The challenge for every content writer is to communicate in a way that is as natural as talking to someone in the same room. While the subject matter is important, the tone on how you deliver your message plays a critical role in connecting with your audience. For example, with email there’s no affirmation to emotionally support what you are trying to say. The wrong tone, or even lack of tone, can distance yourself from your readers. Here are a few things you should think about when drafting your next email.

• Bring energy to your written voice. If your copy lacks energy or is too stern, you’ll turn off your readers. To avoid sounding indifferent, keep your voice active and choose your words carefully. Remember that every positive and negative word impacts your audience one way or another. The tone you set for yourself is directly expressed through the words you select.
• Understand your audience. While you may know all the right buzz words that attract your audience, knowing what tone motivates them is equally as important when communicating online. Because we are often too busy crafting the perfect message, it’s always a good idea to step back to make sure you’ve included the right adjectives to support what you are trying to communicate. Collective pronouns such as “we” or “us” also connect you with your audience, creating a tone that you both share the same experiences.
• A positive tone is always the best motivator. People are motivated by positive reinforcement. For example, thanking someone for their time or expressing your appreciation for them keeps the conversation insightful, upbeat, and adds more personality to your writing voice. Pay attention to your non-verbal communications such as punctuation, capitalization, and font size.
• Keep the content and tone consistent. Staying on message is critical to any communication. Keeping the right tone that is consistent with the message should also be treated with the same consideration. The wrong phrase or comment can quickly spoil a well written email. Without a consistent tone, there is too much potential for miscommunication.

Social media is all about initiating conversations and building relationships. Because many writing platforms lack one of the most basic elements of communication in body language, the challenge for copywriters is to balance the right words with the right tone that is most effective with your audience.

As a former journalist, I understand what it takes to create daily content that captivates and educates your audience without burning out. The trick is you simply can’t go it alone. I can attest that although my byline was on top of every one of my newspaper and magazine articles, the final printed product was the work of a team of people who helped plan, research, interview, edit, and provided feedback before any of my articles saw the light of day. The same holds true for creating and delivering Web content. No one can regularly produce engaging content without help from a team of resources that brainstorm ideas and gather information that helps keep you in the loop of what’s happening in your respective industry. Here are a few ideas you might consider for helping you gather information for your Web content.

Leverage internal resources — Recruit everyone you can in your organization for potential ideas, stats, or stories they’ve heard. Build a team of internal experts in their particular areas to funnel articles, blogs, and other social media that is relevant to your industry. It really doesn’t take much on their part and you’ll gather more timely and useful information than you ever would, in half the time.

Talk / listen to your customers — The key to any B2B marketing piece is to engage your customers with useful information that’s important to them. If you want to know what your customers want to read about, what better way is there than to talk to them. You’d be surprised how many great ideas for blogs and articles can surface from casual conversations with the very people you’re writing to.

Follow relevant social media — While this goes without saying, following other blogs, articles, Tweets, etc. that cover your space can do wonders for content creation. Following daily conversations, the latest happenings, and hottest industry trends through social media feeds is another way to funnel ideas directly to your desk.

Surround yourself with a team of editors — As a writer, I know that we are our own worst critics. But I have to say that getting feedback from others, who aren’t as close to the material as you are, really helps. Having a team of resources to bounce off ideas, outlines and drafts can strengthen and clean up the point you’re trying to make. They don’t have to be trained copyeditors (but those with experience helps), but having a fresh pair of eyes to review your content before it’s published is always a good idea.

The point is, we can’t magically pull relevant content out of thin air, particularly if we’re working alone. It really takes a pool of resources to consistently create Web content that’s fresh and relevant to your audience. In a world where resources are plenty, use them. As a result, you’ll be filtering too many good ideas rather than scrambling at the last minute for content. And that’s a good problem to have.

These are just a few ideas to think for content creation. I’d love to hear about the different resources you use for developing relevant B2B content for your readers.

Do you sell into different industries? Tag posts appropriately and design your industry page to pull the appropriate posts into a featured side bar.

Posting about product updates, feedback or features? Link those posts to your product page.

Your blog can be used in so many ways to create relevancy for your prospects, partners and customers. The content you create on your blog can be some of the most valuable web content you have because of its currency and relevancy to very specific topics. Whether you use it to nurture leads with email marketing, or to drive fresh web content, look for ways to use your blog across your business goals and you will make the most of your investment in this important marketing asset.

1. Establishing lead nurturing best practices.

2. Why relevant copy is so critical to lead nurturing.

3. Connecting more deeply with customers using the social web.

4. Innovative content critical to B2B branding.

5. Relevant web content can help customers find you.

One of the biggest challenges for organizations today is understanding what tools to invest in that will give them the best return on their marketing investment. Even with more efficient communications and social networking applications popping up overnight, many organizations continue to stick with what worked for them in the past. Unfortunately, the ROI for a lot of traditional marketing programs continues to dwindle from 2% to 0.001% to nil. That’s a lot of time, energy and capital spent for very little return.

Today, too many marketing and sales dollars continue to be thrown into programs that result in large databases of unqualified leads and lost opportunities due to a lack of effective outreach or inadequate follow up, which brings me back to MindLink’s lead nurturing strategy. I look forward to bringing my web content and corporate communications experience on board to help our clients deliver more engaging and informational content that provides value, industry insight, a better return on their marketing investment, and ultimately creates more successful, long-term relationships with their customers. I can’t wait to get started.

Here is my plan for regular blog content:

• Establish your goals: This is obvious, but if you don’t have a goal, you won’t meet it. Set a posting target and adhere to it like you would delivering to an important customer or client. I am using The Hit List to track my own deliverables, make sure you get your posts on a to do list.
• Read a lot: Make sure you follow the news in your industry. Articles and other blogs are a great source of ideas for posts and cross links.
• Always be on the lookout for topics: Have something with you at all times to jot down ideas for topics. I use Evernote because it syncs with both my iPhone and computers.
• Write ahead of time: It is often hard to write when you are under the gun to publish. Write your posts ahead of time and queue them up to publish.
• Make appointments to write: You should set aside time in your calendar to write. Treat this like any appointment. Prepare for it and you will be successful.

Keeping your blog content regular, fresh and interesting isn’t an easy task as I can attest. It takes planning and commitment. These are my own strategies to stay on track and make sure I don’t let my own site lapse. Hopefully I can stick to it .

No longer.

The days of the press tour are all but over for startups except for the very biggest news. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest is that print media as we knew it is over. The holy grail of trophies for your marketing communications department, a magazine cover, simply doesn’t hold the sway it once did. How long has it been since you read a magazine cover to cover? Even some of the largest papers are folding or canceling print versions. Media isn’t the same and by extension, neither is PR.

What does this mean for the startup marketing department who is trying to figure out their PR strategy? Opportunity. It helps by remembering what PR was all about in the first place. PR wasn’t about magazine covers or articles, it was about reaching your ideal audience with your message and news. The opportunity to do that has never been greater than today.

There are three keys to reaching your audience in today’s environment; content, outreach, and influence.

Content – Think like your own specialized publisher. Blogs, podcast interviews, webinars, and YouTube videos are all important to producing content that will be interesting to your ideal audience. Strong interesting content was always the key to reaching your audience. What has changed today is that you don’t have to rely upon print or other media to deliver that message. Every company should be self publishing on their own blog and other media channels like YouTube where appropriate.

Outreach – Outreach still includes the press. When you have a press release, a great reference customer, a new product launch, you should still engage the media and make your case. What has changed is that the avenue for your content is now much broader than just the press. Start with your marketing database. How large is that database? For startups this may be in the 10s of thousands and for larger companies the 100s of thousands or even the millions. What would you pay to reach a media audience like this with handpicked content that highlights your values and messaging? Your marketing database is an ideal audience for your quality content. Start with a monthly newsletter and fill it with your interesting original content. Highlight your top blog posts, interviews, videos, or webinars. Feature a customer story or upcoming events. Essentially you are publishing your own mini e-magazine with the same goal as other publications, content that is interesting to your audience. Distribute your content as well through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube as appropriate.

Influence – Understand the key influencers in your industry and engage them. These can be analysts, press, bloggers or end users with an active social media presence. I am following a new company, Traackr, that just launched at DEMOfall09 who claims to help identify the key influencers for your industry. Once you understand who has influence in your industry, connect to them through social media. Reply to their tweets and blogs. Interview them for your own blog if possible. Invite them to look at your latest release or blog posting.

The media industry has changed forever and your PR strategy needs to change with it. Don’t forget the importance of your own original content, getting it to your ideal audience, and building connections to the key influencers for your industry and you will land yourself a large helping of success.

“I pointed out that two years ago, if we were having this conversation, we would be talking about Second Life. Last year, we would be talking about MySpace. Next year? Possible XBox Live. The space is in flux and these sites come and go. Too much time worrying about one particular site is going to fail to set you up long term for this inevitable change.”

I agree that there is change taking place and that your company should focus on one site at your own risk. That said, your business shouldn’t wait. There are things your company can do now that will yield benefits to your company’s communications strategy. Here are some trends evolving that businesses would be wise to pay attention to.

• Social media strategy begins with content – Here you should channel Jim Rome and “Have a take and don’t suck!” If you want to be successful it all begins with producing quality content. In my opinion a social media strategy without a blog is like a car without gas. Your blogs are the fuel that keep that strategy going. The same can be said for white papers, contributed articles, and quality commentary on other sites, but nothing replaces the regular quality content of a blog.

• Establish connections with your customers and prospects – Social media is about connection and with a business that should be about getting a conversation going with key customers and prospects. In your communications with them you should invite them to connect with you. Always monitor your brand and respond to comments, both good and bad, on social sites. Look for opportunities to establish a more personal connection to your customers and they will be more likely to be good advocates.

• Coordinate your outreach efforts through multiple mediums – Link your recent tweets on your blog page. Cross post links to new content on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Reply on other blogs and especially if it links to your site.

With these basics, you should be prepared for whatever the popular social medium may be.

You should check out the article, but here is a small sample:

From Amanda Watlington:

It’s all about content

Develop a long term editorial battle plan to maintain quality.  Use your analytics to guide your editorial choices.  Build your keyword list early and revisit it frequently.

Tend your investment – address comments in a timely manner.  Encourage deeper reading by showing “most popular posts” and “related posts.”  Prune the clutter and refresh the look, as needed.  If it’s not adding value, get rid of it.

Good advice. I have been talking with a lot of businesses about the value of blogs and a social media outreach plan. If you are in marketing and you aren’t paying attention to how original content combined with social media is changing the face of PR then your competition will leave you behind.

If you are falling into this trap it is absolutely critical that you address it sooner than later. Why? Because today you are no longer finding your customers, they are finding you. Information overload has diminished the effectiveness of traditional mediums of marketing like advertising and direct marketing campaigns. Today, with the growth of importance of social media, more than ever, web content rules. If you are messaging around your unique differentiator instead of standard industry terms, you significantly diminish your chances for customers to find you.

So how do you know what the standard language of your customers is?

• First, talk to your customers and prospects. How did they justify the budget for your technology and what language did they use? What specific pain did they say they are addressing through the adoption of your solution?
• Second, closely follow your competition. How many times have you heard complaints about how a customer is copying your messaging? Don’t worry about it. Establishing a common language for your solutions is in the best interest of both you and your competition. It creates demand and budget for a given solution, allows you to self identify to prospects looking for that solution, and finally creates the impression that using those types of solutions is a best practice for their industry.

You are much better off being in a position of differentiating yourself from your competition for an established customer need than you are trying to create a demand for your own unique type of solution. If you are the only vendor in a market, then it is a good bet that your technology is not an industry best practice and the perceived risk of adopting your solution goes up. Embrace a common language for your market and move onto the more important task of being the best in that market.