The Power of Words

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

I live near Denver, Colorado and watch some local news on Channel 9.  Countless times I've watched Marty Coniglio give his weather forecast. He has been with the station for 16 years. Like many in journalism, Coniglio is active on Twitter. Last week, he sent out a tweet comparing federal troops to Nazis. Here's the details in the Denver Post article. He is no longer employed at the station. As I read the story, it reminded me that our words have power.

The Danger of A Habit

As a reader, I have been reading and listening to books for years. Each time I write a short review (normally less than 150 words) and post my review on Amazon and Goodreads. I've written over 1,000 Amazon reviews and over 600 reviews on Goodreads (where I have 5,000 friends and my reviews get a lot of attention and reading). I read and listen to many different types of books. Recently I listened to part of a bestselling book—which was filled with hatred (in my view every sentence). As an editor, I often evaluate a book based on a short portion. In this case, I decided not to listen to the rest of the book and wrote that information into my short review. I followed my habit and posted the review on Amazon and Goodreads. There are hundreds of reviews for this book and my review joined those reviews.

The final portion of my habit is to post my review with the cover on social media. I have over 200,000 Twitter followers, over 18,900 connections on LinkedIn and over 4900 Facebook friends. I didn't think about my posting because it is a habit. The reaction surprised me but I should have known when I did it. I spent about 48 hours on Facebook monitoring, deleting and even blocking some people (when you have 4,900 “friends” it is no big personal loss to block some people). My short post was consuming way too much energy and time. I deleted the post on all of my social media platforms. In a few minutes, it was gone. Did lots of people see it? Yes and I learned even with a habit to think about each post.

I temporarily forgot some critical things about the Internet and social media. While you may be writing the material for yourself, other people read it. part of the social media process is other people are going to respond and react to whatever you said. Also these words are often out online forever. In this volatile, on-edge world, common sense reminds of the small talk advice: “avoid religion and politics.” It also applies to our social media. From this experience, I was reminded our words matter. In fact, our words have power and people read them. It's good to use caution and wisdom with what you put online.

As you write today, be aware your words have power to heal or to harm. Let me know your thoughts about this subject in the comments below.

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Get Inspiration from Quotations

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Early on in my journalism training, I was taught to look for key quotations. Often these statements would be in the lead of my story or they would drive home the point of my story.  

As writers interviewing other people for the content of a chapter of a book or a magazine article, I encourage you to be looking for these key quotations. They will help you as you craft your stories.

When I read inspirational quotes, I get insights and encouragement. I look for them from many different sources like my own reading of books or blogs or articles online. When I find them, I will often cut and paste them into my social media plans for the future. It's been my pattern for years with my social media feeds for the day: I begin every day with an inspirational quotation and an image.

In the social media world, you can attract more attention, retweets and responses if you include an image. Through the years of my using social media, I have collected images of different people into a file labeled “Twitter Images.” These images are stored alphabetically so when I need one again, it is easy to locate and use again.

Here's an example I saw today:

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
-- H. Jackson Brown, Jr. 

I add the image and then save it into my HootSuite. It will begin my day of social media postings on Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 6:05 am. Yes on inspirational quotations, I am way ahead on my postings. I use Hootsuite (the paid version with unlimited posts to schedule—and I take full advantage of this feature and schedule my posts way ahead of time—at least some of them).

I have another reason I'm way ahead on my inspirational quotes. Several weeks ago, I was behind on gathering these inspirational quotations. I learned to use another feature of HootSuite which I had not before. This program stores all my old tweets which number in the thousands. I went back and took the inspirational quotes for a month (at least one year ago so no one would remember) and worked them into my future schedule. I created a pattern of beginning every day with this inspirational quotation. Do you have a pattern or grid for your tweets? I do and it makes it simple to schedule with this grid for certain types of tweets in mind.

Do you get inspiration from quotes? Do you use them and see them on a regular basis in your writing life? Let me know the details in the comments below.

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Take Simple Action Steps

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

When I was a high school sophomore, my English teacher, Mr. Smith, saw something in my writing and encouraged me to join the newspaper staff. I started writing sports even though I was non-athletic and didn’t follow sports. I learned the jargon and began to write sports. Ultimately I was the editor of my newspaper my senior year and went on to Indiana University and majored in journalism. I thought I was going to be a newspaper reporter but instead joined Wycliffe Bible Translators and spent the next 10 years in linguistics. I began to work on the mission magazine and ultimately became the editorial director and in charge of the public face of Wycliffe in print.
  
My return to writing from linguistics began in the magazine world. I learned to write a query letter to pitch my idea and then got assignments and completed those assignments. Over the years, my writing has been published in more than 50 publications.

My first book was published in 1992 because an editor at David C. Cook asked me if I had any ideas for children’s books. As a company, their mission statement charged them to teach children about missions, yet they didn’t have a single book on the topic. Since I worked for Wycliffe, she asked if I had any possible children’s book manuscripts. I pitched a possibility and she said, “That’s a good idea, Terry. Write that up and send it to me.” 

I went home and submitted my manuscript. While I went through a number of versions but ultimately it became my first book called When I Grow Up, I Can Go Anywhere for Jesus. This 32 page picture book started my work in books. Since then I’ve written over 60 books for many different publishers. I’ve been an acquisitions editor at three different publishers and for a while had a literary agency (closed).  Many wonder how I’ve done it—and it’s really simple action steps.

At a conference or on the phone or on email, I pitch my ideas to editors. When they respond positively and are willing to read it, I follow up, write it and send it to them. I don’t get published each time—but I do give myself a chance to be published. From being an editor and asking writers to send me their work, I know only about 10% or less actually submit it for consideration. They miss the opportunity by not doing what the editor has asked.

I’ve spoken with hundreds of writers and read thousands of submissions. I compiled a lot of my lessons into my new book, 10 Publishing Myths, Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed. Watch my one-minute book trailer for the book.

One of my 18 endorsers told me I was missing the 11th myth. I decided to write that chapter and give it away (looks exactly like the rest of my book). You can use this link to get the 11th Myth right away. 


My journey as a writer continues with simple action steps: do what the editor asks and submit what they need. 

Are you taking these simple action steps? Let me know in the comments below.

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Social Media Can Make or Break You

Editor's note: Yesterday and today, I'm honored to introduce you to Brad Phillips, the president of Phillips Media Relations, a media and presentation training firm with offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. I was fascinated with the insights in these two excerpts from his new book, The Media Training Bible.

By Brad Phillips
 

Imagine you’re the communications director for Hartown Manufacturing, a midsize company based in California. You’re responsible for all communications in the western United States.

One morning, you arrive at work and log in to your Twitter account. You’re scrolling through the rather dull tweets when you suddenly see one that takes your breath away: “Breaking News: Major Explosion at Salt Lake City Hartown Plant.”

Within minutes, dozens of people are tweeting about it, spreading rumors along the way. Some eyewitnesses claim they’ve seen ambulances pulling away with dozens of victims. One claims a plant supervisor has been killed. You call a colleague who works at the plant who tells you that no one knows whether anybody was badly hurt—and that no ambulances have arrived yet.

You immediately post that accurate information to Hartown’s social media pages. Journalists who follow your feeds see your posts and decide against reporting any of the rumors they’ve read about possible injuries or deaths until you confirm them.

That type of scenario is commonplace in the age of social media, and it underscores three important truths:

1. The public and the press may learn of a crisis affecting your company through their social media networks before you even know there’s a problem.
2. People will begin discussing (and speculating about) your crisis before you’ve had time to obtain the facts.
3. You need to use your social media channels to immediately correct misinformation and establish yourself as a primary source of accurate information.

Most reporters now use social media as an essential tool of crisis reporting. As Jane Jordan-Meier reported in The Four Stages of Highly Effective Crisis Management, “Two journalists I spoke with saw Twitter as the new police scanner.” You can no longer afford to relegate social media to being of secondary importance.

Communicate through your social media networks as quickly as possible, ideally within half an hour of learning about an incident. You can include links to lengthier statements and additional resources in your posts.

There’s one additional way to help manage a crisis using social media: be engaged with your social networks before a crisis strikes. You’ll need fans to defend your integrity when something goes wrong, and few people are more credible than the unaffiliated third parties who voluntarily vouch for you.

Case Study: Domino’s Pizza & a Disgusting Video (V)

In 2009, an employee of a North Carolina Domino’s franchise filmed a coworker sticking cheese up his nose before appearing to send the food out for delivery. The two workers uploaded the video to YouTube, where it quickly racked up a million views. Television anchors showed the disgusting clip on their newscasts and customers stopped ordering pizza.

Company president Patrick Doyle waited two days before finally responding. He issued a two-minute YouTube apology, in which he appeared genuinely pained by the incident. He was deservedly given credit by many crisis management professionals for releasing the heartfelt video— but most suggested that he waited too long and incurred unnecessary financial and reputational damage by waiting 48 hours.

Mr. Doyle’s response was noteworthy for one additional reason: it was the first time a major company president used YouTube as the primary method of responding to a crisis.

Brad Phillips is the author of the new book TheMedia Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know BeforeYour Next Interview. He blogs at www.MrMediaTraining.com. 

Watch Your Words

It happens to me from time to time. Thankfully less and less as I follow this insight. If some bit of information rubs me the wrong way, I try and be wise about the way I respond. If you fire off the wrong words, you can inflame the situation rather than calm it. I find this true whether I am sending an email or writing something for these entries about The Writing Life. It's important to watch your words.

I find this especially true with these entries about The Writing Life. I've quoted journalists from publications like The New Yorker and received emails from them later that day. I written about authors and their books where I had no personal relationship or connection and received personal emails (of appreciation) later that day. The world is small and interconnected so you need to be aware of this fact. I'm not involved in investigative journalism or heavy critiques that will rile folks and I'm thankful about it.

Many people have forgotten that I do have a journalism degree from Indiana University, one of the top j-schools in the United States. Admittedly it was years ago that I took communications law but those lessons remain ingrained in my writing life and practices. I was reminded of the importance of watching my words when I read an article in today's Arizona Republic from Caryn Rousseau (Associated Press). Here's the same article which appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Notice the links and other information in this helpful article. A little forethought may save you lots of grief down the road. In general I try and follow the saying my mother drilled in me--and you've probably heard as well, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

It's a good word to the wise when it comes to your writing--of any type.

When Fox News Called

Yesterday afternoon I answered my telephone and it was someone from the Fox News Channel. It was the first time I'd ever talked with someone from this news organization. I'm familiar with many of their programs from watching the news during my exercise stints on the treadmill.

The reporter was compiling a database of people who personally knew Billy Graham. From my journalism training, I knew the reason for this database. As high profile newsmakers grow older, news organizations around the globe prepare to be able to access appropriate people to comment on these people. This phone call struck me as out of the blue since I worked for Mr. Graham over 13 years ago. Even when I worked for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, I could count on one hand the number of occasions where I either met Mr. Graham or sat in a meeting where he spoke.

As I spoke to this Fox News reporter, I was trying to figure out why they had called me. Five or six years ago, I wrote an unauthorized biography, Billy Graham, which is a part of the Men of Faith series. While the book was unauthorized, it was a close to being an authorized unauthorized biography as you can get. Through my personal connections to BGEA, I checked every word of my manuscript with a long-term, close associate of Mr. Graham who made some key last minute adjustments on my manuscript.

I figure this reporter did a google search and my name came up attached to a Billy Graham biography and they had quickly located my work phone number. It was not difficult to connect the dots of how they made this connection. I discouraged my inclusion on this list of people to call for comment since there are many other people with a much longer personal history with Mr. Graham. And this reporter told me that I could tell her “no comment” when they call me--which is definitely going to be my response. While I care deeply for Mr. Graham and the Graham family, it's not my place to be interviewed at the time of his death. As I spoke on the phone, I could hear the keyboard keys clicking and this reporter was not deterred but included my phone number in the database.

Later in the day I understood the reason for the call. Now this news is scattered across the globe that Mrs. Graham has fallen into a coma. Whenever Mrs. Graham or Mr. Graham die, it will be a major news story. Fox News is getting prepared.

Postscript: I wrote the above material early this morning. Late this afternoon, I heard that Mrs. Graham passed away. Earth's loss is heaven's gain. What a remarkable person.