Maine Creative Services

They don’t use them themselves, mind you. But about 59% of CEOs surveyed said they think blogs can be useful for internal communications.

Another 47% think they’re useful for communicating with external audiences, according to a study conducted by PRWeek and Burson-Marsteller.

Only 7% of the 131 CEOs surveyed are actually blogging themselves, and only a few more plan to start. They probably figure that’s what employees or outside consultants are for.

More at CNET.

Ads for prescription medicines litter the evening news, magazines, newspapers. Their distinctive prose, delicately skirting FDA rules and regulations, are often so ludicrous they practically beg for a good parody.

Now it’s here, under the heading “Panexa: Ask your doctor for a reason to take it.” As the spoof explains, the fictitious drug is only for patients suffering from certain conditions, like:

“… circulation, menstruation, cognition, osculation… “

Side effects include:

“… the vapors, the willies; susceptibility to wedgies…”

Thanks to GMSV for the link.

Gina Trapani of Lifehacker fame has posted an excellent guide to writing Web content. It’s very different from writing for print or broadcast.

Among her best points:

• Use explicit titles and subject lines.

• Write a strong lead. Get right to the point immediately

• Use frequent paragraph breaks. (I’d put it this way: Keep paragraphs short. One thought per graph. White space is your friend.)

• Use obvious link text. Not “Click here” but “click here for our guide to writing for the Web.”

• Be brief. Less is more.

She concludes with one of my favorite quotes from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style:

Omit needless words… Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences…

Writing a compelling cover letter for your resume is a lot like selling products and services. You need to be colorful, specific, and focus on what the reader needs and wants.

A business owner who is hiring recently posted some tips on Craigslist for how to write a hot cover letter. His tips sound a lot like the copywriting advice I recommend (and deliver) to my clients. To paraphrase:

• It must answer our needs. Read the specific job requirements and address them — with examples. Don’t simply regurgitate the same old spiel. It’s boring and no one reads boring.
• Be super clear and concise.
• Be open and honest.

Whether you’re pitching a job or selling a service, you’d do well to read this. It’s excellent advice.

So says USA Today, anyway.

Home parties are swinging again with products as eclectic as home décor and as common as crayons. Customers are flocking to those gatherings for the personal touch and service they afford.

The Direct Selling Association says 74% of us have purchased something via direct selling. Sales, almost all of it from parties, hit nearly $30 billion in 2003, vs. $17 billion a decade ago.

A home party sales channel can boost familarity, build trust and strengthen your brand. Could your business sell via home parties?

Newspapers are hurting soooo bad, in both readership and revenues. Craigslist is killing their classified revenues, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it now looks certain that Google is getting into the act.

Classified Intelligence reports that “Google is aggressively moving to include classifieds listings in its organic search results,” requesting direct feeds of listings from various classified advertising Web sites. No big deal? Au contraire. Classified advertising is a $100 billion-plus industry worldwide. For a long time, newspapers enjoyed the lion’s share. But those days are over.

As Good Morning Silicon Valley put it, “Your search — ‘Newspaper classifieds revenue’ — did not match any documents.” (Ouch!)

Start a Google Alert for “For Sale: used printing press.”

Since I seem to be in a certain groove lately, here’s just one more post on entrepreneurship, self-employment and the “free” -lance life…

John Koten, Editor in Chief of Inc magazine, says there’s a deep-rooted hunger to be an entrepreneur… and to apply creativity to business. Koten called these urges key factors in our economy today. A wide range of people see themselves as entrepreneurs — everyone from Martha Stewart to Snoop Dog to college kids to retiring Baby Boomers. Koten predicts a rise of the entreneurial class in America. “Entrepreneurship is a huge underexpressed force,” he says, even in large companies.

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends was in the Cleveland City Club audience when Koten made his remarks. She has a link to an mp3 podcast of the event. Worth checking out.