I started taking drum lessons in seventh grade. We were taught “rudiments” which are like scales for other instruments. Learning these rolls and triplets prepared me for band and orchestral music but not for jazz and not for improvisation. I didn’t realize I needed a different perspective, one with rhythm and passion. A friend who was a jazz musician gave me The Drums of Passion by Michael Olatunji. He thought it would give me that new perspective. I have never lost this rhythm. Listen and you’ll understand.
Passion and experience
Many a night have I tossed and turned with words scrolling through my mind trying to find the right headline or a different arrangement for a sentence. Obsessive? No, exacting. This is the kind of passion I’m talking about.
Expressing the right idea, touching someone else’s heart, creating interest and value for the reader, that is writing with passion – regardless of whether I am working on a TV commercial, a video script, a website or a brochure.
A good copywriter can climb right inside the mind of the reader and that takes experience. A huge part of copywriting (and Internet marketing especially) is being able to strike a cord with a particular audience. What motivates my audience? What makes them angry, frustrated, happy or hopeful? That is always in the forefront of a good copywriter’s mind. How can I move them to action?
I am more inquisitive than most people I know. I am called on to write about photovoltaics, free-range chicken and cubicle furniture. I am challenged endlessly to come up with new angles on the same products and services. Without a genuine lust for learning, and a healthy tolerance for research, I would not be able to understand the mechanics of everyday objects (the crux of copywriting). Good copywriters crave knowledge, are tickled by trivia and love knowing the inside story.
To write marketing literature that really connects with people and drives them to action, I need to understand, and more importantly the reader needs to understand, the values your business holds dear. All of this information forms the foundation of your business branding but rarely can you articulate those details, with passion. I need lots of details and I need to hear you express why you are in business.
This appreciation for what you offer is fundamental to transforming routine promotional language into a heartfelt brand identity. If done well, the copy in a sales letter or a newsletter or a speech will take the prospect on a small journey. The story will help the customer know exactly what they are buying and why they are buying from you. This is the voice of your brand which lingers in the subconscious of your audience because it speaks their language. A good copywriter will breathe life into your brand, creating a personality that your audience will value. Before you tell them what’s in it for them, you have to explain what’s in it for you.
So I am an editor, headline writer, technical translator, researcher and improviser — all of which require passion and experience. The first is inbred; the second is only gained over time. It takes a lot of practice to get it right and hours of rehearsal to make it blend together.
Google Inc. (GOOG) Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said he “screwed up” in the area of social networking when he was chief executive officer of the world’s largest Web- search provider.
“I clearly knew I had to do something and I failed to do it,” Schmidt said yesterday of his efforts to help the company excel in social media. “The CEO should take responsibility. I screwed up.” He was speaking at AllThingsD’s D9 Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
Google faces accelerating competition in online advertising from Facebook Inc., which has done a better job than rivals in helping users create profile pages and connect with friends online. Schmidt, who was CEO for a decade before handing the reins to Google co-founder Larry Page in April, said his company has been unable to forge an alliance with Facebook, the largest social network.
“We’ve tried very hard to partner with Facebook,” he said, noting that Facebook has built a partnership instead with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) that includes search. “Facebook has done a number of things which I admire.”
Just as you were thinking, Facebook won’t sell my personal information.
Profiles, status updates and messages all include a mother lode of voluntarily provided information. The social media site is using it to help advertisers find exactly who they want to reach. Privacy watchdogs are aghast.
Julee Morrison has been obsessed with Bon Jovi since she was a teenager.
So when paid ads for fan sites started popping up on the 41-year-old Salt Lake City blogger’s Facebook page, she was thrilled. She described herself as a “clicking fool,” perusing videos and photos of the New Jersey rockers.
Then it dawned on Morrison why all those Bon Jovi ads appeared every time she logged on to the social networking site.
“Facebook is reading my profile, my interests, the people and pages I am ‘friends’ with, and targeting me,” Morrison said. “It’s brilliant social media but it’s absolutely creepy.”
For Facebook users, the free ride is over.
For years, the privately held company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room put little effort into ad sales, focusing instead on making its service irresistible to users. It worked. Today more than 600 million people have Facebook accounts. The average user spends seven hours a month posting photos, chatting with friends, swapping news links and sending birthday greetings to classmates.
Are you a Facebook addict? Or a mobile phone junkie? Or both? Look out: you may be one of the main targets of cybercriminals.
With their growing popularity, social networking and mobile communications were among the top targets of online threats in 2010, Internet security firm Symantec said.
In its recently released Internet Security Threat Report for 2010, Symantec noted more than 286 million variants of malware in 2010, and a 93-percent increase in Web attacks.
“A growing proliferation of Web-attack toolkits drove a 93% increase in the volume of Web-based attacks in 2010 over the volume observed in 2009. Shortened URLs appear to be playing a role here too. During a three-month observation period in 2010, 65% of the malicious URLs observed on social networks were shortened URLs,” it said.
Hacking in 2010 had also resulted in data breaches, with each breach exposing some 260,000 identities.
