to formulate this?

First assignment: next time you use signal words, try to avoid furthermore, therefore and moreover. Everybody’s using them way too much. Be creative.

3) Don’t just hit Send
Read it back

Done? No matter how skilful you are, it’s quite likely that you’ve overlooked something. Before you put your readers to work, make sure they can’t discover any mistakes. Treat every text like your latest masterpiece, even if it’s just a short e-mail. This will benefit you while building your personal brand.

Of course, this is all just a start

Keep on searching for ways to improve your writing. You already know how to be nice to your reader, thanks to your mother. Also, keep empathizing with him or her. Think of reasons why sometimes you don't want to read a text and then make sure you do better than that. Ready? Then pay attention to the influence of social media. After that, try turning it all into a memorable story, without being too brief. Chances are you’ll be headed for a happy end, somewhere in a world called Quality.

That’s all folks!

This is the 10th and final blogpost for [BITS]. I want to thank all of my (at this point) almost 300 unique visitors (yes, you too are unique!) for dropping by. Funny to know that my words have been on screens from Switzerland to Russia and from the UK to Brazil :) Cheers!

Building your brand: do you come across the way you want to?

It’s all social these days. Social media, social aspects of new media (are we all studying for that one currently? Good luck!), social advertising, you name it. Whether you’re intrigued by these developments or not, you have to deal with them. One important consequence to take into account is what it all can do to your image. How do you manage your online presence? Do you come across in a way you want to come across?

If you’re studying communications and heading for the job market, you might want to think about ways to distinguish yourself from all those other people who do what you do. After all, they can form some sort of threat when you're trying to land that really cool position at that really cool company.

Both offline and online, it’s about building your personal brand. Putting yourself on the map. It takes selfawareness. A clear vision of…

- who you are;
- what kind of impression you want to make;
- what your ambitions and goals are;
- how you’re going to achieve them.


But also, since everything is social, what you can do for others. People will wonder what’s in it for them. Anticipate that while proceeding to the next step, which is the actual 'brand building', carrying it out.

There’s a lot to it. If you’re interested in how to build an image that suits and benefits you, here’s something you’ll enjoy: communication and branding experts talking about building your own brand.

Be nice to your reader: put a picture of your mother next to your screen

When you’ve got something to sell, don’t talk like you’ve got something to sell.

That’s a small piece of advice that played an important part in one of my previous posts here at [BITS]. Your reader probably does not want you to sound ‘salesy’. Keep that in mind and try to make your content fun to read. At this point you might think “sure, but how?”.

Well, when talking to your reader, imagine you actually are talking to him or her. Dutch copywriter Aartjan (whose recently published book ‘Verleiden op internet’ is high on my wish list… Anyone feel like giving me a present?) has useful advice: put a picture of your mother next to your screen. Or at least write like you’re talking to your mother. This will help create a friendly tone, which will make your content sound natural and pleasant to the reader. By the way, is that a new sweater?

Another reason to write the way you talk is the fact that it helps your reader to remember what you are saying. When you read content that has a conversational vibe to it, subconsciously you will actually think you’re in a conversation. That requires more focus than just reading, see?

One way to stimulate this, is directly addressing your reader by using words like ‘you’. According to an article called Conversational writing kicks formal writing’s ass about research on this topic, it activates the brain, fosters comprehensibility, etcetera. Uh, I mean…

Further reading

BITS | Social media writing: 4 valuable tips
Schrijven voor internet | Doe niet zo deftig: schrijftaal vs. spreektaal
Creating Passionate Users | Conversational writing kicks formal writing’s ass

Finally: why you make those gestures when describing placements

Here’s why. It has to do with cross-linguistic differences in the way information is encoded. Now that I’m writing this, I realise it might sound slightly complicated – it’s easier to watch the video below for some clarity.

This potential Academy Award nominee was entirely filmed at Tilburg University. Yours truly is the interviewer and voice-over (with a cold). My colleagues of group 27 Koen, Eleen, Bram and Teun did all the other, much more difficult work: credits go their way!

Let's see if you can survive these seven minutes. Afterwards, let me know what you think!

‘Free gifts’ and ‘haastige spoed’: brevity vs. redundancy

Like yours probably is, my schedule is quite busy. So my intention is not to spend too much time writing this blog. A key element in coming up with copy quickly is being brief. Short sentences. Fast writing. Then again, as we say in Holland, “haastige spoed is zelden goed” (‘more haste, less speed’). But wait. Haven’t we Dutch people heard of pleonasms?

‘Haastig’ means ‘hasty’, ‘spoed’ means ‘haste’. Hasty haste? Essentially, that expression would still say the same without the pleonasm. But would the speakers of Dutch still reckon it to be suitable as a saying? “Spoed is zelden goed.” Well, it rhymes. 

“Remember, brevity means using no more words than necessary, not necessarily fewer words.” That’s a good point Brian Clark makes at Copyblogger. He gives examples like ‘free gifts’ and ‘future plans’. Gifts are always free, plans are always meant to be carried out in the future. But the point is unmistakably clear.

I remember attending a lecture where the professor said “redundancy is the lubricating oil of communication”. Mister Clark states that “redundancy remains a linguistically valid way of increasing the effectiveness of a message.”

On the other hand, we’re living in the era of the short attention span and speedy social media, so we can’t be too wordy anymore. How do you find the necessary balance? 

This is a picture about redundancy.

Further reading
[BITS] | Quality over quantity: how?

Copyblogger | Here's how brevity can crush your copy

The 4 little know-it-alls: how to grab your reader’s attention and not let go

“Once upon a time, this little guy named Communication & Information Sciences arrived at Tilburg University. He was often looked down on by other studies. He didn’t care and he always had a lot of fun. But everything comes to an end. Or, not necessarily? One day, the big bad faculty kingpins decided Communication & Information Sciences had to magically turn into four little know-it-alls.

Eventually, Business Communication & Digital Media would grow to be the one with the most students, but Text & Communication, Intercultural Communication and Human Aspects of Information Technology refused to be disheartened by that. Over the years they all have brought lots of brilliant copywriters, advisors, designers, tech whizzkids and managers to the outside world.

Sadly, of all the people who do not study communications, nobody ever understood what they were doing. But the four little know-it-alls held there heads high. They lived happily ever after.”

Are you as touched as I am? Can’t imagine your not!

It’s hard not to love hearing a little story now and then. We grow up with them and we pass them on. One fun thing to do with it is (don’t be startled) make money. Me and my fellow BITers (but far from biters, right?) study Communication & Information Sciences, known from the story – at least, by now. It is a field closely related to several disciplines of marketing. Combining knowledge from both sides with creativity and consumer savviness can lead to great things.

One way to achieve that, is storytelling. “How’s that?” you ask? Well, a story benefits your brand and/or product and/or campaign because it can…

1. “disarm listeners who don’t like pushy, feature-focused sales spiels”;
2. “relax your audience and release sales-averse tensions”;
3. “introduce your product - or service or organization - in a non-threatening way”;
4. “keep you top-of-mind. People remember up to 70% of information they learn through a story, compared to 10% relayed through statistics.”

Great stuff, right? There’s more where that came from: check out MarketCopywriterBlog for the 7 storytelling secrets of top salespeople.

If you know some interesting examples of companies using storytelling, let me know below!

Quality over quantity: how?

Question for my younger readers: ever heard of The Young Ones?
Question for my older (excuse me) readers: remember The Young Ones?

That’s right, you probably know the series about the four London-based students attempting to live together in their madhouse. Reruns for years.

Yet, they only made twelve episodes of The Young Ones.

Now that we’re into British comedy anyway: Fawlty Towers. Odds are you know this one, the legendary sitcom about the hotel ran by a chaotic John Cleese, as well.

Again, reruns for years. And again, they only made twelve episodes. In comparison with the Dutch series Oppassen!!! (321 episodes) and the Belgian series FC De Kampioenen (273), that's close to nothing.

By now I guess it’s obvious what I’m trying to say: quality over quantity. It’s not how much you do, it’s how well you do it. This principle holds for just about anything, doesn’t it?

Linguist and philosopher Grice came up with the Conversational Maxims, distinguishing Maxims of Quality (do not say what you believe to be false), Maxims of Quantity (make your contribution as informative as required), Maxims of Relevance (…be relevant) and Maxims of Manner (avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief).

These maxims are valid provided that conversations take place in accordance with the cooperative principle, well-known in social sciences, communication studies and linguistics. Continously switching roles, from speaker to listener and back, demands you to empathize. Of course you can ignore this, but it's better to 'obey'.

I think all of this goes for communication via social media too. If you’re on Twitter, you probaby (have) follow(ed) someone who manages to be in your timeline all day, every day, with one or two interesting tweets out of every thirty or so.

They could probaby use some rules of thumb:

1) Focus on content richness.
It’s not how often you say something, it’s what you say.

2A) Listen to each other.
Conversation, communication, whatever word you choose to use, there’s always an A and a B. Take each other into consideration in order to be relevant. As a writer, you need to take into account what your reader wants.

2B) Give and take.
Offer people something useful now and then, whether it’s something to utilize or something to think about. They’ll do the same for you. What goes around, comes around, you know 

If you have any useful additions, bring them on!

Youth communication: 6 things to keep in mind

The game is quite simple. Companies/brands make products, consumers need products. That is, often they think they need products. Most of the time they actually don’t, they just want them. What brands have to accomplish is to turn ‘wants’ into ‘needs’.

Now I’m digressing, divagating and wandering. First things first! A lot of brands focus on young consumers – who nowadays have the advantage of being able to look up absolutely anything and meanwhile becoming resistant to advertising because of an overdose of marketing everywhere around them. Long sentence, short question: how do you reach young people in the overwhelming information society we live in?

One way is to create a fanpage (on, let's say, Facebook), and then following these six guidelines:

1) Don’t bother using Direct Advertising.
Promotional messages designed for ‘one way traffic’ will not survive. Research has said so. To get the attention of your younger target groups, try to…

2) Create commitment.
You can do this by devoting a major role to conversations. Ask and reply. In order to be able to do this, you will have to…
3) Get to know them.
Find out about their opinions, discover their likes and dislikes. But, while conversating, keep in mind…
4) They’re not your friends, they’re your fans.
This influences your style of communicating. Make your products, style and fanpage worthwhile. To do so…
5) Keep on entertaining.
Come up with fun-to-read stuff about your products or anything related. Offer your fans some exclusive insights. That kind of thing.

This Dutch singer gives away a free song to everyone
who clicks 'Like' on his fan page. Clever stuff.

6) But first of all, focus on the content.
Don’t focus on selling. Focus on what your young fans want and focus on what it is you exactly want to say. Combine the two, and create miracles.

Obviously, there are some don’ts in youth communication as well. At creativeyouthideas.com you can see examples of what they call ‘barriers’ to communicating with the youth: ordering, threatening, preaching and lecturing will not do the trick. The same goes for avoiding (trying to ditch uncomfortable talks) and pacifying (reassuring without solving anything).

These examples do not only hold in real life, they also do in the digital world. You don’t want your young consumers to turn against you. Ask T-Mobile!

Sources / Further reading

Tekstblog | Jongeren bereiken op sociale media? Zorg voor dialoog
Creative Youth Ideas | Barriers to communication with youth

An example | Check out Strategically Social for insights on Coca Cola's use of social media.

Social media writing: 4 valuable tips

After throwing ourselves into some of the how-to’s of catchy headlines, let’s now take a look at what usually follows: your content. To thank you for visiting BITS, I’d like to give you four tips on writing for social media. And to top it off, these tips contain little ‘sub-tips’ themselves.

Indeed, it's total madness.

Write from your reader’s perspective

During a quest for information I found this slightly old-fashioned page that kicks off brilliantly with the following header and first words:

How users read on the web


They don’t.

Good point. After all, this might be the era of the short attention span. That’s why people want content to be highly scannable. Keep that in mind when writing. Highlight words or parts of sentences that could function as keywords for the text. Provide your reader with informative sub-headings. And, certainly not the least important advice, be brief.

Selling something? Don’t talk like you’re selling something

Here they call it ‘marketese’, here they name it ‘salesy’: a promotional writing style. Most of the time, readers don’t appreciate it. The advice is to just not write like that. Instead, make your article fun to read by providing honest, useful content. For free!

Use Twitter

Why? Simple. Using Twitter is a matter of what I like to call defying brevity. And defying brevity is a way to improve your writing. You only get 140 characters per tweet, which basically means you have to avoid redundance.

Also, the limited space challenges your lexicon. There’s only so many characters, so if you can formulate what you want to say in a shorter way, that’s the way to go. Repeatedly dealing with this will make you a better writer (and editor).

Discover your tactics as you go

As they emphasize here, coming up with ‘hot content’ for social media marketing requires a long term commitment. Unless you’re blessed with some serious beginners luck, you’ll have to keep trying until you find techniques that suit both you and your readers. Guess they don’t always say 'practice makes perfect' for nothing.

Off you go now, good luck! And tell a friend to check out BITS. You will be rewarded.

Sources / Further reading

Copyblogger | How Twitter makes you a better writer
Copyblogger | Writing for the social media everyman
Digital Labz | 10 foolproof steps to writing hot social media content
Useit.com | How users read on the web

You'll have to do better than this

“This my new blog <link>”
“Please come see <link> because I need visitors”
“New post on <link>, check it out”

I’d like to say this right away. You’ll have to do better than this.

For the record: I don’t mean to offend anyone, I don’t want to seem pedantic or anything, I just think you should step your game up a little. Up your creativity. Among students I often encounter statements like “It’s something I have to do for this course I follow so let’s just muddle along and hope I don’t screw it up.”

If this approach suits you, that’s fine - I just think it’s too bad you don’t utilize the knowledge you've gained in order to make people want to visit your page deliberately.

Now, all this preaching will probably not make you praise me to the skies, and on top of that, I’m only putting pressure on myself now. Which of course will make you visit my blog regularly in order to be the first to know when I make a mistake. It’s all good, bring on the traffic :)

Oops. Just gave that away.

Anyhow, you’ll have to do better than people who come up with titles like the examples mentioned previously. Studying Text & Communication I've developed a profound interest in persuasion and how to apply this to copywriting. Let's go through a few guidelines, provided by ProCopyTips, on how to attract attention with your headlines.

Offer a benefit to your readers
As they say on the website, “show the reader that you have something very important inside that is going to be of HUGE value to him/her”. We all like that, we all want that, so we all scrutinize text looking for that.

Address your readers personally
Make it feel like a conversation. The word ‘you’ is surprisingly effective for that matter.

Leave a question in their minds
A headline has to give the readers an indication of what they can expect, but also has to make them curious. If there's one piece of candy, they'll come looking for more.

Next to, obviously, being clear and being informative, these are some rules of thumb to remember. I look forward to seeing you all bring in loads of visitors with headlines that would even convince the savviest of copywriters to click them. Good luck!

For further reading, check out ProCopyTips on writing snappy headlines that make sales.