Three students of Humanities and Social Sciences writing a successful blog post. Makes sense, right? They are probably good with words. Here goes the unusual part – it is a blog about software solutions for online advertising. Dunja, Valentina and Tanja (moi) are AdCumulus’ evangelists and copywriters, the link between the digital and the human, translators from 1010100110011 to BACDGEFH.

Look what the cat brought in

We joined the company as interns some six months ago. Although all of us had prior interest in technology and solid knowledge about the digital world, there have constantly been new things to learn. As the development of our software is at the forefront of modern technology, this means we are always up to date about new trends and market changes.

Getting to know our two main products, Affiliate Software and Ad Server was only the beginning – six months later, the list of our activities has increased tenfold. More than 30 blog posts later, we give you the blog behind the blog.

Can you guess who is who?

How to write a successful blog post?

Our creative process starts on Monday. We discuss possible topics at our weekly meeting and assign tasks for the week (no, I’m not being overly optimistic; we do complete all our tasks within the given deadline). Try googling copywriting, and you will find that research is everything. You wouldn’t believe the things you can find on Google search page 3…

After some research on our own, we will ask a knowledgeable colleague questions in order to gain better understanding, be it our super-helpful CEO, one of our skilled Product Managers or a friendly developer. This is when the magic starts unfolding.

Now that we have armed ourselves with facts, it’s time to start shaping the body (how subtle). Each of us has a distinct writing personality, her trademark in texts – her own touch. It’s what keeps the reader hooked while reading.

Don’t be surprised to hear our blogs can start from the middle – take this text, for example. This was the very first paragraph I wrote. Sometimes, the first thought can be the backbone we build on from. As it happens with life as well, the best things occur rather spontaneously, and it is our task to organize them and give them order.

Einstein said it

The culmination of a successful blog post coming to life is the balancing of technical ideas and common language, mixing in a couple of examples and pouring it into a delicious cup of information that readers with different levels of knowledge and expertise will gulp down with joy. However, understanding complex technical notions can sometimes be difficult to us as well.

You know how Humanities students are usually reputed to be bad at math? Well, prejudice is bad, but as far as I am concerned, math was never my forte (nor was physics, come to think about it). Anyway, I got extra math lessons, and most of my tutors were smart people who knew what they were talking about very well, but failed to help me understand it, too.

For one semester, however, we had this teacher who used props in her lessons – real objects that symbolized what she was talking about. This was the only semester of high school I had a B in math. The point is, once we understand how it works, our non-tech brains will find creative ways to help others understand it as well.

Amen.

A blog post’s essentials

Sometimes, the blog will be written, but it won’t have a name yet. (I am not saying this was one of those situations, but I am not saying it wasn’t, either). But when you take into consideration that some babies go nameless for weeks, it’s no big deal, right?

However, headlines are very important. In these situations we might brainstorm together or perhaps ask our experienced copywriters for advice. A headline test I like is this: Pretend you were posting an ad containing just your headline and a number. Would it generate inquiries for you in that form?

The importance of visual design of a blog should not be undermined. Of course, it’s what is on the inside that counts, but I bet the majority of readers will skip this thick dense paragraph and land straight at the bulleted section:

This paragraph is only here to test whether or not you are going to skip it and therefore confirm my theory that the majority of people reading this or any other blog post will just skip boring long paragraphs, even if they were emphasized as important ones, in favor of bulleted or visually more appealing formats.

• Please confirm my theory
• that the majority of people
• will just skip boring long paragraphs
• even if they were emphasized as important
• in favor of bulleted formats.

Or, to put it simply:

  I bet you went straight to the infographic.

Are we there yet?

Writing a successful blog post generally doesn’t take too much time – as long as your creativity bug is not hibernating (see, bug would freak our tech friends out, isn’t diversity great). Or as long as you don’t experience technical difficulties (bugs). When Dunja sat down to interview our main developer, she (thought she) was recording the conversation.

Later on, when she started writing the blog, she realized something had gone wrong with the dictaphone – there was no audio. “I freaked out at first! Luckily, I was taking notes all the while so with Ivan’s help I was able to reconstruct the conversation.” She ended up writing this cool interview.

Sometimes words just shoot out like fireworks in a metropolis on New Year’s Eve. Other times we need to find motivation from different sources (Google, coffee, cute animal videos and chocolate all apply). But then we do find inspiration, amazing texts are born. Katy Perry’s song comes on. The world is great again.

We got published, no big deal

We feel particularly proud and joyful when our blog breaks out of the frame of AdCumulus’ website. Several of our posts have been translated to Croatian and featured on Croatian Netokracija, the leading Southeastern European media portal dedicated to digital business and technology.  In fact, a brand new featured article is under way right now, so stay tuned to see this baby in its Croatian version.

As for the trio, it’s been so far, so good. Sure, every now and then there comes a day we are 99% sure our boss sits in his room, staring sadly into the distance, and wonders why he ever thought hiring Humanities students would be a good idea.

But then he sleeps it off and in the morning he remembers why.

So that you could learn more about our software and find out about the things it can do. We will keep our super cool, informative & entertaining blog posts coming – your only task is to continue reading them religiously.

Thank you for your attention!