Words. Words. Words: How to Write Sizzling Content
MCS11 Marketing, Content and Social Strategy
Location: Ballroom D
TUESDAY, 3:00 - 3:45 p.m.
We talk about content. A LOT. But what about the actual words? This practical session is all about finessing your wordsmith skills and adding sizzle to your sentences, no matter what the medium. OK. So you weren’t an English major. You might not recall the terms, but you know when a headline is catchy or a story is compelling—we’ll look at the actual language and explore why that writing sounds so darn good. We will explore some tried and true literary elements and journalistic techniques that make content pop—repetition, alliteration, those sorts of things. Finally, we’ll talk about those sensory details that connect people to content. Also, we’ll explore why brevity rules – how you can make that stuffy report of a webpage into a lively, user-geared paragraph. And how you can turn that stuffy paragraph into a compelling sentence. In all, this session--inspired by a pre-conference workshop of the same name last year--will help you, no matter what your skill level, become a better writer and self-editor for any medium.
Presenters
Donna Talarico
Writer and Content Consultant, Self
Donna Talarico has nearly two decades of experience in marketing, communications, writing and media, and about half of that time has been in higher education. With a foundation in print journalism and radio, she’s a storyteller at heart, and she thinks in headlines and soundbites. From 2010 to 2015, as director of integrated communications at Elizabethtown College (Pennsylvania), she told the E-town story through a variety of mediums as part of the award-winning team. Now a full-time writer/consultant, she speaks at higher education conferences, including here, and at Elements, eduWeb, Higher Ed Expert’s online content conference, OmniUpdate’s OU Campus user conference, CASE District II, CASE Multimedia Workshop and more. She writes an adult learner recruiting column for Wiley and has contributed to CASE Currents and Guardian Higher Education Network.