Summarizing your Writings

Writing has always been a skill, most people crave to have. It’s not one of those that you’re born with, but definitely, something that can be acquired, if you’re interested in it.

The importance of writing can be seen in every industry, especially the creative sectors, including the one of advertising, without which none of the brands could’ve sold anything to anyone.

So, some people write professionally, some are into copywriting, and some write for themselves too. Whether in the form of a blog, or Twitter threads, or answering questions on Quora, the content creation forms go on and on.

Writing is one skill to have, but those who are able to fine-tune that skill, and polish it, thus, being able to summarize their writings are in a rare circle who are able to create a niche skill, which very few people are able to acquire.

Writing 1000 words or 10,000 words or a book is not easy, but if you are truly interested in that subject and if you live it, then you can get going. Writing may not be good at first, there could be a few mistakes here and there, but you would still be able to write it.

But, summarizing a 1000 word post into explaining it in 2 lines or summarizing out a paragraph from a 10,000-word article is more difficult, and not everyone’s cup of tea.

These days, with the attention scarcity, people consume the information quickly, they want a quick tease, and if that interests them, then they’d be ready to consume that 10,000-word article too. To learn to summarize your writings is the next skill writers must learn, whether for their own published works, the professional work done for others, or even for their personal works too.

Your Previous Work

Whenever anyone creates anything, with time and with experience, or rather exposure, most of those creators don’t appreciate their creation now as much as they did at the time of creation.

With every new creation, the previous work gets older.

The older it gets, the more mistakes the creator notices, or rather the improvements that can be done.

What this shows is, the creator’s growth. How, with time, they have evolved, with a wider worldview than before and with a bigger perspective than before. Add in some exposure as well, including the feedback and self-analysis.

But, that doesn’t stop one from creating. Rather, you keep on improving henceforth, making your next work better than before. Not necessarily in outcome, but surely in efforts.

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Headlines, Social Media and YouTube Thumbnails

What’s common between news headlines, social media and YouTube thumbnails?

The common factor is ‘clickbait’.

Catchy headlines that grab your attention and make you click on it.

With time, it has gotten so much worse that the headline is hyped to a level where the content within isn’t matching even one-tenth of it.

That is not just upon the one posting it, but also the one consuming it.

The audience never understood, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ and ended up doing the opposite of it.

Someone with knowledge and skills to share, but couldn’t catch your attention. And someone who knew how to write headlines ended up taking away your time but didn’t provide you with any value.

If you notice, the headlines have gotten so much worse, whether it’s the news, or the social media – publishers and creators, including the YouTube videos.

Now the only intent is to grab your attention and increase the time spent on the content, value isn’t cared for anymore.

It’s not all bad, there are some players fighting the good fight, but they are often left unseen in a world of headlines.

How to change that and bring value back, is something that the people, the audience can play a role in. Instead of going for content that doesn’t serve them or instead of going for content with literally, no value, start asking for more. And not more quantity, but more quality.

It shouldn’t be about the headlines, but about the content, the value within.

Your time is being spent, your attention is being used, why not use it wisely?

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What type of content works?

When it comes to building your personal brand, when it comes to creating content on any of the social media platforms

People usually ask, “What works?”

What type of content should we create?

What type of content would get a good engagement?

And the answer to that is really simple.

No one knows what works.

And if someone tells you what works, they’re just baiting you into their funnel.

There is never a right answer to what works.

Especially because it comes down to an individual’s strengths and weaknesses and what they are comfortable with.

If type A works for an individual, it may or may not work for the other two individuals and vice verse.

To put it even more simply, it comes down to you experimenting with your content.

What form allows you to express yourself more freely?

What is the type of content that aligns with your audience as well as with you, where’s the middle ground?

Whether you should do a Twitter-style post, or a carousel, or a infographic video, or a creative post or a picture or a cartoon or just something else, the answer to that lies in experimenting.

Tweet

Experiment with your content, see what works, what can you create more of, what the audience responds to and then do more of that.

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Create, Don’t Hate

If you consume anything on any of the social media platforms, you’d also notice that there’s a lot of hate out there.

At such times, you have a choice to do something about it.

Either you let that content consume you too or stay away from it and probably, someone else would be affected from it.

There’s a third door that is often not visible but we can choose to see it and open it too.

That is the door of creation.

How about instead of hating the people spreading the hate, or hating that content, taking a different path of creating content that tackles it.

Spreading some Positivity, Happiness and Love on the internet, if you have it within you.

Hate can only be overpowered by love and positivity, but someone has to take that step of spreading it.

One content piece at a time, one person, and as time passes, it can become a movement to spread love and positivity on the internet too, making it a good place again.

Create, Don’t Hate

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This is the best time to create Content!

Creating content, no matter the quantity, applies to every brand and individual when it comes to connecting with their audience and building their brand base online.

Its an ongoing battle to create content constantly which connects and aligns with the brand, keeping the different social media platforms in mind.

During this time of self-isolation, as you nust have already noticed, there has been an uprise of content everywhere.

However, there are a lot of people who are a bit skeptical as to whether they should create or not and what should they create.

Let me tell you this – this is the best time to create content on the social media platforms and let me also explain why.

Everytime when it comes to creating content, in terms of the corporate brand or the personal brand, the creator will think a few times whether its up to the mark or not, and whether it can be improved.

What I am about to say, applies especially to new creators, but also to everyone else as well.

With mostly everyone being isolated at their homes, and everyone being on their smartphones, on various social media platforms consuming content and thinking how should they spend their time wisely – they also know this – the one who is creating the content is also at home.

Now is that one time when you can focus only on your content, without focusing on the production, without focusing on the background, the lighting (not that you can shoot in darkness now, but you know what I mean), you can now compromise on the equipment (whether you have it or not) and just focus on the value to be provided to the audience.

Isn’t that crazy to think about?

Sure, the other things matter too, but not more than the content which is the essential element behind that video (I’m talking video here – because it is the most consumed type of content form right now).

This is the best form of a confidence booster for the creator, who doubts their content and who doubts whether what they created is postable or not.

Thus, why I say that this is the best time to create content.

Well, if you agree with this and/or if this has given you the confidence, go for it – start creating some content.

Short Blog Posts.

After writing blog posts for almost a year now, on a daily basis, I have realised that there is no definitive length to writing a blog post.

A blog post isn’t always defined by writing 1000 words or more about a certain topic.

It is more about explaining the topic in the best way possible, no matter how lesser or more words you write to do so.

You could explain something in a line or you could take 10 pages to write, they are still blog posts. You don’t have to unnecessarily use words and verbs and adjectives to extend the length of your blog just so it seems more readable.

I’d consider this to be a short blog post, but the funny part is I’ve written much smaller ones too, over time.

Whatever makes you content with your writing on that particular topic.

Quality is Subjective

Quality is Subjective!

Who decides whether your post/design/caption/campaign is up to the mark or not?

Certainly, not the creator.

What is good for you, might not be for the one consuming it and vice versa.

At the same time, gone are the days when you could work on one creative only, try to make it perfect and pray that it works for the brand.

Now, there’s not one perfect thing anymore.

Quality is surely not dismissed here, however, the quantity is increased – so you can create more, in order to experiment more, in order to reach more people and cater to their individual interests.

The base of Personal Branding!

When it comes to building a personal brand, everyone worries about the content to be created, pictures to be clicked and the selling that needs to be done, but trust is an important factor which is often overlooked.

The trust layed down by the audience towards you, trusting with what you say.

Whilst building your brand, one shouldn’t forget the foundation that it is built on, i.e. trust – everything starts from there and everything done thereafter, should be done with that trust in mind.

Once the audience loses that trust, irrespective of what you bring to the table, the essence is already lost.

Keep it Simple while Designing!

• Tips on how to Zazz your Design #1 – Keep it Simple •

Often, when it comes to designing, the thought revolves around the message that has to communicated, the content, the elements, the colour, the fonts that have to be used and what not!

In that process, as a designer, as a social media manager, as a brand, one must keep it simple!

Simple always does the trick – sends the message across, the design is well appreciated and people tend to remember it.

Make sure there’s a reason behind every element behind used in the creative. Try not to use a lot of colours or fonts which could make it more complicated. Try to stick to the message as simply as possible.

Play with the basics – Keep it Simple!

#TipsOnHowToZazzYourDesign

#ZazzMedia #ZazzYourBrand

Tips on How to Zazz your Design – a new series

Our focus is to change the way people perceive brands on social media.

What comes along with building your brand on social media and creating your content, is also your design.

Thus, apart from sharing content on those topics, we are also starting a series where we would be sharing Tips on how to Zazz your Design.

What do we mean by Zazz your Design?

Add an element of uniqueness and awesomeness to your design. Each brand requires specific attention, and part of that attention has to be given to the design of the creative as well.

Whilst there are a lot of skilled people out there, we’d be sharing a few tips to the best of our capabilities.

#TipsOnHowToZazzYourDesign

• To connect on Instagram, click 👉🏻 @zazzmedia •

What’s your excuse for not posting?

• Tips on how to Zazz your Brand #27 – What’s Your Excuse? •

In today’s age of the internet and the social media platforms, sharing your content and building a brand and reaching to hundreds and thousands of people is now possible within your arm’s length.

Yet, people don’t make a move on the easiest opportunity that is available to us.

What’s Your Excuse?

You don’t have the perfect image for your content?
You don’t know how to write the perfect caption?
You aren’t up-to-date with the platform’s tools?

None of these and more are sound enough to not start now – you don’t need to make anything perfect – you need to start.

If you aren’t aware of the tools, Google it.

There are no good excuses which are legit to not create content and start posting on social media.

#TipsOnHowToZazzYourBrand

Never Think Twice before Posting!

• Tips on how to Zazz your Brand #24 – Never Think Twice before Posting •

So often, people stop themselves from posting something that they love or they are passionate about.

Usually it’s the factor of external validation – “people aren’t appreciating this type of content and thus I do a certain kind of posts only”.

Why does this thought occur?
One, you’re addicted to the likes. Second, you’ve put your current audience on a pedestal.

If they don’t appreciate what you like to post about – then ultimately, what’s the point of having them. You aren’t able to open up and do what you love.

Social Media is a platform which allows you to open up, share your thoughts, document your journey, build a community – for this to happen, you also need to be passionate about the process.

Next time you plan on posting something, never think twice about it – just go for it.

#TipsOnHowToZazzYourBrand

Let’s Avoid Copy Pasting!

• Tips on how to Zazz your Brand #22 – Let’s Avoid Copy Pasting •

We all consume content on the social media platforms and we all have surely noticed a few rounds of posts being copy pasted from one account to another.

Not with an intention of calling anyone out, but has anyone else seen those black background posts with huge headlines in yellow and red and every other account posting the same stuff!

In the honor of creators and the audience and the platforms, here’s a social shout out – let’s avoid that.

Let’s be as original as possible.

Sure that takes time. That also means you’re willing to put in the work to create something.

That also means you love your audience and want to feed them with valuable content.

That also means you’re original and you’re doing something creative.

Let’s build something with our own two hands.

Let’s avoid copy pasting.
#TipsOnHowToZazzYourBrand

What should your first post be?

• Tips on how to Zazz your Brand #20 – Your First Post •

When it comes to posting for your brand or even individually, for your personal brand, people are often skeptical about the first creative they post on their profiles.

In terms of creativity or content, whether it is relatable to the brand or would the audience appreciate it, you surround yourselves with questions and doubt.

So what should your first post be?

Keep it natural, keep it raw and keep it about yourself. Don’t over do it and don’t over think it. Don’t have high expectations with just the first post.

Explain who you are, what you are, what is your vision and why should people follow you – keep it human.

The first post doesn’t define your social media profile, because you’ll be filling it with a lot more posts. At the same time, it is important for the first few people who will understand everything about you from that first post and may join you/ leave you forever.

Although, the most important thing is to start.
#TipsOnHowToZazzYourBrand