Sweet Retweets – how you can learn...

I’m off to sunny London today to do a workshop at Social Media Week London called Sweet Retweets: How to write well for social media. I did it last year with my occasional partner-in-crime Sue Keogh of Sookio and the response was fantastic. We realised that although there is plenty of training in how to set up and use social networks, there seems to be a gap in good advice on how to write well for it. With our combined experience writing for websites such as the BBC, AOL, Yahoo!, ITV.com, Magic FM, Heat and working on social media campaigns for Coronation Street,...

Ridding the world of rubbish web copy: T...

Champagne for everyone! Back in 2007 I had an idea. The idea was to rid the internet of rubbish website copy. You know: the drab intros, the flabby sales copy and the tired old clichés. So, early in 2008 I left my job as a BBC broadcast journalist to set out on my mission and today I’m celebrating four years of Crocstar. Clients love clear copy I have written my crisp copy for some pretty impressive-looking clients such as Yahoo!, the BBC, AOL and Workmoose (part of the Bauer Media Group). I’ve also written web copy for one-man bands, government...

Helping a charity to use social media...

Recently I went to help the staff at the Helen’s Trust charity as they’ve just started using social media. Based in Bakewell, Derbyshire, they wanted to connect with a new audience in north Derbyshire and south Yorkshire. The charity helps incurably ill people stay in their own home by providing tailored support for people and their families with a range of services and help. Firstly we talked about using an appropriate tone on social media, based on their existing style from their website. We also discussed language, in particular using the word...

Training the content producers at Viadeo...

The Viadeo team have a go at re-writing some existing blog post titles, then coming up with tweets to promote them We’re fresh from our latest Sweet Retweets training session – given to the team at Viadeo who write blog posts for their website. Viadeo is a social network for professionals with over 35 million members worldwide. They blog in four languages (English, French, Spanish and Italian) and sponsor many events in the social media arena. To help them write better blog titles, tweets and Facebook posts we gave them a tailored half-day workshop. The...