Jean Gazis Copywriting & Content Strategy

I'm amused that Intermarkets is sending me direct mail - actual paper postcards - promoting their online advertising opportunities. Each card features a different summer drink recipe.

I was just doing some testing after a server upgrade and noticed that people are actually using the Recipes feature I built into the Urban Organic site. Woo-hoo! I just clipped a couple of new recipes for Sauteed Red Kale and Indian Broccoli into my Evernote. I can always use another idea for broccoli, we eat at least a head a week and I don't always want to roast it.

I'd link the recipes but it requires a site login, which isn't of much interest to anyone outside the Urban Organic delivery area.

I've turned on comments for this site. For now, they will be moderated, at least until I see what happens.

I could not agree more: Typos: No Big Deal? Think Again. Here's one I spotted on a visit to Tampa:

At least when I've made a mistake, it hasn't been cast in bronze!

There's a great article by Colleen Jones on A List Apart about how great writing on the web can influence the user's response in a positive way: Words That Zing. Terrific examples of words that work well in various contexts.

Harvard Business Review's Management Tip of the Day links to this interesting article about using instant messaging and social media technologies to quickly gather useful feedback from your employees or audience.

Sounds like a good idea — much easier and faster than a long evaluation form or questionnaire.

Take a couple of minutes to read this brief article: 5 Tips For Increasing Traffic by Marc Pitman on Network for Good. The tips work equally well if you're for-profit, of course.

And if you're someone who relates to this sentence: "Use those likely search terms in the 'keywords' meta-tags. This is an HTML thing so you might want to check with someone a bit more technical in your office" give me a call, I can help!

This week's Chief Marketer piece on the lessons social media marketers can learn from email marketers leads off with, you guessed it, a plug for compelling content. "Regardless of the channel—e-mail, social media, print, television, radio – there will always be one indisputable truth: content is king." And how did I find this piece of relevant content I'm now sharing with you?

This is a very interesting presentation on "Designing for Social Traction" by Joshua Porter. Even a quick page-through offers some useful nuggets for design and copy.

See it on Slideshare

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox newsletter is always worth reading, and this issue his discussion of when an expert is needed and when an amateur will do is spot on. The article compares usability to cooking as things that are worth doing and learning for everyone, without lessening the value of professional expertise when you need it. I think the analogy works for a lot of other kinds of work, too.