RE: When You Feel "Underutilized", What Would You Do?
Hi @tifaong, yes, you do have a knack for writing, but creative/narrative writing is one of the lowest paid and mostly overlooked type of writing (unless you got a nice book contract.)
If I may, try to venture into other forms of writing, like business/howto/instruction/technical writing, and at the some time, pick up copywriting skills. Usually, a copywriter knows how to make a normal article "sell", but may not necessary be able to write a whole piece like what you do. A combo of the both will make you an effective business writer.
You've already got the part about writing in a conversational style. The trick now is to make it more business-centric, and your skills will be paid more.
That's what content marketers do, though. They tell a good story, engage the readers, inject the brand message, and sometimes, promote a product or service.
I notice from the pictures you picked, you have an eye for design too. On your spare time, try our illustration software, or even infographic ones. That is also another sought-after skill that you can branch off from your writing skills.
Truth be told, writing is hardly a talent; it's just a skill. A talent is to articulate your thoughts will enough, to link stories into sales, to engage your readers etc.
All the best!
Hey @maverickfoo, thank you for dropping so many great ideas!! You are one of a few that gave me confidence in writing hehehe ;)
There's a technical writer position in my company and I told my manager that I want that position, but very unlikely there'll be an opening soon. People tend to stay long in my company, you see.
I'm also exploring copywriting skills as well, do you know any good sites that I can learn from the best examples?
Illustration right? I read that's one of the skills as well, where do you recommend me to start? Hopefully not something as complicated as Adobe photoshop or illustrator hahaha.
Illustration softwares like Canva, Stencil and Pixteller are good enough for basic stuff. I am actually quite bad at free hand vector drawings, so I try to keep my designs simple and clean, and leverage on nice pics (stock photos that don't need to edit), good font combination and icons (flaticons.com).
There are many sites when it comes to copywriting, like Neville from KopywritingKourse, Neil Patel, the Appsumo team, The Hustle.co are a few good gurus and examples. Copywriting involves you understanding the reader's psyche well, so you can "connect" better with them. Sadly, copywriting is a very hands-on skill and can be very subjective as well. A good practice is to constantly be on the look out for banners and headlines, and ask yourself if you can come up with 3 different and better ways to word it. That's a good mental exercise.
Don Miller from 5minutemarketingmakeover.com, through not a copywriter per se, has a very good approach to coming up with brand messages that "sticks".
Aim for clarity, then sexify it.
Bingo
Hi @maverickfoo, thank you for your advice. Sorry for late reply :(
okay, I'll try something else other than Canva.
Copywriting course?? Looks like I need to invest on a really good course to get the most out of it. I'll look around and check them out :D
"Sexify"?? How do you do it?