1. Writing a lot.
2. Reading even more.

The more you write, the more you get to practice flexing vocabulary and voice as well as how to put your ideas into clear thoughts. The more you read, the more you capture lessons about tone, sentence structure, cadence, and idea flow.  And the more you do both, the more everything you touch, see, hear, and read becomes the seed of something else to write about.

There are some great posts out there about cultivating a writing habit, like these:

• Cultivate a Writing Habit: Chris Brogan
• 10 Steps to Create the Habit of Writing: Write to Done
• Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School: Copyblogger
• Posts on Better Writing: Men with Pens
• Complete Your First Book with These 9 Simple Writing Habits: Dumb Little Man

These practices apply whether you’re blogging or penning a novel. Writing is an active discipline. You have to do it. Often.

But absorbing the written word in lots of different forms makes you a better writer. Period. Read blogs, articles, business books, biographies, fiction, whatever suits your fancy right now.

Not sure what to read? I piled a bunch of recommendations for books in my Twitter favorites. Scroll through them and you’ll find lots that have been tossed to me by my Twitter friends.  And I keep an Evernote file called “Book List” where I capture all the titles I haven’t read, but want to, so I’m always prepared at the bookstore or the library.

Reading more helps you identify good writing AND bad writing, and how to tell the difference between the two. You’ll start learning to spot words that are smooth to read versus overly dense, the pace of delivering ideas and organizing them in a flow, length of sentences that are easy or hard to read, vocabulary that’s too high brow or not nuanced enough.

Julien Smith tells you how to read a book a week in 2010. I probably average that if not more, in addition to all the blogs I read and online articles, news, whitepapers, etc. I read a ton, and I write every day. If you hate to read, that’s going to be harder for you, but it’s important nonetheless.

If delivering content on the web in written form is something you seriously aspire to – for the sake of contribution of ideas or to make money or both – you’ d better learn what it takes to write well, and reading is an important step to doing just that.

There is no shortcut.

Are you a writer? Reader? Both? Do you agree? What are you reading right now?

image by moriza

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
Wanna Write? Read Voraciously.

Here’s 10 ways to get serious about social media this year. There are plenty more, too. Add yours in the comments.

1) Quit counting fans, followers, and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing.

2) Learn how to measure stuff, and quit making excuses for why you can’t do it. Katie Paine’s blog is overflowing with stuff. Here’s some metrics you might consider if they’re applicable for your goals. And here’s how you can start setting measurable objectives.

3) Learn what case studies can and can’t do for you. Stop saying there aren’t enough of them and go Google the term “social media case studies” or spend a few minutes on my Delicious links. Then, get busy writing your own.

4) Understand the difference between making a business case for social media and chasing the next and greatest fad. If you don’t understand how to explain where social media impacts areas outside the business besides your own, make a concerted effort to learn.

5) Stop lauding social media as the thing that’s going to fix it all. Fix your business first. And read Jay Baer’s blog (including this post) for a reality check.

6) Approach social media methodically, and with the same care that you would any other business investment you make. Tamsen McMahon will help.

7) Quit waiting for the water to be perfect before you get in. It’s not going to be, ever. Try something that makes strategic sense for your business. Julien Smith articulates a bit about why waiting for one tiny thing is often what holds us back.

8 ) Think long term, and commit to it. That doesn’t mean some of your experiments can’t be finite, but the overall approach has to be for good. Mitch Joel even says so.

9) Focus on what you’re good at. Know the core of your business, and make that the center of your work, especially through the amplifier of social media. Chris Penn reminds us of the importance of this, as he’s apt to do.

10) Recognize that potential missteps shouldn’t paralyze you into inaction. Acknowledge that there are ways to recover from, say, a misguided communication effort. Having a plan to pick yourself up is the key, rather than trying to avoid failure at all costs (including stagnation).

What else would you add? What’s your buckle-down strategy this year, and how are you turning your approach from theory into application? Share your ideas, favorite posts, and strategies in the comments.

image by L. Marie

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
10 Ways to Get Serious About Social Media

• Chris and Julien are good friends of mine. That means I’m biased toward their success, I’m excited about the book, and I wanted to draw attention to their acheivement. (No they didn’t pay me or bribe me or give me a pony to write this. They were kind enough to send me an advance copy of the book.)
• They’ve earned my trust. Ironic? I think not. Did I mention I’m biased?
• The book is GOOD. Really good. And worth your attention, if it’s not on your radar already.

One of the principal things I love about this book – or the topic, really – is that the conversation around trust and what builds, defines, and removes it never gets old to me. Especially in a business context, and in an online universe where our attention and sense of what’s useful is more splintered than ever before.

Chris and Julien aren’t going to tell you how to win trust. That’s up to you. (Sorry). What they do do, however, is very artfully point out some of the behaviors and actions – especially amongst the anonymity online – that engender trust in others.

They do so simply. Clearly. Articulately. They say it’s about trust, but I’m saying it’s even more about just new human dynamics and behaviors in a digitized world.  And Chris and Julien beautifully bridge some ideas and concepts that we often brush past, but rarely articulate. Things like:

• There is great power in how the web enables you to spread, propegate, and share information without immediate presence
• Reliability is a consistent thread among people that rock what they do
• There’s a delicate balance between “leveraging” and “using like yesterday’s washrag” (my indelicate words, not theirs, but a concept that I’d love to introduce to some people personally)
• Doing good things is as much about faith about the return than the expectation of same
• Sucking up isn’t the smart game, but raising up those around you is
• The absence of non-verbal cues on the web makes communicating (and interpreting) there far different
• Build community by protecting them, not using them
• Sharing your influence exponentially builds yours
• The choice about whether or not to immerse yourself in this new era is yours alone.
  

Simple ideas, yes. But damn hard to do well. Here’s what I wish you’d do.

If you’re the person that would call yourself a Trust Agent, buy the book anyway as credentials of your membership in that tribe. Read it. Be affirmed. Learn a few new things along the way.

Then buy two, five, or a hundred more copies and give them to the people that AREN’T. Use your knowledge of the importance of these concepts to share them with the person who most needs to read this book (and might be the least likely to buy it, since they don’t think they need it). Tell them what you found valuable. Make sure they read the parts you need them to read.

I have several extra copies on their way to my house as we speak. What I’m going to do with them yet I’m not sure. I’ll definitely give them away. But I’m thinking of ways to put them in the hands of people that want to be Trust Agents but might need some guidance to get there. The new web is a tricksy place, and I think Chris and Julien have written an awfully good guide to the principles behind it.

It’s a human book about human principles. I know it’s a business book technically, and I think businesses seeking to understand the social web will do well to read it. But the real power is going to be in how the people behind those businesses absorb and put those lessons to use.

I learned a few things and scribbled down a dozen ideas. If you haven’t ordered yours already, what are you waiting for?

Kudos to my friends Chris and Julien on saying many things that needed to be said, and doing so with clarity and elegance. Congrats, you guys.

A post from Brass Tack Thinking
What To Love about Trust Agents