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Copywriters and content marketers are at a metaphorical junction. On the one hand there is a need for great copy that is engaging, informative and rooted in ideas and, on the other, there is a need to produce more and more of it in an increasingly faster paced environment, which runs the risk of diluting quality for the sake of quantity. Our digital aspirations and the changing nature of advertising, indeed of business, have adapted the channels through which brands reach audiences, the nature of marketing and the expectations of the audience themselves. So what does this mean for the copy we produce?<\/p>\n
Copywriting is an old discipline. For decades, centuries even, brilliant copywriters have been writing copy that has turned heads, persuaded cynics and engaged consumers. The art of using language to generate, broadcast and consolidate ideas has been a crucial part of marketing since marketing began. And it still is.<\/p>\n
The question, therefore, is how has an old discipline been adapted to fit the modern world? Has the quality of the content been affected? And what counts as copy in this, the digital age?<\/p>\n
Digital copy is anything written to engage an online audience, be that website copy, a blog post or a tweet. This content, situated within its digital context, can be described using four paradoxes:<\/p>\n
At the very crux of each of these is our (relatively new) friend – the internet.<\/p>\n
Thanks to this virtual world, it is easier, faster and cheaper to broadcast our ideas and produce copy that can be seen by an audience unlimited by any factor other than internet access. And this means that there is more of it; content reaches further but it also competes for the same (huge) space as millions of other pieces on a constant basis.<\/p>\n
Any busy Twitter feed moves faster than it takes to say \u2018read this\u2019. Posts are surrounded by the constant noise of their fellow followees and we are increasingly trying to think of new ways to present our copy in an engaging way that might make the reader stop and read and share that particular piece as opposed to anyone else\u2019s. If we don\u2019t grab attention right away, our brief moment in the limelight will soon be gone and the next piece will arrive.<\/p>\n
But, let\u2019s not forget that the internet also represents the largest and most complex filing cabinet in the world. Even if no one clicks on a link or reads an article, there is a machine somewhere that will have indexed it. And it can therefore be found. We can\u2019t go producing shoddy content just because we\u2019re under a time pressure; if anything, we need it to be some of the best we ever made, just in case, in two years\u2019 time it gets dug up by a competitor and used against us!<\/p>\n
So – modern copywriters must be masters of the headline, crafters of concise copy and experts at engagement.<\/p>\n
More than anything, we need to know about quality.<\/p>\n
This brings me nicely to this, the second paradox.<\/p>\n