I am not a writer, per se. My 9-5  has a major writing component but no where in my title does it say writer. Basically, If I wanted to make money writing, I would have a tough time convincing someone to hire me.

So I did what lots of unemployable writers do. I started this blog!

I also went out on a limb and submitted a piece to my school’s newspaper. This was more of me out on a very strong limb as the paper reached out to all graduate students to submit pieces. There weren’t too many guidelines but we had to write about writing. Fun!

We were given a list of 10 possible topics and I took the one I knew the most about (writing for blogs, social media and personal websites…no brainer!) and I ran with it. In my piece I highlighted five tips for writing for these platforms as well as a noting how it is different than the writing you remember from back in high school.

The Basics of Writing for the Digital World

1)      Keep it specific and succinct

2)      Write consistently – I truly believe this above all else is how you become a better writer and capture a following.

3)      Don’t pigeonhole yourself – No one wants to read a blog post or even a tweet with a bunch of acronym and jargon.

4)      Avoid mistakes – i.e. J.C. Penney’s now infamous drunken Superbowl tweets.

5)      Be yourself – If your writing is impersonal, your audience will sense it and move on.

So there you have it, me writing about writing.

To read more, check out my article in the Salem State Log.