Why Most Social Media Writing Sucks and How to Fix It

Forget What You Think You Know

Many people consider themselves great writers, especially when it comes to social. However, Josh knows for a fact that this is not the case. The sad truth of the matter is that many people have held on to the writing methods they were taught in school, which are great for term papers but terrible for marketing.

Having spent 20 years as a Senior VP in Idea Development and as an author at Forrester Researcher, Josh is a veritable expert on the art of writing. He is a strong proponent of reducing writing to the minimum of what is needed to have the most powerful impact on the audience. This goes directly against the scholastic composition many of us were taught, which rewards length and technical jargon.

By cutting out the fluff and making content extremely direct and to the point, it can break through the noise online and capture a few precious seconds of attention with meaningful and motivating information before the reader loses interest.

The more you can convey with fewer words, the better.

In This Episode

Why successful blogging means writing content every single day
How the shift to mobile content consumption leads to the need for brevity in writing
Why proliferating content across many platforms means compromises in messaging
How being authentic without editing leads to low quality, ineffective content
The allure and pitfalls of SEO
How long-form content leads to a decrease in your social media success

Quotes From This Episode

“The average person reading a news article spends 36 seconds on it.” —@jbernoff (highlight to tweet)

“In school we were rewarded for writing long papers, but you have to leave all that training behind and learn a completely different way of writing.” —@jbernoff

“Brevity focuses people.” —@jbernoff (highlight to tweet)

“You need to have something to say every day. If you’re only going to create content when you really feel the mojo, you’re not going to create enough to develop an audience that stays with you on a regular basis.” —@jaybaer

“Most of the text that goes by your face has never been seen by anyone other than the person who wrote it, so it’s completely unedited.” —@jbernoff

“Public Relations is an entire industry that’s dedicated to creating irrelevant, padded out, unbelievable content. That has to change.” —@jbernoff

“When you’re posting on Facebook, you’re in somebody else’s space. And they can make any change they want at any time they want and screw you over.” —@jbernoff

“While it’s a great idea to try and get your content everywhere, you also have to make compromises when you go into these different places. It becomes a challenge to manage all of that.” —@jbernoff

“SEO should be an afterthought.” —@jbernoff (highlight to tweet)

Resources

The Big Two:

Josh Bernoff

What’s your one tip for becoming a social pro?

In terms of writing for social, Josh says there are a lot of people who are good writers, some people who are good problem solvers, and very few people who are both. To really make your writing stand out, you should do your problem solving, structuring, and research in advance. Then when it comes time to doing the work, all of the prep is already done and you can focus on making your communication shine.

If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who would it be?

A popular choice for this question, Josh would love a Skype with Tesla founder Elon Musk. The way his mind works is unlike anything Josh has ever seen. If he could just learn four or five things about how to think creatively from Elon, it would be time very well spent.

See you next week!

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