Leo's Letter #33 // Writing For Who
Leo's Letter #33 // Writing For Who
Writing, podcast lists, and digital currenceis
Hey, it’s great to have you.
What a week it’s been. And what a week it will be starting tomorrow - but fret not, we’re almost at the finish line for this sprint.
The holidays are coming up, and it’s time to wrap up some work to get refreshed for more to come. I for one am feeling as if weights were being lifted off my shoulders as I complete different tasks, and I hope the same for you.
We’ll make it through - let’s do it!
In This Letter:
Essay - Writing For Who
Podcast episode: The impact of Brexit on Blockchain and Digital Currencies with TAXMAP
This is an issue of Leo’s Letter, where we share actionable ideas on content, commerce, and culture.
Writing For Who
(Image credits: pixabay)
I’ve already written a Twitter thread on completing a challenge to tweet daily for 30 days. You can check it out here, but this thread expands upon this.
Specifically, I’m now thinking about how to balance writing for myself vs. for an audience. While I’ve experienced both sides in writing on my blog now for years and pushing out content for After Hour Projects over the past few months, I don’t believe these are mutually exclusive - they fall on a spectrum.
Sharing here three learnings when it comes to writing:
1. Copywriting - the power of words
Writing is a tool to persuade, convince, sell. It’s not just about what you write, but how convey the message, and this is where copywriting comes into play.
I learned about copywriting through Neville’s Copywriting Course and frameworks for stories by reading Ca$hvertising. The former gives you the basic outline for how to write a compelling message and the latter different flavors for how to structure, but put simply, I’m expanding on the AIDA framework (also mentioned in my Twitter thread):
Attention - how the first sentence gets the reader to keep reading
Interest - use of logic, facts to get the reader engaged
Desire - use of emotion, appeals to benefits to get the reader further engrossed
Action - a CTA (call to action) on how to get what’s being shared
Keep this in mind and ads on social media (and many posts) start to make sense.
2. Content - what’s being said
Attention is not free. In fact, it’s an extremely valuable form of currency on the internet.
In such a competitive space, it’s hard to stick out from the crowd. Thus the importance of creating unique content - write what nobody else is writing and you’ll get an audience (if you employ the right marketing too).
I try to keep my writing to the categories of curation (showing interesting things going on), synthesis (explaining an event/sharing an outlook), and reflection (learnings from personal experience).
The hope is that I’m either onto something new, or conveying what others are thinking about.
3. Community - who’s in it together
This brings me to the last, perhaps most important point: community propels you forward.
There’s a community for every niche, so finding one is not the problem. Instead, for me it’s commitment - I find myself jumping from place to place, never doubling down on any interest-based communities for more than a few months.
On the other hand, I do find solace in my commitment to other demographic-based or skills-based communities, which I’ve stayed in. We’ll see what happens…
- - -
I don’t have a smooth way of tying everything together this time, so I’ll leave with a word of comfort (a lot for myself) - writing is a transferrable skill and comes in handy in unexpected ways.
Dickie’s Digets Favorite Podcast Episodes
A curated collection of podcast episodes from 25 different shows from Dickie Bush, who has become quite the curator on Twitter.
Podcast episode: The impact of Brexit on Blockchain and Digital Currencies with TAXMAP
This time I again host an episode for another podcast on something that comes back to me over and over - blockchain. Interesting how things turn out.
Until Next Time
Thanks for reading! Have any thoughts to share? Comment on the post!
Find me at leolu.info or on Twitter.
Bring a friend along for the ride: