Sunday, March 17, 2013

New and improved with double-plus yum yum!!

Being old and grouchy as we are and having been around the block quite a few times, we usually approach these "how-to" things with a little bit of an "I'll tell YOU how to!" attitude. And that's exactly how we approached this list (but we clicked through on it anyway! see notes below on the effectiveness of top 10 hoo-ha.) brought to us by something called Copywriting 101 through LinkedIn. Lots of attitude and a modicum of condescension. But it was great! We actually learned something. So you can just take your "old dogs . . . " homily and shove it someplace new and improved.

Click here to read the article: 7 scientifically-backed copywriting tips.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

The story

Here's what came to us on the old FB the other day:

Whenever the owners of this house with a pool came home, they found puddles
of water near their pool. 

They believed the neighbours’ kids waited 'till they went out, to use the pool……
So they installed a camera and this is what they saw……



How awesome is that?! It was shared and shared and reposted out the wazoo and why not?! It's a great story.

The best part of this story though is the fact that it's entirely fabricated. The camera is moving, someone is obviously filming and a simple search of youtube finds a longer version where they actually move in on the dog. Filming their dog in their pool with their camera while they watch, poolside. No mystery. The real story appears to be:

Our dog likes the water slide in our pool.

Not nearly as exciting.

Hemmingway said all you need to tell a story was 6 words. He supposedly provided the following to illustrate his point:

For sale: baby shoes. Never used.

The moral of today's post: tell a story. Stories are sticky, stories are fun.

The end.