Category: Articles 🔎

If you work in content creation, be it as a copywriter, social media manager, blogger, public relations practitioner—generally, if you have to touch a keyboard and put together coherent thoughts, you’ve experienced writer’s block. It’s the most common symptom of a stressed-out writer. But don’t get discouraged! Using these five methods, you can cure your writer’s block and get the words flowing.

Freewrite or brainstorm.

Writer’s block is most easily solved by simply writing! Write anything. Sit yourself down for ten minutes and jot down whatever comes to mind when thinking about your topic, and don’t stop until your time is up. If you have to write down “blah, blah” over and over again, so be it! Free yourself from formatting, sentence construction and even logic. Freewriting is a great way to uncover ideas and get your words out.

Get moving.

One of the most popular ways of curing writer’s block is to get some fresh air and exercise. Go for a walk, practice “desk yoga” or turn up the music and dance around—whatever gets you moving. When you get your body flowing, your mind follows suit. Exercise will help you relax and tear down the mental barriers.

Talk it out.

Talking through your ideas out loud will help you organize your thoughts. Grab a coworker or call a friend and talk about your topic. Speaking is more natural than writing and you will likely be more relaxed when discussing your topic with a friend. A conversation can lead to questions that spark more ideas. You could even record yourself and listen back to the audio for a quick reminder.

Get a change of scenery.

Have you been sitting at your desk trying to fight off your writer’s block? Write somewhere else. Head out to a park, a coffee shop or anywhere else you can go to get away from your desk. If you have the means, go travelling and find inspiration in a new city.

Start anywhere.

Starting at the beginning can create a mental blockade and need for perfection. Pick a point that you know well and start from there. Leave the introduction for later and focus on getting your ideas down on paper. Once you have the bulk of the content down, you will have a clearer idea of your purpose and can smooth out the details. Even if you find 

The biggest causes of writer’s block are a need for perfection coupled with stress. Start relaxing and break down your mental blockades. Don’t get discouraged—writer’s block can be easily overcome. But of course, Designsensory’s team of writers can also help.

Now, stop reading this and go write!

You’ve just been hit with the need to create a new awareness campaign for your brand. Fast forward to the part where you’ve come up with a killer campaign strategy, concept, name and execution plan. There’s still something missing; a key piece of the campaign puzzle.

Where are you directing traffic?

Why not your brand’s website? You do want your main website to introduce your brand and allow customers to interact with it directly. However, in certain situations, you need a modifier to help a campaign or blog effort move forward without distraction. Sometimes, you just need a time-sensitive solution. Cue the microsite.

Microsites are used when information needs its own space outside of your main website—because, let’s be honest, nobody wants a cluttered house. Metaphorically, of course. If you’re still not convinced, here are some hows and whys:

They’re Focused
As a writer, it’s hard for me to say that people don’t want to read. (Quite frankly, I disagree). But what I do believe is happening, is excessive amounts of content are flooding the airways. The best way to cut through the clutter is to grab attention quickly, which most people equate with short-form copy. The reality is, we need focused content. Microsites deliver just that. Not only are they smaller in size than your typical website, they have specific content that relates to specific subject matter.

A great example of a microsite, which is rich in its content and design but is still a single, focused scrolling page, is the Westworld visitor page. The hit TV show built upon its canon and gave fans highly shareable content with this gem.

They’re Engaging
The functionality of a microsite can be much more engaging to existing customers. Instead of displaying generic content (images, copy, etc.), you can provide the focused content, like I mentioned above, in unique formats like VR or interactive video. United Airlines – Polaris Business Class has an entire microsite dedicated to its seating and comfort options. Users can explore several interactive components to get a feel for the seats and amenities. Pretty cool, amirite? 

They’re Beautiful (or should be)
Well-thought-out design is the difference between good and bad interaction. A microsite might create the right timing for you to explore a slightly different look and feel for a campaign. Allow designers to explore several options for you to choose from, and then watch your plan come to fruition. A few years back, we created successful, seasonal microsites for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. Get a glimpse of the former spring microsite in all (or, at least some) of its glory, and check out the former Make Summer Last campaign. They were equal parts beautiful and functional.

If you need a microsite, research some of the most popular ones around—Google knows—and bring your ideas to your agency of record. Let us do the heavy work for you. That’s why we’re here.

Oh, one more thing: Don’t forsake your main website. Microsites should complement them, not negate them. Best of luck!

By Sarah Lutz, PR and Social Media Intern

It happens to almost everyone. You’re in a meeting or talking with your coworkers and all of a sudden you hear it: the stereotypical jargon. You’re not quite sure what it means, but you’ve heard it enough to know you don’t really need to know the meaning.

Or maybe even—*gasp*—you are the one using the aforementioned lingo! I know I’ve made this mistake a time or two (or twenty).

You can’t stop others from dropping unnecessary jargon, but you can help yourself. Read on to find out which words to leave out of your lexicon.

Really, Anything that Ends with “-ize”: Let’s emphasize that we need to recognize the need to prioritize to not utilize the generalized words ending with “-ize” that do not harmonize, customize or optimize a message, nor capitalize on the creative visualizations of a team meant for strategizing … and that’s just to summarize my agonized feelings.

Outside the Box/Out of the Box: Whomever uses this word probably hasn’t thought outside the box since they suggested your office go to restaurant *insert swanky new restaurant name here* for lunch instead of the usual workplace go-to.

Innovation/Innovative: The shiny and new idea that probably isn’t that shiny or new.

Effective/Effectiveness: The thesaurus was literally made to make your words be more effective (*inset* productive, powerful, compelling, direct, efficient, etc.).

Leading: Using the word “leading” is the leading cause of office eyerolls.

Touch Base: Somehow, whenever these words are uttered, we never seem to actually “touch base.” Maybe by saying let’s talk about the concept or strategy, it’ll actually get done.

Circle Back: Same as “touch base.” How about we talk now instead of circling back to it?

Impact: A term used when people are unsure if they should use effect or affect. Hint: The impact of this word will negatively impact people’s response.

Engage: Let’s hear less about how you need to engage your audience and more about how you plan to actually do so.

Going Forward: We’re talking about the future, right?

Well, going forward, at least we can be sure the future may hold more overused jargon, but it won’t be coming from me!

Want to dive deeper? Check out these other articles on the subject:

• The Big Question: Which PR Buzzwords Must Die? — Spin Sucks
• 9 Ridiculous Buzzwords We Will Overuse in 2017 — Inc.

By Sarah Lutz,
Spring 2017 PR & Social Media Intern 

Since the release of Facebook Live video almost a year ago, it has become a viable and widely used means to connect with followers. If you are curious about Facebook Live being a good fit for your organization or brand, read our blog, “How and Why of Facebook Live.”

Provided you already know you want to join the Facebook Live community but don’t want to be just another user—and you’d rather use Facebook Live to its full potential—then you’ve come to the right place! Read on to become a Facebook Live standout.

Prepare before going live

Once you go live, everything in the broadcast is open for the public to see. To ensure your Facebook Live goes seamlessly, always practice and prepare by:

• Choosing a location with quality lighting
• Testing sound quality and background noise
• Checking your lighting quality
• Double-checking your internet connection
• Preparing a discussion outline

Promote your live video

The goal is to reach and interact with as many people as possible. To expand your reach, inform your followers about the live video ahead of time, and ask your viewers to subscribe to your live videos. Also, before going live, write an attention-drawing post for your video.

Maximize live broadcast

While live, you’ll want to personalize your video as much as possible. Make your viewers feel like part of the broadcast by responding to their comments and questions in real time as much as possible, and personalize the experience by using their names. To reach more people, broadcast for longer periods of time and keep your viewers engaged.

Finish strong

Your ending of the broadcast should be as seamless as your beginning. To ensure people know you are signing-off, use a closing line that gives your viewers a call-to-action. The CTA can be about something mentioned in your broadcast or a reminder to subscribe to your live videos. Once the broadcast is complete, edit your now-archived Facebook Live video. For more information on how to edit completed Facebook Live videos, check out Facebook Live: What Marketers Need to Know.

Go live often

The more often you go live, the greater chance you have of increasing your reach and number of viewers!

Still not sure if you’re ready to face Facebook Live alone? No worries! We’d love to help your brand integrate Facebook Live into its marketing efforts. Contact us if you have any questions or want to know more about our process, services or work.

With new sources of entertainment and information constantly competing for brainspace, it’s little wonder there are so many great companies lost in the roar. An integrated, consistent, seamless message stands out in the noise like a quiet pause.

Let’s say you’re the marketing officer at a luxury hotel, and you’ve been tasked with increasing the number of heads in the beds. We’ll walk you through the steps of an integrated campaign to help you reach that goal.

Define your goal

Wait, didn’t we just say our goal is to increase the number of heads in beds? We did, but that isn’t what we call a SMART goal. A smart goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. So, the SMART version of this goal would read something like:

Increase the number of heads in beds by 15 percent over the next year.

Know your audience

Once you’ve defined your goal, it’s time to define your audience. You have to understand your audience, sometimes called personas, to reach them with a message that resonates. This is called a human-centered approach. One way to do this is to review your past clientele and customers. You should be able to answer questions like:

• Gender breakdown
• Age
• Average income
• Location
• Occupations

A persona for a luxury hotel might be described as:

Luxury Larry is a 50-something business traveler. As an executive at a high-end tech company, he needs a quiet place that feels like home to rest and recharge between meetings and events. He often leads conferences and meetings, and needs a single venue that provides housing, meeting space and amenities, such as meals, for several dozen employees. Larry also likes to bring his wife and family along—and encourages others to follow suit. So, the ideal place has other amenities, such as pools and day spas, to entertain the family. He also likes hotels that are conveniently located near fine dining, shopping and other attractions.

Pick your channels

Now that you’ve defined your audience, think about what channels are best to reach them. An integrated campaign should resemble pieces of a puzzle, so it’s also important to consider how all pieces of marketing work together: digital, print, video, public relations, inbound and more. For example, the campaign might look like this:

• Ads running on Google and social media promoting a special deal
• A news story detailing renovations or offerings in the hotel
• Organic social media posts of guests enjoying themselves
• A blog post on your website about amenities
• Billboards and print ads

Tactics on all of these different channels will point back to one place: your website. Your website will serve as the information hub for booking, pricing and essential details travelers need to know.  

Create adaptable messaging

Integrating the advertising campaign doesn’t translate to stamping the same logo/image/tagline on every product or media available. Create a single message that can be adapted to best fit the platform.

Track and report

The only way to know if your campaign was successful is to track your results. Let’s go back to our SMART goal:

Increase the number of heads in beds by 15 percent over the next year.

Tracking doesn’t mean starting your campaign and not touching it again until the end. Monitor your results over time to ensure you’re on pace to meet your goal, and adjust if necessary. Remember to review stats like website visits, landing page conversions, and ask visitors how they heard about your hotel.

Integrated marketing is about more than just putting all your marketing eggs in one basket. It’s about coming up with an effective, actionable game plan, where the value of the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts. It’s about creating rich, engaging content to convey your message to the target audience. It’s about determining what your target audience cares about, and who they really are. It’s about leaving your assumptions behind and digging in to find out what’s really effective, and who’s actually paying attention.

Ready to get started? Contact us today!

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is comprised of dozens of factors —website age, structure, size, content, meta descriptions and more. All of these factors are at the mercy of Google Algorithm updates, so keeping up with your SEO may seem like a daunting task. The best way to keep up with your SEO is to stick to the basics: optimizing your site with specific keywords relevant to your business through on-page SEO. On-page SEO determines how your website “talks” to a search engine, so to speak, and nailing your on-page SEO will help you rank higher in search engine results. So, where should you start?

Choose Your Keywords

Let’s say you’re craving some pizza one night but unsure where the closest pizza place is. The first thing you’ll do is hop on your computer or smartphone to google something like “pizza delivery in knoxville tn.” Voila! Google gives you a robust list of pizza places in your proximity.

When developing a keyword strategy for your business, identify the products or services you offer, then think about what keywords people use to search for that product or service.

For example, if someone is searching for pizza delivery near them, they won’t simply search “pizza” or “pizza delivery.” The search will likely specify something like “pizza delivery in knoxville tennessee.”

Still not sure what keywords you should place on your site? Check out this blog.

Audit Your Site

Whether you’re optimizing a current site or a brand new site, the first step is to perform an SEO audit. Our friends at Hubspot put together a free video series to walk you through an SEO audit. Essentially, it will look something like this:

1. Arrange all your site pages in an Excel document
2. Categorize each page
3. Select specific, long-tail keywords based on the page content

(Naturally) Place Your Keywords

When you’re optimizing existing pages, ensure your keyword appears naturally—don’t force it! Search engine optimization is as much about human users as it is about crawl bots. Keep the humans and the bots happy by focusing each page around one, specific, long-tailed keyword.

This same rule applies when you’re creating new pages. Pick your keyword before you begin to write content around it.

Where Should I Place Keywords?

For your optimization efforts to be effective, place your keywords in the right places:

• In the meta description
• In the title tag
• As image alt text
• On the page, in the first paragraph of copy and in headings
• In the URL

Placing keywords in these specific locations will boost your SEO, as well as your click-through rate.

Ok. I’ve updated my site pages. What’s next?

To stay on top of your on-page SEO, always add metadata when you add new pages, and regularly update your blog with content optimized around your keywords. It may take some time before you see the fruits of your labor. There are many factors that contribute to SEO, and many take time to accumulate. We recommend checking in with your keyword rankings and other basic SEO stats around once per quarter.

Were my efforts successful?

If you start seeing your site moving up the search engine rankings, you are on the right track. Results-wise, aim to be on the first page—ideally, in the top five. If you’re not seeing movement, try researching better, more targeted keywords or increasing the amount of content you write around that keyword.

Need help optimizing your site for search? Contact us today!