Ellen de Vries: Freelance copywriter, Brighton

Going on the two conferences I attended in the last three days; Conference and Women in Media - there’s lots to say about the morphing role of language in social media development. In my opinion, this state of flux is super-excellent news for copywriters (your friendly brand language managers) as well those who author and structure all their own content.

What tricks are the Women in Media using?
The eye-opening highlight of the Women in Media conference was when ladies from both the TV and Music industries were talking about their uses of social media. From the speakers I heard in the afternoon I got an encouraging sense that they were;

a) excited about the possibilities social media offers
b) recognising how essential social media is for the industry
c) a little apprehensive about social media practices
d) starting to embrace the change
e) looking for collaboration and training opportunities with social media makers and experts

Kerry Harvey-Piper from the Red Grape Music label said “We encourage all our artists to blog…” and went on to talk about some of the challenges that this presented; who wants to blog when they don’t understand the value of it? what if they haven’t got the time? and what would they say anyway?

That was food for thought. I imagine that across-the-board there’s a massive need for :
1) Blogging encouragement and creative guidance on how to develop a community enthusiastically
2) Careful thinking and creative brainstorming sessions for those that manage their own brand language and communications. (In the case of Hafdis Huld she’s already video blogging about elf watching in Iceland)

Nrain food at the Head Conference.

‘Head’ is a conference that’s held entirely on the web, and I’m between sessions as I write this blog. Somehow, oddly, it feels like I’m right in the global midst of a cloud of technical brains and social media experts. Its very intense and deeply thrilling.

Why am I here as a web copywriter? Its not just about words. No Sir. Under the bonnet I work with function, formulae, user experience designs & philosophy, information architecture and other random media bits. When I write, I marry all of my understanding of these with business strategy, creative direction and message…more on this another day..

At Pedro Custodio’s session on the Social Web, he said this great thing which inspired me to get these thoughts down in blog format quick-smart: ‘The more interesting you are, the more people will want to engage with you.’

As a copywriter (and someone who offers guidance in DIY Copywriting) this is really exciting – in order to be ‘interesting’ on the web you’re going to need to:
1)think about what you have a sustained passion for
2)think about where you’d like distribute your ideas (and stay on top of new technologies)
3)find your conversations and join them with appropriate and helpful information
4)think about how it involves other people’s interests
5)think about where you need to go to get the most out of conversations

In my opinion, the role of the web copywriter is to understand these changes from the inside out and the outside in, and help companies to make the transition without losing the passion.
But what do you think about the roles of writers in social media? I’d really love to know.