I attended a Meetup last Friday entitled “Finding Your Blogging Voice and Leveraging it in Social Media”, presented by Ms. Stephanie Bogus, Director of Content and head writer for Speak Social, an Austin-based social media company. Ms. Bogus is a highly gifted and talented writer with a passion for blogging and other social media marketing applications for businesses. She is also an engaging presenter and storyteller.
Ms. Bogus regaled us with several tales of her experiences blogging for clients and shared many valuable insights. Not surprisingly, some of her best lessons learned were from her worst mistakes.
I’m not going to focus on those stories; rather, I want to relay two key observations that I found slightly distressing, albeit, undoubtedly true.
Writing is a disappearing skill
If you scan social media networks, various blog hosting sites, and even some online media portals, surely you’ve noticed the sub-par writing skills of many of today’s social media practitioners. A gentleman who identified himself as a former newspaper journalist decried the quality of many blog posts he reads. He didn’t mince words describing the writing as atrocious. Sadly, many agreed with his assessment.
On that note, Ms. Bogus reminded us of the importance of keeping blog posts short and our sentences concise. Write at an 8th grade level using conversational language. People don’t have time. They skim, and if they trip on a word they don’t know, or if they fail to grasp the point of your post quickly, they move on.
Well stab me in the heart.
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