Our reading and your content writing

Lately I’ve been reading several wonderful books, not a single one of them about content writing.

“The Voytage of the Vizcaina, the Mystery of Christopher Columbus’s Last Ship,” by Klaus BrinkBaumer and Clemens Hoges

“The Kinghts Templar on Trial, The Trial of the Templars in the British Isles, 1308-1311,” by Helen J. Nicholson

“Sherlock Holmes, the Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I’ve always thought that writers should be readers, and those who are professionally engaged in content writing should be especially voracious and wide ranging in what they consume. The reason is simple – it’s how we stay fresh and continue to learn.

Another important homework assignment I give myself is reading several magazines. I find that surfing magazines is the closest thing I can find to reading the web; except magazines aren’t back lit like a computer screen (my eyes get a rest).  It’s like grazing. Given the time constraints of our audiences these days, magazines are the closest thing we have to the style of the Internet outside of the Internet itself. And, dare I say, the trashy magazines might be the best reading of all.

Before you beat this up, ask what’s right about the way their approach their content.

When I take my son to get his haircut, or when I’m standing in the check-out line at the grocery store, I’m surrounded with the more “thin” of the world’s magazine selection. You know the ones – lots of photos, only enough copy to answer the subject in the pic – usually a celebrity. These folks know how to communicate to an audience on the fly. I don’t value the content in their pages anywhere near as much as I do the Economist or Nature, but they know that and are proud to offer their thin content well done.

Think of the dichotomy (a word you won’t find in those trashy magazines but might in Conan Doyle). It’s that wide range of reading material that keeps a writer on edge.

Ask what your writers read

If, for some strange reason, you’re hiring content writing from some other company, ask the writers what they’re reading. You’ll know at once if Us Magazine is “beneath them.” It’s not beneath Ion Leap writers; in fact it’s critical. Better yet, ask if they pick up a copy of National Enquirer.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not buying it because we admire the writing style. WE LOVE THE WAY THEY EMBRACE THEIR AUDIENCE. They don’t judge. They SELL. They find ways to communicate in the environment their readers demand.

Writing for the Internet is a very demanding practice. You have to write a specific volume of words to satisfy the Google algorithm. Yet you have to acknowledge the time constraints of your audience. They’re not sitting down in their favorite chair to read your blog. I wish I could figure out a way to measure how deep readers go before they drop a lengthy post like this one. I’m willing to bet that this one exceeds the limits of how much content writing they’re willing to read.

Snobs don’t cut it in content writing

This is commerce. Good content writing identifies with the audience and answers their needs. Their needs on the web differ from their needs in newspapers, on billboards, on television commercials, on radio. It’s not about the writer. It’s about the reader. Content writing from Ion Leap answers the needs of the reader in the appropriate way for the media.

What we’re reading -

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Us Magazine
• Every billboard we pass
• Matchbook covers
• National Enquirer
• Twitter
• The Economist
• Forbes Magazine
• NPR.org
• CNN.com
• Your website
• Tons of blogs
• Vertical trade pubs
• The New York Times
• The New York Post

That’s just a start. We read tons and tons of content writing. Any professional content writer should. It makes us better writers.