Ryan Caldarone 🎸

In general these LinkedIn AI generative articles are a sham. The subtitles that shape the form of the narrative are no longer poignant with the coming shift to Web 3.0 and how we are consuming media. Copy coming before video, as if it was a script or or screenplay is antiquated. Talk with SMEs. Develop a narrative in unison. A script or copy for a video should only be bullet points. If the SME or subject isn’t speaking to what they believe in, then that brings your content strategy into question.

To address this not as an email writer, but an email reader: being personal doesn’t mean adding in X name, etc. The writer should add their personality, or better yet if it’s a newsletter or recurring message you send to the same contacts, give the email a personality of its own. End the email with a meme, or a cute kitty cat, or (with tremendous tact and decorum) a meme on current events or trends. I will ❤️ emails that do two very personalized things: 1. Offer value to me based on my person, not my job title (which I’d love to receive even in my next role). 2. Include media or content that I want to save to my camera roll to share with others later.

Specifically for a copywriter, listening to everyone’s voice and adapting your listening “style” to benefit the environment might be something you can’t afford to do. Your mission is to write copy. To sell, but from behind your keyboard. Listening to everyone’s voice and acting as the universal moderator won’t help focus your pitch. Collect and maintain a network of trusted individuals from all roles, markets, lifestyles, backgrounds. Lean on those trusted contacts, and listen to what THEY have to say. Avoid too many voices from transactional or otherwise interested relationships. And listen the best way or style for you. You’re not trying to win 🏆 best moderator award. You’re trying to deliver converting copy, on a deadline.

Like many of these LinkedIn Collaborative AI articles, the generated techniques and tips tend to be highly technical. In this case, it's very technical SEO heavy. While data based empirical techniques will always be important for copywriting, I strongly advocate that it's not THE most important. The story; the narrative in which we're persuading our readers to sneak over the fence to our side of thought, will always come first. Techniques, platforms, distribution networks, and algorithms are fickle, they change with the times. It's easier to adapt a great story to a technical strategy than to publish and distribute a non-starter story. To gracefully update the Judith Charles quote, a copywriter is a salesperson behind a keyboard.

Sometimes this is the only way to effectively research. My stint as a freelance copywriter, specifically working on brand storytelling projects, had me develop my interview and on-boarding questions very quickly. It's something I'm constantly evolving, but as copywriters, we should work on finding those questions that bring out the elements and building blocks that work best for each of us when extracting and re-telling those "spark" moments customers have with the brands, products, and services they use.

To be a great writer, you need to be a great reader. READ a lot. Also, WRITE a lot. Creativity is a muscle; the more you use/train, the stronger it gets. Read novels, comics, captions on your Netflix show, news articles, shampoo bottles, and cafe menus. Read everything. Most importantly, read YOUR writing aloud. First line of feedback is yourself. For secondary rounds of feedback, I like to ping my network. Over the years, I have maintained relationships with peers and mentors from various industries and departmental roles... so if I'm writing copy targeting a particular demo, I'll reach out to someone I trust who's close to that demo for feedback. Don't miss out AI tools in revision. Grammarly, Hemingway App, and AMI are my favs.