Stunners: People Like to Share Pictures and LinkedIn Will Publish Just About Anyone's Post

Fridays! I like to use them as a social media catch-up day. Because a metric ton of MUST READ articles appear every minute, I try to be selective. And I hate clickbait.

So when I was drawn in with the great headline WHAT DO PEOPLE LOVE TO SHARE ON SOCIAL MEDIA? I was miffed that the answer was....
...wait for it...

...pictures!

I took my rant to a new (to me) venue and created my first LinkedIn post.
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What did you write today? And where?

If you're a freelance copywriter and would like to use this space for a guest post, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know in a comment on the LinkedIn post, or find me on Twitter.

Manipulated by Words? Only if You Don't Think

Words can manipulate. It's up to readers to think, harder than ever, about the written (or at least typed and disseminated) word. 

Two examples - quite worthy of consideration together, methinks - are Truth Goggles, another annotation tool for journalists, which Poynter breaks down nicely, and (yet) another little experiment by Facebook. 

Please writers, write well. Honestly, even. And people everywhere - please, read thoughtfully. 

In case you're not inclined to click on embedded links and read/decide for yourself, I'll offer my opinion here. For free, even. (#luckyyou)

That Facebook is attempting to make its product more popular using some of the principles psychology isn't surprising, nor is its rather manipulative "sharing" of the data. (Read the article and you'll see why I used quotation marks.)

As Poynter writes: 

The Truth Googles launching today is a tool to enable anyone to annotate an existing piece of online content to raise and answer questions about what's been reported/written. It can also offer a layer of personalized commentary.

Whether Truth Goggles is a tool or yet another shade of social media apps, I'm not sure.

I'll keep watching, reading, and thinking - and hoping you do, too.  

Dear Writers: Don't Fall for a Line Like That

"This position is really meant for people who know how to bring in real traffic. We pay a $2.50 CPM (That's $2.50 per 1,000 pageviews your article attracts) with a cap set at $25 per article."

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If the line above - from a real, recent post on a quite-respected job board - had you going at first, I hope you did the math at the end and got the same answer I did.  Sorry, but "$25 cap" isn't appropriate or respectable, even for a "small but respected social media reporting site."

SMH.

The Glamorous Freelance Life by My Evil Twin

"It must be nice to work at home."

Said with a mixture of envy, doubt (you don't work much, do you?) and sarcasm (OH IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE DOING on Facebook and Twitter all day?) if you're a fulltime freelancer, or even a fulltime freelancer with a part-time "real" job, you've probably heard it six hundred times.

Yep. It's nice to work at home.

Courtesy of eaziecheeze,
Photobucket.com

And sometimes it's nice to fight snark with snark. I try to refrain, really I do, but... not today. Have you met my evil twin?

For what it's worth, she offers a few thoughts on the cushy freelance writing life, below. By the way, if you ever hear me pop off something along these lines to an unsuspecting person who gives me that look and a syrupy, "Oh, it must be nice to work at home," it wasn't me. It was her.

1. Yeah, being my own collections department is awesome. Whining so totally suits me.
2. Ditto for handling my own procurement, office equipment maintenance and repair.
3. Nothin' like those "business lunches." (A.K.A. eating from the bag of shredded cheese over my keyboard at 3pm, again.)
4. Those constant endorsements from community groups really rock. Especially ones that begin, "We thought you'd be the perfect person for this because of your schedule, you know, since you're available all the time."
5. What happens in my office...stays in my office. Well OK I'll dish.  Just last night I got all hot and bothered... wrestling with a printer jam at 11pm.
6. Convenient? I'll say. It's like I never leave the office!
7. You know how it's fun to have Superbowl office pools, donuts at the office or a laugh with a coworker? I don't.

I think my evil twin's point is, the grass is almost always greener. I guess my point is, while freelancing or contracting from home may look like a cushy job, it's a job. So if I seem a little snarly when you drop by my house your day off, it's because I'm at the office.

Design Taxi recently ran an article offering solutions to many of my complaints. Maybe I'll get around to reading it when the boss gets off my back.
 

~Diane Stresing

Newspapers ARE Content, Stupid

I actually lose sleep over the "death of newspapers" trend, and admit my perspective is skewed by that.

I find it ironic that NYT, Washington Post, and some other distinguished dinosaurs are apparently leading the way in developing a new media industry called "content marketing."

Weren't newspapers the original "content" industry? and can this new iteration of "content" save the news?

God I hope so.

~Diane Stresing

#crankywriter