How can B-side new media operations improve writing skills?

After I shared my annual thoughts on B-side new media operations last week, many of my friends who work on the B-side came to me to complain. The problems were varied and their resentment was overwhelming.

Among them, the problem that impressed me the most is that they don’t know how to write B-side tweets, and no one reads them even if they are written. Only by making clickbait headlines can the KPI of the official account be achieved.

In my previous annual reflections, I mentioned that most B-side content needs to be produced, and as a public account operator, you must remember to strive for quality rather than quantity, but the reality of work is often beyond your control.

Your boss is going to attend a salon and asks you to write a tweet based on the recording. Will you do it? Your company is holding an event and asks you to summarize and write a tweet. Will you do it? I believe that most people will honestly move their hands even if they are unwilling in their hearts.

Ideals are beautiful, but reality is still cruel.

Of course, the cruelest thing is that after pushing out an article that I had finally "sorted out", I found that the reading and forwarding data was pitifully low, and I had to fail the KPL again this month. While I was sad, my resistance to writing such articles became stronger and stronger.

Over time, the sense of accomplishment as a B-side new media operator decreased, and eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and chose to give up.

This is not an isolated case. Many B-side new media operators have experienced this.

Next, I will share some of my thoughts and suggestions on this, hoping to bring some direction and help to the majority of B-side new media operators. You are also welcome to participate in the discussion in the comment area, so that we can make progress together!

1. Be brave to think, explore the essence, and viewpoints are values

When writing public account tweets, B-side new media operators need to always ask themselves a question: Who exactly is this article written for?

"Who is this for?" This is something you must think about before writing every tweet for a public account.

Assuming that most of the users are traditional B-side corporate CEOs who are in their thirties or forties, started out in industry, and are not very interested in the Internet and electronic products, but you write articles in a humorous and witty style commonly used by C-side users, then you can imagine the effect.

The content involved here is not only an analysis of users, but may also be related to multiple dimensions such as the positioning of the official account and the positioning of the position. Since it is difficult to explain each one in a short article, I will not expand on it. But you need to remember to at least understand who you are writing for before writing the article.

After clarifying the user groups, I found that the "organized" articles still have few reads and reposts. Why is this?

The answer is lack of thinking!

An article that lacks thought is like a diary. Readers will forget it as soon as they finish reading it, as it will be like chewing wax. It does not bring any feelings or conclusions and is meaningless.

Imagine this: at 12 o'clock in the evening, your B-side enterprise user took some time to check WeChat, clicked on the article you wrote about the industry salon, spent half a cigarette to finish reading it, only to find that the article was just like the meeting minutes, with the time, place, characters, etc., but after reading it, he felt nothing at all, and the value was not as good as that of a cigarette.

The time cost of B-side users is very high, and they pay more attention to benefits and value. Unless the relationship is very strong, they will be very ruthless about worthless things and are unlikely to be willing to waste too much time on them.

So, as a B-side new media operator, how can you make articles more valuable?

My advice is: think deeply about what you are going to write, explore the essence, and generate opinions.

Take my own real experience as an example: right after graduating from university, I went to a traditional B-side to do new media operations. At that time, I often followed my leader to participate in tea parties freely organized by some leading companies in the industry. One day, the leader suddenly said that the content discussed at this tea party was very interesting, and many of them were helpful for the promotion of products, so he asked me to organize it and write an article.

I had just graduated at that time, and I was full of pride and ambition. My thinking was still at the student stage. I only knew that I had to do my assignment and it would be done. So I listed the process, time, and location according to the way of writing a press release, and then I wrote the whole article, attached some photos I took on the spot, and then I submitted my first article.

The leader was not very satisfied after reading it and felt that the article was meaningless. Let me think about it more, and then he said something that I still remember: Don’t just record their conversation content, think about why they said these words? What essential things are being revealed?

The essential thing? This question undoubtedly triggered my thinking. So I listened to the recording of the tea party carefully several times, discarded most of the meaningless chatter, and found the content that I thought was valuable. I listened and thought from various angles, such as "What impact will it have on the industry?" "What exactly does XX want to reveal by what he said?" "Can our products help them?" I asked my leaders for advice many times. Finally, under the guidance and correction of the leaders, I found out the core thing revealed by this tea party: the industry can no longer tolerate supply chain problems, needs to change and transform, and is looking for good solutions.

In this case, who should the article be written for? What content do readers pay most attention to? These questions have answers.

The next step is to produce some opinions around the essence, which may be views on the phenomenon, analysis of why it is difficult to solve, recommendation of the best solution now (adding products to become soft advertisements), etc. In fact, you should have got the answer in the process of exploring the essence, and what you need to do next is just to express it in the form of words.

Here I would like to remind you: the value of an opinion usually lies in the depth and breadth of your thinking, and the value that each opinion brings to users is different.

Finally, this tea party article was read and forwarded by many industry users, and attracted some companies to consult for solutions, which is difficult to achieve with a diary article.

For B-side new media operations, don’t be afraid to think. You should know that your opinions are very “valuable” to users!

2. Central Path Breaks Through the Trust Line

Some people may say that my articles have opinions and are well illustrated, but why do my B-side users just don’t believe what I say or trust my products?

B-end users are different from C-end users. They have high decision-making costs and find it difficult to easily trust a product.

So is there any good way to gain the trust of B-side users?

There are many ways. Friends who want to study in depth can read more books such as "The Screaming Sense". There are many things worth learning from them. What I recommend today is to use the central path of the ELM rule of thumb to gain trust.

The ELM rule of thumb is a deductive probability model that believes that there are two paths for copywriting to occupy the minds of consumers: the central path and the peripheral path.

The central path means using logic, reasoning, and deep thinking to persuade users. How to do it: Infuse your copy with facts, data, evidence, certificates, research, and reports.

By making good use of the central path, B-side new media operators can find reasonable statements and factual support for their core views and demands through copywriting of objective and rational information such as facts and data.

An example of a friend: He is a new media operator for a B-end e-commerce platform. Once a new function was launched on the platform, the company arranged for him to promote this function online. After planning the online promotion plan, he and the company’s full-time copywriter wrote two articles respectively.

The articles written by the company's full-time copywriters focus on the help and changes that new features bring to the industry. They conduct extensive analysis of the industry's current status and new features, and are very professional.

My friend focused on the new features and described the company's huge investment in them. He included the data changes of some users before and after the new features were launched (displayable), the technical patent information involved in the new features, and even included specific events such as how many nights of overtime many technicians worked on research and development.

The two articles each had their own advantages, and both were promoted online, and finally achieved their goals. But what’s interesting is that according to company leaders, when they communicated with users offline, they found that many new users were impressed by their friend’s article. Various cases and data made them feel that this new feature was truly put into practice and they were happy to try it out.

"Your R&D investment is equivalent to our income for nearly half a year, and you have national patent recognition. What else can we not use!" This is the sentence most often said by users.

This is the trust gained through the central path. You may think this is too much, but for many B-side users, breaking through their trust defense line may sometimes be just this little bit.

Of course, your industry or users may not buy into this, but if you want your articles to gain more trust from B-side users, making good use of the central path is undoubtedly an option.

3. Writing skills that can be used right away

There are many writing skills, many of which are applicable to both B-side and C-side. Here I will only talk about some practical skills that I think B-side new media operations can use:

1. Speak your mind and don’t embellish your words

In most cases, the simpler and more straightforward the words, the more useful they are. Don't try to be sophisticated by writing words that you are not familiar with.

For example, "being afraid of trouble when encountering problems" is correct, but if you say "being afraid of trouble when encountering things", many people will not understand it and it will lose its meaning.

Piping up words is also a problem that many new media operators who are born in the humanities are annoyed by. It is wrong to add some of their own feelings, or meaningless emotions and experiences to simple sentences and then transmit them to users.

For example, if you want to say that product developers are still working overtime late at night, you can clearly say:

"At 10 pm, several technicians were still conducting the final rounds of testing for new features."

But some emotional friends might write like this:

"At 10 o'clock in the evening, under a few dim lights, several tired-looking technicians were running between office chairs, testing new features. They worked hard and were worthy of admiration."

You are not writing a novel. If you construct the artistic conception in this way forcibly, not only will the picky B-side users, but even ordinary people will find it a bit fake.

2. Use short sentences. Everyone’s time is precious.

Many writing teachers have mentioned this repeatedly and in detail, so I won’t go into details.

In short, return to standard Chinese expressions, use long sentences as little as possible, use short sentences more often, make sentences clear and concise, and use more nouns and verbs.

3. Use adverbs and prepositions with caution

The misuse of adverbs and prepositions is also one of the reasons why the article is difficult to understand.

The adverb addiction is ultimately due to my lack of confidence. I am worried that users don’t understand, so I keep emphasizing it on the blackboard.

For example, you could clearly say: "A small bug crawled into the cave", but you said: "A very small bug crawled into the cave easily". The words "very" and "easily" are adverbs, which makes the sentence look too bloated and users feel tired when reading it.

There are also prepositions, which, if not used in moderation, will bring about a translation accent.

For example, "Since becoming a product operator, I have to screen the demands." "Since" and "for" are redundant. Wouldn't it be a little better if it is simplified to: "Since becoming a product operator, I have to screen the demands"?

IV. Conclusion

The B-side's requirements for content are indeed very demanding. As a new media operator, this is a kind of training and a challenge.

You may not be able to interact with users in the official account in a humorous way like others, and it is difficult for you to push nonsense articles, but you need to understand that every article you write carefully is the product of your thinking. If you do this for a long time, you will eventually lead others.

Finally, the same old saying applies: if a horse doesn't think, it will easily become a mule. At that time, "whether it is a mule or a horse, just pull it out for a walk" will be a joke. May we always keep thinking and stay away from dust and dust!

Author: Sanshui Yidiangen

Source: Sanshui Yidiangen