I’ve spent most of the Christmas holiday’s with my back to the grind, working my way through a couple of projects: I’m translating Arne Ljungqvist’s Dopingjägaren from Swedish to English for a Stockholm-based publisher and putting together the SEO copy for a website launch scheduled February 8th.

In between those two projects I’m trying to tweet and blog on as normal as I know both are important ways of generating new business and contacts. Oh, and lets not forget all the work that goes with developing a strategic partnership with an agency in Germany.

Spare time seems to be a concept beyond me right now.

Although I’m pretty adept at scheduling my time, I’d like to be able to find more balance in my day. I use my agenda to schedule tasks and deliver projects on time, but often I find myself using evenings and weekends to get everything done.

If you have any tips (or book recommendations), I’d love to know how you find time to get your job done, network, market your services AND grow your business. Can you recommend any (Mac) software that might help.

You can email me at jontusmedia at gmail dot com or leave a comment. Thanks!

As the year draws to a close, I just want to recommend a piece of software that I’ve got a lot of good use out of during 2008: WordFinder.

I use the Swedish-English dictionary software on a lot of the translation projects I do for clients.

It’s very lightweight and easy to use. You just highlight the source word you want to look up and then hit ctrl + w (on a Mac) and low and behold WordFinder gives you the entry in the dictionary of your choice. It even opens the application if you’re working in something else.

Right now I’m working my way through Arne Ljungqvist’s (brilliant) memoir Dopingjägaren of his time combating performance-enhancing drugs in the world of athletics. WordFinder is proving as useful as ever.

If you work with translation or go between various languages in your daily job, you might want to check out how WordFinder could help you. I recommend it.

Last week blogs took a kicking. Turns out most readers don’t trust them.

On the back of the Forrester report, some business folks might be wondering whether a blog is worth it. Personally, having picked up two contracts in three days via my blog, I can’t recommend them enough. An interesting blog generates traffic to your site and gets people interested in your company and what you do.

How to write effective, trust-building copy
If you’re wondering how you can get a blog to work for you, here are four tips to write effective, trust-building copy that will help you get readers sticking around and generate customer loyalty.

1. Write Conversationally
The best blogs on the Net speak directly to their audience. They don’t drone on in corporate claptrap. Instead, they strike up a conversational tone that addresses the reader.

Write your blog with your target audience in mind. Don’t fall into the trap of filling your copy with a sea of jargon. And certainly don’t try and impress people with your vocabulary. The emphasis is on writing in a friendly, accessible way so people stick around and listen.

I find it’s always a good idea to read a blog post aloud before I hit publish. That way you ensure there’s personality in what you’re writing.

2. Share Stories
Readers want to know who you are and what you’re doing. In the the last couple of years the Net has become incredibly social. That’s partly why Twitter has become so popular. It gives followers an insight into people’s lives.

As a business blogger, if you give your reader insights into the work you do, you have the chance to show the human side of our business. One of the hardest things to get across in brochures and advertising copy is the personality of a business and the people that run it. Blogging can help you overcome that.

By sharing the challenges, innovations, problems and services you deal with, readers will get to know you better. This can be an important step in making them feel like they can approach you.

3. Update Frequently
There’s nothing worse than coming across a corporate business blog that has lain idle for a month. Even worse if it’s six months.

It’s essential to regularly update your blog, and keep readers coming back for more. If you don’t have a minimum posting schedule, you should to ensure you don’t fall behind.

If left to dwindle –even if you’re super busy with projects– a blog can work against your business as it may give the impression that you start things and leave them half-finished. Or that you never follow through. This is not something you want customers to associate with your company.

4. Don’t Avoid Difficult Issues
Silence is not an excuse. Not these days when consumers are adept at blogging, tweeting and stumbling their thoughts about a company.

With a blog you can always put your side of the story. And sometimes you will have to when individuals or groups work against you. A good example of this is the way that Basset Hound breeders in the UK didn’t respond sufficiently to the accusations raised by a BBC documentary earlier this year – Pedigree Dogs Exposed.

A blog doesn’t just generate traffic to your website or promote your skills and services. It can also tell your side of the story in times of crisis. Because Google tends to rank blogs that are updated regularly fairly highly, you can almost always guarantee that your position will be heard.

A company blog is an excellent tool for promotion, communication, and information. I hope the tips outlined here will encourage you to improve the way you utilise blogging in your company or small business.

The other night I saw a tweet (in Swedish, as it happens) on Twitter that went something like this:

Never again Taxi Stockholm! Pissed off! 15 years as loyal customer but no more coz of 3 idiots on the phones.

I agreed with this particular tweet and retweeted (reposted) it .

I noticed that the original Tweet was retweeted 3 or 4 times in the space of 30 minutes.

All the people that follow us will have seen this tweet and it may influence their choice of taxi in Stockholm in the future.

There’s also probably quite a few people who use Tweetdeck to follow key search terms on Twitter. Let’s say 100 people track the word “Stockholm” –tourists coming to the city, social media types (like me!) who work here, etc. Well, all of them will have seen that Taxi Stockholm aren’t great.

In this way, Taxi Stockholm’s brand is under attack. It’s never good for you if a community start complaining about your services – in public!

Not on Twitter? No chance to respond to criticism
Taxi Stockholm haven’t replied on Twitter. I’ve been watching and waiting. Not religiously, of course, but I’ve kept my eyes out.

If they were on Twitter, they could turn this tweet to their advantage.

Lets say they replied:

Stockholm Taxi sorry bout complaints. Please call --- --- ---- . See what I can do.

Even if the original tweeter missed this post, other people following “Stockholm” on Twitter would see that this is a company who cares about its customers.

The even better scenario would be that the original poster saw it, called, and was given a couple of free taxi rides and an apology. If they worked hard enough, he might tweet how wrong he was.

Now we get a different equation. All those people following the original tweeter and words like “Stockholm” get a better impression of the company.

Be creative and try and apply this kind of scenario to your own business or brand.

Even if people write negatively about you, you can turn the dialogue to your advantage. Especially if you come across as genuinely helpful, interested and customer-orientated.

As a freelancer or business owner you can probably see the need to get on Twitter if you’re not their already. As a platform, it can help you make connections, build new and existing relationships, as well as help you drive traffic to your main website.

In the three months I’ve been using Twitter, I’ve got translation and copywriting jobs directly because of connections I made through the network. I’ve also got in touch with people who helped me as I was researching articles I’ve was commissioned to write as a journalist.

Why Jon Buscall is on Twitter
People are using Twitter to connect in new ways and that includes businesses.

For me as a one man band, Twitter is a unique social media platform that has allowed me to talk to people that I wouldn’t have met on Facebook and at a rate far quicker than via my blog. I suppose it’s the web-worker equivalent of a work-related mingle party. Each tweet is like a fragment of a conversation. You can join in if you dare.

As far as I’m concerned, if you run a small business and aren’t on Twitter yet, do something about it soon.

Follow Jon Buscall on Twitter

“Hello gorgeous”!

What a great way to come across with personality. Although they’re corporate, they’re talking human to human. They’ve got personality and it’s rolled up in a cheeky (cheesy!) two word greeting.

The other thing that works for me here is the way the word “earn” is used.

Visually it’s striking enough to succeed as a call-to-action, but pychologically its even stronger.

You surf into the site looking for cheap tickets and suddenly you find yourself drawn to signing up for their credit card. All on the promise of earning something for yourself.

Short, snappy, and deftly nailing the brief. Premier web-writing to observe and learn from.

There are stacks of examples of this all over the Net but here’s one of my personal favs. Feedburner.

In this screenshot you’ve got a really good lesson in Web 2.0 copywriting.

For starters, it’s personal.

Welcome. Let us burn a feed for you [emphasis added] a

In an instant, you’ve got a great invitation to action.

There’s more, too.

The following text emphasises that Feedburner is working with you.

Your new feed...your new account...your feed…

Even though they’re offering to do all the hard work for you, they’re still telling you it’s your feed. But the even subtler message is that together we can partner on this!

Finally, I love the balance of the opt in / opt out buttons at the button of the window:

“Activate Feed....[or] do not activate”.

Although it’s very subtly done, this is digital copywriting at it’s very best, guiding you through the process, talking to you with words.

The (great) copy has become the guide that prompts action.