‘Tis the season for eggnog, sales, and yes – endless year-end “Top 10″ lists.
This one, however, was produced by none other than funnyman Constantine Von Hoffman, so I’m giving his “Top Ten Marketing Blunders of the Year” post a little well-deserved juice.
My favorite? His skewering of General Motors’ weaselly “Apology” ad where the company pretends at a mea culpa while actually accepting zero responsibility.
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With more copywriters business blogging for bucks (say that three times fast), and people now accessing streams of information more or less instantaneously, the dangers of the WordPress “Publish” button loom large.
Mis-type a word in a headline – or entirely blow your first paragraph out of the water with a half-assed edit – clicking Publish immediately places that post in your RSS feed , saving it for all to see and marvel at (for eternity).
It’s embarrassing when you do it on your own blog. But potentially expensive when you do it for a client.
The Feed Pauser plugin (WordPress only) helps solve this problem by delaying the Publish –> RSS cycle a user-specified amount of time.
In other words, set it for ten minutes, and you’ve got a whole ten minutes after publishing the post to correct any mistakes.
The post shows on the site, but isn’t placed into the RSS feed until your grace period is up.
Those headless posts you mistakenly send? Those half-finished drafts the world is never meant to see? Those headline typos?
Feed Pauser offers you a second chance to fix them, and like all great solutions, it does so simply and elegantly (no affiliation or financial interest on my end).
Regret is a powerful thing, especially when your own work is the source of it…
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It turns out that pitting our tiny new daughter against my previously comfortable writing routine results in the following: the wholesale slaughter of the routine.
Embarrassingly, I had to read my own blog to discover where my last post left off (hint: Zombie Copywriter attacks Slacker Building Contractor).
The Good News?
The Bad News?
I remain barely a half-step ahead of my client commitments.
Which leaves little time for a blog. Or personal writing. Or sleep. Or even a shared (fun) Web site project (aided and abetted by another copywriter).
Naturally – now that the Thanksgiving Madness is over (as is the last-minute Black Friday client rush) – I’m teaching four nights a week for the next three weeks.
Like raising a kid, teaching is hugely exhausting and wildly gratifying at the same time (more on that in an upcoming post).
I expect to have a lot of fun.
What Else is Coming on the Underground?
I’ve got some great stuff ahead.
I’m putting the finishing touches on an update to the profile I wrote of Airgun niche writer Tom Gaylord, who now hosts a TV show and is even signing lucrative product development contracts.
In his typically direct, impassioned style, Tom offers ample food for thought for anyone dominating their niche – but wonders what comes after you own the space.
Then there’s my call for a Modern Word Processor for the Contemporary Online Writer. Today’s writers are using yesterday’s writing tools, and it’s time that changed.
In other words, the Copywriter Underground’s not dead, just moving at whatever pace the world’s best one year-old daughter allows.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
Adorable Photograph of Reason You’re Not Reading This Blog Very Often:
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