It really is a lifestyle. If it’s not, you won’t be able to handle the rigors of it – every day, finding new ways to be relevant to your audience, to add value, to make Google love your words. Over the last 5 or 10 years, content writing for the web has made my life far more interesting.
Exposing yourself
While we almost always write on behalf of other people/companies, good content writing requires that we pour ourselves into every sentence. The best writing exposes the personality behind it. It takes some people a while to develop the ability to let go and be this public with their opinions, their feelings. We have one blog writer who won’t tell her friends she’s doing this for fear they won’t like what she writes. I tell absolutely everyone to come in and read my stuff. I guess I’m a content exhibitionist.
Meet great people
People who are actively participating in social media, blogs, articles, etc. are just naturally interesting. They see more of the world; they have to in order to stay plugged in. All this Internet technology makes it so much easier to be in touch with them and share parts of your life. I’ve found the relationships I’ve formed over the web are very real, in some cases more close than the people who I see every day.
Don’t believe it. I have yet to write in a hammock. Airplanes, yes. Hammocks, no.
Learn a little about a lot of things
While content writers won’t likely be complete experts at many things, the act of writing on behalf of clients means you’ll be smart about a wide variety of subjects. If you’re the curious type, this is the job for you.
As an advertising person, I’ve learned enough to be dangerous about banking, skiwear, Worcestershire sauce, tomatoes, pizza, chicken, forklifts, mountain climbing shoes, stationary bikes, and a lot more. No two days are the same and that makes sitting down to work fun every day.
It also requires me to continuously keep my mind sharp. Making your content writing interesting means you need to bring something to every new subject you tackle. As a result, I read an awful lot, even if I feel like I know a subject. Every business out there is undergoing continuous transformation and we have to keep up.
Living the lifestyle
I get a kick out of wearing jeans most days. In the summer, there’s every chance I’ll be in shorts. Being a night owl, I sometimes stay up until about 2 am. Often I’m up working on social networking for a client or reading the latest to stay sharp a subject. Being up that late sometimes means getting to work at 9:15 or 9:30, and my life works really well that way. I have time to help get the kids out to school. I drive a short commute to the office (with a stop at Starbucks on the way) and I’m writing again by 9:30.
Some people think that the pressure of having to write something brilliant under a deadline is grueling. I actually love it. I’ve been doing this now for over 20 years – first in advertising, then on the web – and I’ve never come up empty.
Loving content writing makes Ion Leap better
We look for a particular kind of person to be one of our blog writers. You can read more about our demanding requirements here. The main requirement is an ability to use active listening; to hear what a client really stands for, to understand the issues of their target market.
Ion Leap writers are also good marketing people. We look for opportunities that only entrepreneurs would be trained to see. We actively engage with our clients in much more than content writing – we’re business partners.
