13 Jun Are You Using These Writing Tips and Tricks?

Writers block isn’t reserved for novelists. Professionals, like public relations and communications practitioners, cope with it too.

Today we’re sharing some of our favorite writing tips that you can use when *blogging or writing an article for your brand.

Some of these are writing fundamentals that people have a tendency to forget, and others are creative ideas you might not have tried.

Not in a rut? That’s great! These tips may help you too!

1. Read industry and competitor blogs, trade publications, and national news outlets for inspiration. Look for topics you can weigh in on with a unique perspective.
2. Create and maintain a running list of ideas. Good ideas often arrive at inconvenient moments. Use an application like Evernote, or a notepad on your phone so you never forget an idea.
3. Especially when you’re feeling inspired, write multiple posts at one time.
4. Research before or research after the first draft. When it’s time to write, write.
5. Have a message, and take a position.
6. Use an outline.
7. If you’re not the outline type, free-write your first draft without editing.
8. Write the way you would speak in an email to a colleague.
9. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
10. Write at eighth grade reading level, the American average. Resist the urge to sound “smarter.”
11. Practice word economy.
12. If your post is too long, split it into a number of posts. That’s a great problem to have.
13. Write eye-catching subheadings, and make sure the font is large enough to stand out. People skim.
14. Spend 50% of your writing time on the headline.
15. To eliminate repetitive words, right click on the term in Microsoft Word, select synonyms in the dropdown menu. You may find a great substitute.
16. Read your work out loud to spot errors.
17. Save your drafts. Sometimes you get to the end of the editing and figure out that you said it perfectly the first time.
18. Your final post might not look like your original idea. Sometimes that’s okay.
19. Stuck? Start from the last sentence and delete the rest.
20. Still stuck? Delete the first paragraph and the last paragraph and try again.
21. Still stuck? Go for a walk, or come back tomorrow.
22. Still stuck? Write a different post.
23. Help your reader.
24. Provide a call to action.
25. If writing isn’t your strong suit, contact BRG Communications! We offer content strategy and creation, materials development, and many other writing based services. To learn more about how we can help you, click here.

*You don’t blog? That’s okay. Many of these tips cross-apply to other forms of written work such as press releases, messaging materials, pitches, strategy plans, professional emails, and more.