Shari Berg on LinkedIn: What's with all the hate for passive voice in copy? Yes, active voice is… | 41 comments (2024)

Creative copy isn't just for websites and social media. If you have a brick and mortar location, you can always find innovative ways to engage your customers. Bernie and the Boys in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, is the perfect example. These hand-painted tables left me laughing so hard I thought I might pee my pants. They were entertaining and on-brand for this restaurant and made waiting for my meal less boring.Consider taking a page from Bernie's book and innovating your brand content to pack more of a punch. If you can get people talking, you can get new people in the door.

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What's with the unhinged customer communications trend? It's not effective. If anything, it's creepy and borderline abusive. Twice this past week, I've gotten stalker-ish messages from two organizations. One was political, the other from an e-commerce brand. The political one was a follow-up text to a request I'd received 3 days prior about signing some petition. I ignored the original request. The follow up said: "We know you didn't sign our petition. We're not mad (well, maybe a little). So, sign our petition." 😬The second was from an online shoe company I'd never bought from before. I left without buying. Two hour later, I got an email that said, "We see you left without buying any shoes. That's not cool. Come back and buy some shoes." 😟It's not the first time I've gotten messages like this from organizations. The approach appears to be getting more common. Please, for the love of Bob, don't send messages like this. I don't know what communications goo roo suggested this approach but it's awful. The only thing these kind of messages persuade me to do is block your organization from contacting me again. I'm willing to bet I'm not the only person turned off by this approach. #CustomerService #ContentStrategy

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What happens when you give CEOs free rein over social media accounts? Just ask Kellogg's. Warner Brothers, and Balenciaga. All it takes is one poorly worded social media post or tone-deaf comment in an interview with the press to require the expertise of a crisis communications pro to clean up the mess. Some organizations are getting wise to the risk and doing something about it. That's where crisis prevention expert Drew Kerr comes in. Drew and his team don't put out the 5-alarm fires. They prevent them from ever sparking. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Drew to discuss his approach to crisis prevention management and why he believes an ounce of prevention is worth the investment for any size organization. You can check out our conversation in my latest blog post. The link is in the comments. Image Description: A man wearing a business suit sits in front of a computer in the office that's on fire. You can see his coworkers putting out similar fires in the background. #CrisisPrevention #CrisisCommunications #ContentStrategy

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Someone asked me yesterday if my comment on a post was AI-generated. I wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended. 🤔 To be fair, it was a post about how bad the "Rewrite with AI" feature is here on LinkedIn. I can see why someone might be tempted to ask the question. What a crazy world we live in when we're not sure the people we're talking to are real people or the comments and posts they've made are their thoughts or AI's. Transparency is important to me, so I'll spell it out here for all my followers and connections (and anyone else who happens on this post). I don't use AI to engage with other people here. It doesn't write my posts and it doesn't write my comments. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm a fan of relationship-building. You can't get to know someone on a deeper level by exchanging generic conversations generated by AI. That's just my $0.08 (adjusted from $0.02 for inflation).You'll never have to ask me if it's me you're talking to or ChatGPT. I'm telling you now, it's always going to be me. You can't automate some things. Human connection is one of them.

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Did I ever tell you guys that my first name was almost Lambchop? No, really. You can't make this stuff up. Stop laughing and pick yourself up off the floor. This is a true story, friends. And if I'm being honest, I'm sad my first name isn't Lambchop. It would have made a memorable byline. If you're wondering how I nearly had - but lost - such a fun first name, let me tell you a story. My mom had promised my older sister she could name me to get her excited about my impending arrival. At the time, my dear sister was 3.5 years old and obsessed with the sock puppet Lambchop. If you weren't a child of the late 60s and early 70s, you probably have zero clue who that is, so I recommend Googling it (or checking out the video below). Anyhoo, my mother didn't think naming a child Lambchop was a great idea. My sister pitched a fit when told she needed to choose a different name. My mom is a smart cookie (and an excellent negotiator to boot). She knew there must be a way to appease her firstborn while not saddling her secondborn with a weird moniker. The compromise? She convinced my sister to name me after the woman who served as Lambchop's right-hand woman. If you haven't guessed by now, her name was Shari. Shari Lewis, to be precise. As sad as I am that my name isn't Lambchop, I still have a cool origin story to tell when someone asks me why my mom spelled my name with an ARI instead of the traditional ERRY.What's your origin story?

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"You might want to consider another career."Those words - etched in angry red pen at the top of the first article I ever wrote in college - were the only feedback I got from my journalism professor. To say I felt deflated is an understatement. I've loved the idea of becoming a journalist since my freshman year in high school. Those seven words could have made me question everything about my future. I could have cried and dropped out of college. I did neither of those things. Instead, I muttered, "Challenge accepted," determined to prove my professor wrong. Not only did I prove him wrong, my friends, but I earned the John Fiske McHugh Award for Journalism for my exemplary work on my senior project on the topic of publishing rape victims’ names just 4 years later. Why am I telling you this? It's not a humblebrag about one of my greatest achievements. It's me, not wanting to see you get discouraged if the path to success seems elusive. LinkedIn is full of posts from people sharing their wins. Rarely do we get to see people talk about their failures. We all have them. We all have those moments that convince us we'll never amount to anything in life. (I could fill a novel with all of mine). Overnight success is rarer than social media would have us believe. The people worthy of your admiration worked hard to get where they are. And if they're being honest, they've experienced spectacular failures along the way. I encourage everyone here to start sharing the wins and the losses to cut through this illusion that our professional lives are all wine and roses. We do a great disservice to anyone struggling in our industry when we act like we have it all figured out. (We don't). Yes, share the positives. No one is suggesting you shouldn't. But your failures - not your wins - may be the catalyst that helps someone else succeed. What's your biggest failure on your path to success?

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LinkedIn is full of useless "hacks" that don't add value to your life. This isn't one of them. If you'd prefer to avoid AI Overviews in your search results, I recommend using Google's Incognito Mode. Whether by design or accident, searching in private mode bypasses the new Google feature. At least for now. You're welcome. #GoogleAI #SEO

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Still think AI is coming for your writing or researching job? I invite you to explore Exhibit A below. It's a screenshot of what happened when I prompted Claude to list some benefits of using a dumpster to declutter your home before moving. It misses the mark by responding that you shouldn't "dumpster dive" to furnish your new home and lists several reasons why it's a bad idea. 👀 As if that wasn't weird enough, it suggests that instead of using dumpsters, consider more sustainable decluttering methods (and list 5 suggestions). These 2 paragraphs don't answer my query. Not even close. Before you ask, I tried rephrasing the question several different ways, including with an elaborate prompt that included directions not to provide information about the dangers of dumpster diving. Claude provided a nearly identical response that repeated the warning about dumpster diving. 🙄 If you rely on AI to create all your content without human oversight, you get this kind of low-quality. Can AI streamline certain processes? Sure. Just don't get caught up in the notion that it can completely replace your content strategy, copywriting, and other marketing professionals. That's the kind of mistake that can ruin your brand's reputation.#AI #ContentCreation #Copywriting

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AI can't replace alt-text yet. I keep seeing that "hack" mentioned here and elsewhere as a way to save time when loading photos and other graphics to your digital assets. Yes, it's time-consuming to add alt-text if you use several visuals.But I'm not a fan of the AI approach. Here's why. Thinking AI is the solution is a huge disservice to low vision and blind individuals who use screen readers to access your digital assets. Sure, AI can interpret what it sees on a screen (although not always correctly). There's another issue everyone is overlooking. Sometimes graphics don't load properly on websites. Screen readers can still interpret what's supposed to be there if alt-text is added manually. AI would fail because it can only decipher what it "sees." If you want accessible content, don't rely on AI for alt-text. Stick to adding it manually until a better solution becomes available. #AccessibleContent #ContentCreation #AI

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