Happy Sunday, Pixie friends!
The letter this week is for those of you with a vested interest in growing your businesses, but who are also flat-out working inside the business. You might be flying solo or have 3-50 employees. The articles this week are right up your alley.
They cover social proof in online retail; creating emotionally engaging content; the technical basis for content experience; and there’s a crash course in content intelligence, too.
And then, right at the end, is a beautiful story about Victoria’s tiniest school. I’ve included it for you because it’s heartwarming - and for no other reason. Yes, these tiny schools of 7 kids do still exist. And the experience of a Sydney-raised woman teaching there is nothing short of beautiful.
I hope you are inspired to do good things in the world after all of this week’s brilliance.
And if you’re looking to transform your content, publishing, or business development in the new year, let me know. I have about 10 places available for strategy consultations, which you can book here. And in 2019, we will be offering editorial advisory retainers for just $1,200 per month, so you can keep building your team’s capabilities. Reply to this email if you’d like to know more about that.
May you have a sparkling week this week. :)
~ Leticia Mooney,
Queen Pixie at Brutal Pixie
Tip of the week
Your biggest issue with a team of enthusiastic writers is editorial. Remember to put the editorial function inside your workflow. If you don’t, you’ll get a mishmash of style, and you’ll increase your level of risk.
The Sunday Five
Here are the best articles we’ve found from the past week. If you find any gems during your week and would like to see them included, email them to hello@brutalpixie.com.
[ Marketing ] How social proof helps retailers on Black Friday
The notion of social proof is that people take action by following the actions of others. Can you say baaaaaa? Haha! This article gives you loads of tips for demonstrating what people’s peers are doing: Ratings, popular purchases, pop-ups that tell browsers what people are buying, and so on. And it gives you some service tips as well. Read it here.
Key takeaway: Running an e-tailer at a competitive time of year means imagining that you’re in a busy store. What creates a sense of urgency, desire, and happiness if you were to put yourself in a customer’s shoes?
[ Content ] How to create emotional content that engages your audience
Using - and writing about - emotions can help your content to go viral, according this article. But the challenge is knowing which emotions are beneficial. Overwhelmingly, people love positive emotions. So, research them and write about them… once you know who you’re writing for. Go read this one here.
[ UX ] The technical basis for content experience
The author argues in this article that nobody wants content. They want an experience to meet a need. The article considers what makes a content management system (CMS) a CMS. How do we handle relationships in data? When does a database become a CMS, actually? When is a respository transformed into an experience? It might be beyond you if you’re a non-technical person but I still highly recommend that you read it. You’ll definitely learn something new. Read it here.
[ ANALYTICS ] A crash course in content intelligence
This is actually quite a boring and saying-nothing article, but I have included it because the concept of content intelligence may be new to you. Now, it doesn’t mean intelligent platforms like Narrative Science. It refers to platforms that can go beyond providing data to providing insight and why it’s important. If you’re a customer-centric kinda person, it might be a bit motherhood, but hey! You never know. Go read this here.
[ LIFE ] Educating Anita: One teacher. Seven students. Welcome to one of Victoria’s tiniest schools.
Ermagherd. I am not even going to talk about this one. Just go and read it. (Beware - the scrolling on the page is horrible, so if you don’t mind not seeing the photos, switch on your browser’s reading mode. Go go go.