By Kelsey Boudin,
President and Founder, Southern Tier Communications Strategies, LLC
If you’ve worked for others as a writer, content producer, marketer, whatever, you know the pain well. You’re writing multiple news stories a day, every day, on deadline, as your editor bellows for more. You’re juggling several grant proposals simultaneously and your boss wants that report to the board … NOW. You’re compiling the next month’s social media posts and corporate sends down new digital marketing priorities. You’re drafting the CEO’s speech for the convention and she tears it apart because it’s not in her “voice.”
Sound familiar? If you’re anything like me, you’ve had the shower argument countless times, challenging the boss to hit his own moving target.
Communications careers come with stressors and demands few would understand unless they’ve lived it. Your bosses expect a conveyor belt for material, as if developing and launching a content strategy is mechanical and formulaic like entering numbers in a spreadsheet, with each keystroke, word and sentence equal to the last.
Communications careers require fluidity that most employers just can’t or won’t offer. It takes time and a delicate touch. Communicating effectively is an art (and much like an artist, you likely feel your work won’t be truly valued and compensated until you’re long gone).
Relax! That’s natural. Here are 5 tips for serving missions, not masters.
Here’s reality: very few communications professionals work for themselves with complete autonomy over the content they produce. The rest are under employ or contract. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the average salary for writing professions as approximately $62,000, that figure is quite skewed. Many earn less than half that figure, and countless thousands never once earn a paycheck for their work. The reality is, people in our lines of work are much like aspiring actors — always waiting for that “big break.”
In the meantime, you have mouths to feed, even if it’s just your own. So let’s make writing for others feel more like writing for yourself.
1. Begin Your Day by Reading
“Writers read. Writers read. Writers read — all the time.” I remember a poster noting as much on the wall of one of my journalism school classrooms at St. Bonaventure University. Makes sense. All communicators should read to:
- Refine styles and become acquainted with new styles;
- Expand vocabularies;
- Gather insights
- Develop a personality
- Become inspired; and, perhaps most importantly,
- Be informed.
Writing without reading is like driving a car without fuel. You may lack the power to marshal evidence and formulate an argument. In general, you may also lack a full toolbelt of communication mechanics and approaches. As an old adage often mistakenly attributed to Benjamin Franklin goes: “If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
Problem is, when we get to the office we often launch right into the day’s bottomless to-do list. First, grab a cup of coffee. Peruse the day’s headlines. Subscribe to an industry blog. Take half an hour, if possible, to feel human and stretch your communications muscles. You’ll stock up on timely insights to inform your work, and you’ll feel more in control of what drives you creatively.
2. Prioritize the Mission
This may be the most difficult to remember when times are rough. As you’re churning out mountains of content, the “why” in why you do it tends to become less clear. Those of us who receive minimal paychecks may lose sight of the mission entirely.
But you took the job for a reason. Whether you’re writing marketing materials for a tradeshow or chronicling Rock ‘n Roll history for Rolling Stone magazine, some level of passion drives your itch to create.
Don’t let negativity erode that passion. A critical boss or overbearing workload may muddle your purpose temporarily, but never let them steal your passion. Write for your purpose, not for the bean counters.
3. Keep a Journal
Take a few minutes to jot down your thoughts and activities at the end of your work day. How did you feel how that draft came together? Do you feel particularly confident about a grant proposal? Was the board unimpressed with your quarterly report? Did you stumble upon a valuable resource?
Write it down. Build a creative, little narrative around it. Find the most descriptive way to chronicle the moment.
It’s for your eyes only. You’ll feel empowered in telling your truth and your experiences in your way. And as a side effect, it’ll commit more of your thoughts to memory and help you to organize your daily tasks.
4. Build Your Communications Toolbelt
As a communicator, your words are the tools by which you succeed or fail. A great mechanic would never use only a handful of tools to fix each of the thousands of parts that make up your car. Similarly, you, as an expert communicator, wouldn’t use a limited vocabulary to convey the limitless constructs of human thought.
There are plenty of word-of-the-day websites:
- Wordsmith.org – A.Word.A.Day
- Oxford English Dictionary – Word of the Day
- Merriam Webster – Word of the Day
- The New York Times – Word of the Day
Or if you’re old school, pick up whatever dictionary or thesaurus you have in your collection, close your eyes and randomly pick a word. You’ll easily beef up your communications capacity. As a result, you’ll begin tasks, in business and pleasure, more empowered with a language arsenal to say exactly what you need to say.
5. Write Creatively
You may have strict mandates from the corporate office as to how to write a standard press release. Writing the manual for a new product is, no doubt, dryer than the Sahara. Content creators often have no way around these professional realities.
Chances are, you aren’t getting paid for writing haikus or tear-jerking columns about life, love and loss. Yet there are ways to keep it interesting. While you may be required to abide by formulas or strict edicts, challenging yourself may be a way to achieve creative freedom.
Find a more descriptive adjective for that product. (Ex.: A “robust and versatile” lawn tractor vs. “strong and capable”.) If you’re given only 250 words in a grant narrative, try to use stronger language to express that need in just 200. As a result, your prose will be more muscular and impactful.
There are ways to infuse practicality into your creative communication strategies.
Content Creation for Missions, Not Masters
As content creators, we all feel as if we’re meant to serve a higher purpose. In many cases, however, the needs of our masters supersede our needs to create (and our need for steady income).
But these five simple strategies can allow us to feel more control over our creativity.
P.S.) Did I tell you to read? Reach out here if you need some inspiration.
