​Another day, another byline. [Huge grin]

My latest article on The Write Life, a respected web site for writers, is all about Twitter. 

I dove headlong into the Twittersphere to discover 20 writers that you must follow right this instant. 

The individuals who made the cut consistently post interesting, useful and actionable content for writers across genres. 

Read the article here, and feel free to leave a comment or tell a friend!

You can find all of my articles on The Write Life here. 

You may also like these blogs by Megan Sharma:
Article on The Write Life: Think Like a Journalist to Improve Your Writing (Trench Coat Optional!)
Writing tips: What I want to blog about vs. what I actually blog about
One year after my major career change from full-time mom to full-time writer: reflections and lessons learned 
Married to medicine: Letter to a young doctor’s girlfriend 
Wedding Season: What NOT to say about the bride and groom in your best man or maid of honor speech 
For writers: All your writing fears, squashed! 
A real, imperfect day in the life of a writer: me 
Your writing conference checklist: how to make it worth every minute and every penny (takeaways from the 2017 San Francisco Writers Conference) 
The write stuff: An author’s favorite books and authors 
Writing tips: Cutting down on word fat and other newsletter best practices 
All about writing: writing 'til it hurts 
Writing tips for email: In 30 seconds, this message will self-destruct 
Public speaking tips: How to move your audience from callous to captivated 

I am thrilled to have earned my first byline on The Write Life, a popular website that helps writers create, connect and earn. 

In this article, I draw on my experience in journalism school and offer actionable tips for thinking like a journalist to improve your writing. 

Check it out! 

You can find all of my articles on The Write Life here (more coming very soon!). 

Cheers, and happy writing!

You may also like these blogs by Megan Sharma:
Writing tips: What I want to blog about vs. what I actually blog about
One year after my major career change from full-time mom to full-time writer: reflections and lessons learned
Married to medicine: Letter to a young doctor’s girlfriend
Wedding Season: What NOT to say about the bride and groom in your best man or maid of honor speech
For writers: All your writing fears, squashed!
A real, imperfect day in the life of a writer: me
Your writing conference checklist: how to make it worth every minute and every penny (takeaways from the 2017 San Francisco Writers Conference)
The write stuff: An author’s favorite books and authors
Writing tips: Cutting down on word fat and other newsletter best practices
All about writing: writing 'til it hurts
Writing tips for email: In 30 seconds, this message will self-destruct
Public speaking tips: How to move your audience from callous to captivated

Blogging is kind of like being on a diet.
 
When you’re slaving away as a corporate drone, with little to no time available for creative writing or blogging, you crave it like a double cheeseburger with bacon and a side of perfectly seasoned waffle fries. 

“Ohhh, why don’t I have time for blogging? If only I had time for blogging, my life would be complete,” you lament to no one in particular.
 
Then, as if by magic, a segment of your slammed calendar opens and, POOF! You get the chance to write that blog.

Back when this was my real life story, I was giddy with every opportunity to write a blog.
 
Why shouldn’t I be? It only happened once every one to three months when I was working full-time as a corporate communications manager.
 
Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Amiright?

I’m going to get real with you: it’s not like that for me now, at least not every week.
 
Now that I have complete freedom over my writing projects and schedule (halleluiah!), I sometimes would rather think up imaginative strategies for marketing my book, work on growing my social media network, or pitch and write articles that earn me a byline (the holy grail for writers and journalists).
 
I don’t always want to write my blog. I don’t always know WHAT to write for my blog. But I always write it, not just because I ‘have to’, but also because it’s important to my long-term career as a writer.

​Over the past 7 or 8 months, I have buckled down and gotten serious about blogging. Every. Single. Week.
 
I have also studied the breadcrumbs that successful bloggers leave behind for anyone who may be curious.
 
In short, my blogging strategy has completely changed, in that now I actually HAVE a blogging strategy, whereas before I pretty much just wrote whatever I felt like writing.
 
Now, like a person committed to healthy eating and living, I exercise a certain amount of willpower in my blog.

I no longer allow myself to write whatever my heart desires that day.
 
I have a new mission: to provide both entertainment and value to my readers. Once I realized that I write for my readers, not for myself, my entire blogging worldview shifted.

Here’s what I often WANT to post about (but don’t, at least, not anymore):

• Pictures of my adorable toddler. Just a lot of pictures and cute captions.
• A glorified social media update on what’s been going on in my personal life
• Things that I find super interesting (but you may not)
• Monologues full of complaints
• Social commentary that amuses me but won’t help you do anything

Here’s what I am committed to writing about:

• Parenting
• Love
• Marriage
• Family fun
• Travel (especially for families with young children)
• Life being married to medicine
• Tips and tricks for writers 

So, if you want to read more on the topics above, keep following my blog, and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter!
 
I’ll give you a cookie if you do. 

You may also like these blogs by Megan Sharma:
One year after my major career change from full-time mom to full-time writer: reflections and lessons learned
Married to medicine: Letter to a young doctor’s girlfriend
Wedding Season: What NOT to say about the bride and groom in your best man or maid of honor speech
For writers: All your writing fears, squashed!
A real, imperfect day in the life of a writer: me
Your writing conference checklist: how to make it worth every minute and every penny (takeaways from the 2017 San Francisco Writers Conference)
The write stuff: An author’s favorite books and authors
Writing tips: Cutting down on word fat and other newsletter best practices
All about writing: writing 'til it hurts
Writing tips for email: In 30 seconds, this message will self-destruct
Public speaking tips: How to move your audience from callous to captivated

Don’t you just love hearing from ‘mentees’? I know I do. One of my former communications interns recently reached out to me for some advice on starting a weekly newsletter, expanding on an already popular blog.

It just so happens that I have written dozens of corporate newsletters and a handful of client-facing marketing newsletters over the years.

So, I felt reasonably well-equipped to provide some tips on starting and maintaining a successful newsletter.

Newsletter Tips for the Real World

·       Spend time choosing a format that is visually appealing, represents your brand, is relatively easy to input content, includes an image for each story (use images legally!), and, ideally, is optimized for mobile viewing.

·       Establish an editorial calendar that outlines content deadlines and regular rhythm, and then stick to it. Consistency is key, even if you are the point person for all content.

·       ALWAYS think about your audience. Who are they? What will get them excited? What will piss them off? What is likely to get them talking? What do they NOT care about?

·       Order the newsletter with the most important content at the top – think like a journalist.

·       Keep the language clean and concise. Use color, but cut down on ‘word fat’ – how quickly are you getting from the subject to the verb?

·       Write in the language your readers will understand and keep the ‘voice’ consistent.

·       Be sure to ‘tease’ people with just enough to get them to click through to the full story.

·       Be prepared with some way to measure how many people are reading your newsletter, and which stories are most popular. Keep monitoring these factors over time.

·       Feature people stories as often as possible.

·       Make the content interactive – encourage comments, tweets and other forms of participation.

·       Use active tense in your writing. Passive tense is not engaging.

·       Send the newsletter via email, but also create an archive space for issues on your web site.

·       Give surveys and contests a shot.

·       For a non-corporate newsletter, include an unsubscribe option at the bottom of every email. Also, don’t forget to include an email address to get in touch.

·       Don’t let your publication get stale and boring. If what you have isn’t working, try something new!


What are your biggest newsletter pet peeves? Share your surefire paths to the ‘unsubscribe’ here. 

For whatever reason, today I was thinking about Mission: Impossible and the oft-quoted “this message will self-destruct” line.

How does this relate to communications (you are probably asking yourself)?

Well, some email messages are so destructive in written form that they might as well be explosive. They truly require a face-to-face conversation or phone call.

Imagine what some of these “incendiary” email subject lines might look like:

Sorry, we found someone muuuuuuchhh better than you to fill this position

When it comes to employment decisions, it’s simply common courtesy to pick up the phone. This ensures that future bridges are not burned.

I talked to the team and we all agree: you need to lay off the Axe body spray 

Sensitive/personal issues require careful wording and just a dash of empathy. This can’t be achieved in an email.

Hi, I’m your new boss. Your current boss is re-locating to the Bermuda Triangle. 

When dealing with organizational change, especially on an individual level, grab a coffee and make it easy on yourself.

Heard your dog/iguana/parakeet passed away. Bummer. 

This may the one exception to the destructive email rule, but if you decide to go this route, choose your words with caution.

By the way, the company is totally bankrupt. So, I guess this means you have an extended vacation. 

Financial difficulties and resulting personnel changes must be communicated clearly and with care.

So, before you hit the send button on a particularly sensitive email, take a moment to consider how the receiver might take the news. 

Over the years, I have been fortunate to attend a number of professional communications conferences. In between cups of Starbucks house blend and mini lemon currant scones at one particular event, I got to thinking. 
 
Some of the presenters totally blew me away, while others left me cold and feeling…dare I say it...annoyed.

Then I began to ponder what the top-notch speakers did to make such an impact on me, and where others fell short.
 
Thus, here are my pleas to public speakers everywhere:

 1.       Throw your own agenda out the door.
 It quickly became clear who came to the conference to shamelessly plug their business, and who was truly passionate about the subject matter. I don’t particularly relish being “soft recruited” at an event that costs over $1,000 to attend, and I doubt I’m alone in that sentiment. The speakers who stood out not only loved where
they work, but most importantly, they love what they do, and it showed. 
 
2.       Forget the corporate mumbo jumbo.
Yes, you have an impressive corporate mission statement. And, wow—your fiscal year priorities are riveting. Except that they’re not. Successful speakers find a way to connect with everyone in the room, and they don’t do it by reciting information that can be
found on a company web site.

3.       Use examples, for the love of God!
In college, my journalism professors taught me that details matter. For example, which sounds more appealing: an “old house”, or a “quaint Victorian charmer from another era”? Real estate aside, the exceptional speakers at this conference employed compelling examples in their rhetoric. The session on “Care and Feeding of the
Corporate CEO” shined with anecdotes about CEOs staging social experiments involving hideous yellow ties, while the session on “The Heart of Storytelling” almost brought me to tears with a story about the speaker’s children.  Bottom line: make it real, make it relevant, and use examples!

 4.       Seize the opportunity to tell an epic tale.
Given the state of the global economy, the last three to four years have not been kind to many businesses. One company spoke on this subject, and about how they had transformed themselves from within to ride out the storm. There were definitely elements of the extreme in the story, including the return of a heroic CEO, massive layoffs, and a media sensation. How were these events presented? Not as an epic battle circa ancient Greece, but as a timeline. Yes, a timeline. With just a little more drama, that could have been an epic tale.  Instead it fell flat.

5.       Offer tips that can be used immediately.
Professionals come to conferences because they want to learn new approaches, connect with colleagues from a variety of industries, and above all: to apply those learnings to their work. We can’t do that in the absence of any tangible suggestions. So think of
the top three takeaways you want your audience to remember, and then pony up some suggestions for how that might look in the workplace. Your audience will absolutely love it.