The title picture comes from: Visual China
After 2017, I was named the author of the year for the second time this year, and I would also like to thank my readers for their support and affirmation. Taking Tiger Sniff’s status in domestic science and technology media, this round of awards is rounded off, which is the lifetime achievement award of (Big Error) .
Recently from 2017 to 2019, this is a proposition for swiping the screen. For my writing, these two years are also significant. 2017 was a year of high productivity, with more than 120 originals throughout the year, and based on this, “Product Awakening” was published; and 2019 is a high-quality year. At present, there are more than 20 originals, with three 100,000 plus one, one The entire network burst, and the reading volume was tens of millions.
In this process, my knowledge of writing has also evolved. Let ’s talk about these new ideas today, I hope to inspire everyone.
Writing is after all a minority of people
My own writing started in 2015 and started in 2016. In the process, I sincerely felt the joy of writing and the medium and long-term benefits brought by this incident. Therefore, I often advise and encourage my friends to invest some energy in writing to seek long-term returns.
The advantage of writing itself is that it accumulates and precipitates your own learning, work experience and thinking; the need for output can promote your continuous learning and input; the personal brand and influence accumulated during the writing process are beyond the same age Shortcuts to other non-writing people in the same industry are equivalent to building a moat and retreat for your career.
Of course, there will be some local companies and mountain gun leaders who are afraid that employees will have independent influence. My opinion on this is that the life cycle of an enterprise and the life cycle of your part-time job will always be shorter than your individual life. It is your own responsibility to promote the retreat and retreat by various means. After all, the company is not responsible for supporting you for a lifetime. And among these posteriors, I really can’t think of anything higher than the input-output ratio of writing.
However, in the past few years, not only a handful of new friends who joined the writing team have been around, but many author friends who have had wonderful achievements in the past have gradually faded out of the public view.
For those who have n’t started writing, they are mainly restrictedExpressiveness and writing skills.
In this era, it is normal for adults to decline their expression of desire due to workplace and social pressure. WeChat’s public and private distinctions have led everyone to make the circle of friends visible for three days, and rarely updated, let alone post. On the other hand, writing requires people’s thinking ability and writing skills after all, and the codes outside of work can be boring.
Writing is a bit like fitness, and the rewards come slowly but not noticeably.
Human nature is more eager to chase the benefits that can be felt in the short term. In addition, the consumption of human knowledge and thinking reserves by the writing itself is amazing. If the input can not keep up, but keep the frequency of updates, it is often reduced to awkward writing The content is terrible. And once you stop writing, people will become more and more lazy, and their hands will be more and more vital, eventually losing to their inertia. In short, most people are ultimately unable to enter the ranks of writers.
However, recognizing the limitations of writing does not mean that I no longer encourage everyone to write. Writing is like fitness. The best time to start is ten years ago, followed by now.
Professional writing and non-professional writing are two different things
Original writers are roughly divided into three categories: journalists, professional self-media, and non-professional self-media. The first two types of people make a living from this. The third type of person like me has other jobs, and writing is a side job and hobby.
Among them, journalists, especially certified journalists, focus on the restoration and reporting of facts. They usually comment less and avoid too much personal subjective emotion.
This principle is, on the one hand, due to the professional conduct of journalists, and on the other hand, the management requirements of government authorities. There is another reason for this kind of “recording and not commenting”, that is, some young journalists have a poor understanding of the company and the industry, and it is difficult to interpret the facts in depth.
This gap, that is, secondary processing, interpretation and interpretation based on facts, has become a strong point of the media. Many of the core members and personal media of institutional self-media come from traditional media and institutional media. They have traditional media sources, contacts, and a mature and thorough analysis framework.
But professional writing has a disadvantage, that is, because it requires long-term, mass production of content, and content output is linked to livelihood, there must be a systematic and standard production process.
From topic selection to interview, searchThe purpose of standardized data collection is to ensure the lower limit of the quality and quantity of the output, that is, the readability of the content and the frequency of updating are guaranteed. However, in this kind of team-based industrialization, the appearance of “explosion models” and “depth” is more difficult.
It is not difficult to find out that from the media, the contents of explosive funds are still dependent on the personal ability of a member. This ability is difficult to copy, and members who have such personal ability are not formed because of Writing “routine” and feel relaxed.
At one event, the founder of a certain agency from the media, a senior media person, complained to me that it was too tiring to write things every day, and I really wanted to switch to being a product manager. I laughed and the room was gray, everyone felt the meat in the bowl of others.
The non-professional writing is like me. The advantage lies in the vertical field’s source and interpretation ability. The disadvantage is that it is more random. When you want to write, write when you have time. Sometimes, a piece of content has to be conceived for a long time. Sometimes, the inspiration comes. Turn on the computer for half an hour and write it. Because there is no reading volume and revenue pressure, the randomness of the content is relatively large, and it is inevitable that the quality will fluctuate.
Since 2019, I have gradually felt that even as a non-professional writer, I still have to align with professional writers in terms of quality of content and learn from their experience in planning, collecting, and writing. If you want to write, write well. There is no requirement for yourself, and you are not responsible for yourself and the reader.
Increasing your requirements is for longer-lasting creations and better content. So, what is good content?
Tell a good story, and tell a good story
I think the biggest change in the media content industry this year is to return to the nature of content production and consumption, which is quality.
The persistence of creation is not the persistence of writing production, but the persistence of readers’ consumption of your content. Good articles, the same thing, is good storytelling and good storytelling.
The advantage of good journalist works is that they tell a good story, that is, the facts reported are very attractive.
The advantage of many self-media is that even if the material is public and well-known, it uses a fascinating narrative method to fully mobilize readers’ reading desires and emotions; or it provides unique perspectives, viewpoints and interpretations. Brings the so-called incremental information, which causes readers to think.
Both factors are important. Telling good stories requires sharpnessThe ability to observe and dig deep into the facts, and the ability to make good use of the materials at hand. To tell a story well, you need to have a deep accumulation of textual skills and mobilize readers’ emotions, or have a deep understanding of the target industry, or have a unique analytical framework.
So the last thought is, how can high-quality content, in the consumer’s consumption situation, achieve the best results?
Splitting, consensus and resonance
At present, due to differences in living environment, three perspectives, insights, knowledge structure, age, gender, and economic status, it is difficult to avoid the serious differentiation and even division of readers. In the field of readers of science and technology content alone, a mobile phone topic can be an uproar, not to mention some controversial Internet companies and products, which caused queues and verbal wars.
Some of the content has performed well in communication because of strengthening divisions, inciting emotions, and inciting contradictions. I have also written several such articles in recent years. However, it has to be said that this kind of content is extremely controversial and may be helpful for reading and retweeting, but it is extremely harmful to personal and media brands.
So, the more positive way to return to content quality is to find consensus and resonate.
There is a difference between consensus and resonance. Two people fell in love and started a life of shamelessness. This was a consensus. One fell in love and walked on the street. Every sad love song floated on the roadside shop. This is called resonance.
It is not difficult to find that consensus and resonance resonate with the good stories and storytelling mentioned earlier. Because good stories are unique and objective, they are easy to be understood and accepted, so that they can reach a consensus on opinions and recognition. Good stories have the power to turn decay into magic. Also writing songs, Li Zongsheng’s words are particularly easy to resonate. His story is old-fashioned and plain-spoken, but it always hits you when you say it. This is a special ability to tell.
So, as a writer, you must not ignore the needs of the reader because of your self-confidence. Returning to the essence of writing, the value of the writer is to produce as much and quality content as possible for the reader and himself.
I hope I can accompany everyone with good works in the coming year and in my lifetime.