Write what you would read

We like to be praised. We want our blogs to be shared, wall posts to be liked and tweets to be retweeted. To fulfil this desire we start to create content which we think would be liked by others. Sometimes it works but mostly it doesn’t. It doesn’t work because our writing stops representing us. According to Seth Godin, the marketing guru, a marketer has to firmly believe in the story he is telling to sell his product. We are all marketers trying to sell our posts and jokes to gain likes, shares and tweets. It is hard to believe a story which you made up just for others. You do not live it and it does not represent you. And when it doesn’t represent you your readers will know. At that point the quality of the post will not be sufficient for them to appreciate it.

David Ogilvy, the advertising legend, said never make an ad that you wouldn’t watch with you family ( I am paraphrasing here). I have a derivative of this. Never write anything you wouldn’t want to read yourself. Even if writing is your job, you can only succeed as a copywriter if you truly believe in the topics you write about.

Always review your writing with this question in your mind - “Would I still like this post if it was not written by me?”