Hong Kong summers – marked by suffocatingly warm weather, ridiculously inflated travel costs, an explosive influx of returning students and a slower economy. As an employee, surely this is a terrible time for a career change… right? Perhaps not! This might be because you aren’t employing the right mindsets and cover letter tactics. If you are interested considering a career change now and want to get noticed by even the stingiest summer recruiters, then this article is for you!

Across life and business, some people simply think that swindling is the easiest way to get ahead – and with the advent of AI writing, it’s easier than ever to try and pass off computer-synthesised content as their personal work. AI makes new advancements every day, and soon, we can’t deny that it will be able to perfectly emulate the works and writing styles of even the best writers… but luckily for us, today’s AI is still prone to errors and some have even developed peculiar writing habits. Interested in finding out what these are and how you can become more proficient at spotting AI-generated writing? Then this article is for you!

Changing customer behaviours and the monumental acceleration of technological advancements are impacting marketing as we know it, and it’s not unnatural to feel like your once robust marketing strategies are in a state of flux right now. However, putting socio-economic turbulence aside, it’s still paramount that you keep up to date with emerging trends and find innovative ways of connecting with audiences to make an impactful and lasting impression.

Even if you think you’ve got a good grasp of how to create great content marketing that engages and inspires your core buyer personas, it’s important to always keep your finger on the pulse and keep innovating – as your customer’s wants and needs could change in an instant. Content routes that have worked well in the past, may not continue to do so in this ever-changing environment. So, whether you’re working as part of a larger marketing team or as a solo content creator, we’ve got 5 innovative ways to use content marketing to kickstart your organic growth, boost sales and keep audiences engaged in the long term in 2024.

Editing can be a long and tedious process, especially when you have to endure a gauntlet of pages and pages (and rounds and rounds) of editing! Although editing is vital to improving your copy and ensuring that your arguments flow and make sense, there are many times where we simply don’t have the luxury of editing at a casual pace – many clients operate on their own schedules and fully expect us to be able to work around them. Assuming we’ve already gone through a round or two of editing, how can we spruce up the editing process while keeping it simple? Join Wordsmith as we examine the finer points of editing!

Imagine trying to check out a restaurant and the only things you can find are their social media pages – to add extra salt (and vinegar) to your disappointment, all you can find are disorganised clusters of photos and posts… forcing you to resort to comments submitted by other patrons (which aren’t the most reliable source of information).

Given how often modern consumers do their own research, not having a company website is almost a guaranteed way to mess up the first step of customers’ journeys. However, a website hastily cobbled together with bits and pieces of text won’t get you very far either – join Wordsmith and let’s explore how we can optimise our website copy!

Like the blood coursing through our veins, verbs give life to our sentences. Without them, you’d have a list of subjects and objects sitting around like empty husks – but did you know that verbs are a little more complex than just action words? They can carry different moods and forms as well! You’ve probably used verbs to create various moods in your writing, but being able to properly identify each mood is an important skill if you want to call yourself a copywriter. Join Wordsmith as we explore into the intricacies of verb usage!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming marketing as we know it. It may be the buzzword on everyone’s lips today, but we’ve been subconsciously integrating AI tools (maybe without realising it) for some time now. Email marketing platforms, search engine advertising solutions, e-commerce software, and tools designed to assist with content creation have all employed some kind of AI functionalities for years, but the technology is becoming increasingly more mainstream and popular since the pandemic. When integrated into your marketing strategy, AI tools have the capacity to improve efficiency, data analytics and competitor insights, streamline content creation, boost creativity and even enhance your overall ROI, so what’s the catch?  

Recent McKinsey research revealed that AI adoption has more than doubled in the past five years alone. The Financial Times also disclosed that investments in Generative AI exceeded US$2 billion in 2023, which is a clear indication of investors' and companies growing interest in this technology. Emerging AI tools are disrupting the pace of content creation and marketing strategies. While the jury is still out on the best practices of implementing AI tools in marketing, as the industry is constantly evolving, there’s no doubt that content marketers must prepare for a future where AI is integrated more seamlessly into their marketing mix. So, read on as Wordsmith shares a few insights on how we, as copywriters and content marketers, can future-proof our approach to content creation, by working collaboratively with AI – without sacrificing the human touch.

Short-form content is all the rage across – YouTube shorts, Facebook and Instagram reels, 5-minute articles to name a few. Given the sheer quantity of content dumped upon audiences in a single day, it’s no wonder that they struggle to stay engaged with long-form content.

Not to say long-form is bad, but when audiences are spoiled and expect to get into the juicy details as quickly as possible, the build-up associated with long-form content may take too long to hold readers’ interest. For more traditional writers who aren’t accustomed to writing for modern audiences, this presents a rather difficult challenge – how can we train ourselves to become more proficient at short-form content? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!

With every year that we age, our experience (hopefully) increases as well. However, getting older can also make finding a new job more difficult – senior positions don’t always show up, and when they do, they are notoriously difficult to fill, as such positions demand specific sets of skills and experience. But let’s say you meet all the requirement and are a potential candidate for the job – that doesn’t automatically mean you are in the clear!  

As you may know already, some businesses are open to the prospect of hiring younger and less experienced people at lower wages before training them up to fill the position. How can we keep our resumes competitive while also clearing the hurdles of ageism? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!

For many Americans, Super Bowl is like the Thanksgiving of spring – people come together to celebrate their favourite football teams while indulging in oodles of snacks, primetime advertising and the much-awaited halftime show. This year’s match between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs received the highest number of televised views in decades (surpassing even the Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969). Although we can’t comment much on the football side of the event, the ads are what we are most interested in! What did Super Bowl LVIII’s ads have to offer and what are the key takeaways? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!

When we think social media, Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) are the usual suspects. However, LinkedIn has also grown to become a powerful avenue for making a mark in your respective industry. From thought leadership to raising brand awareness, there’s a lot that you can do with LinkedIn to take advantage of its unique position as a professional’s networking platform. Join Wordsmith and let’s explore why it’s worth investing some effort in LinkedIn!

Given the prominence of ChatGPT across media and creative industries, some people firmly believe that AI will be bring about the end of their careers – copywriters included! While we can’t deny that may happen in the near future, AI is still relatively in its infancy stage (compared to the dystopian future imagined in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot). Rather than joining angry mobs with pitchforks and torches, why not take advantage of ChatGPT to supplement our writing? It’s free to use (as of this article’s publishing), and although going premium can cut down queue times, the basic version is fine as is.

That said, there are several nuances to using ChatGPT. It’d be folly to expect a casually plopped prompt to net you something good, so if you want to step up your AI prompt game, then read on!

It would be easy to argue that the B2B marketing landscape has seen more disruption in the past five years than it has experienced in the past 50 years. First, the COVID pandemic brought a cataclysmic wave of unprecedented challenges for buyers. And last year, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have further shifted how B2B buyers interact with vendors and brands. Thus, CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) are under more pressure than ever before to create a competitive edge and unique value proposition to not only build buyers’ trust – but keep it. Luckily, transforming your company into a trusted brand is easier than you’d think. So whether you’re a marketer in a digital start-up or a small business owner looking to become the next thought leader in your field, these four content marketing steps below, are an excellent starting point when it comes to establishing long-lasting trust with your buyers.

With the economy in flux, securing more customers and conversions are a prime goal for many businesses – but with so many businesses eyeing the same number of customers, customers can quickly get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of marketing. With the help of spam filters and daily drilling, customers have gotten incredibly proficient at identifying which emails to ignore and which are worth opening… often from just the subject line alone! As marketers with profit margins on the line, how can we ensure that our emails make it pass the junk filters and into the laps of interested customers? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!

Try as we might, there’s no realistic way to keep everyone happy. If you’ve worked in the service industry before, you’ll know that some people just exist in a constant state of dissatisfaction… which can spell trouble when they come marching with something on their mind. Although frustrated people are notoriously difficult to work with, we as professionals still have the responsibility of hearing them out and offering what assistance we can. However, the manner in which we offer help can quickly take things from bad to worse if we aren’t careful. What should and shouldn’t we do when dealing with upset customers? Join Wordsmith and let’s find out!

When you work in the creative industry, clients naturally expect you to deliver fresh ideas on demand – and of course, we have to oblige if we want to keep our paycheques coming. However, creativity doesn’t always flow when you turn on the tap, and when it does, it can often feel like there are too many restrictions weighing it down. With impatient clients and brainstorm sessions in a rut, is brute-forcing out ideas the only “reliable” thing we can do? We certainly don’t think so! Join Wordsmith and let’s explore how we can systematically pick apart creative blocks!

As the lines between marketing and artificial intelligence (AI) continue to blur at an exponential rate, content marketing is currently an industry in flux. And with research predicting the market value of AI in marketing to reach USD107.5 billion by 2028, a significant jump from USD15.84 billion back in 2021, it’s safe to say that AI will be a prominent fixture in a content marketer’s toolkit for years to come. But even with the rapid advancement of AI, the most successful creative professionals remain self-assured about their vital role in marketing. Why? Because they’ve figured out how to adapt to the emerging paradigm in content marketing: the era of AI-human collaboration.

There’s a clear divide appearing in the content marketing industry: those who remain uninitiated and those who leverage AI to enhance their content creation and distribution, and we both know which team stands at the threshold of greater campaign success and career prospects. In fact, soon we may not have much of a choice but to adapt, as AI has been integrated into many of the tools we use and has been quietly improving the way we work for years.

It’s official – “rizz” has been chosen as the Oxford Word of the Year 2023. If you’ve never heard of this word before, you aren’t alone. A shortened form of the word “charisma” popular amongst younger crowds, it means charm, style and/or attractiveness. Regardless whether 2023 has been a productive year of writing for you or not, it’s still important to set ourselves up for success in 2024. Let’s recap some of Wordsmith’s top tips over the year and add some rizz to our writing –without sacrificing value!

The rate at which artificial intelligence is able to evolve is scary. By casually absorbing content from the Internet, it can seemingly both replicate and synthesise new material for us –evident by the surge of popularity of ChatGPT and how people have grown increasingly reliant on it. However, as content creators and copywriters, should we be worried that AI (or some malicious people misusing the AI) could plagiarise our work and potentially even make money off of it? Or is this just an overreaction? Read on for Wordsmith’s opinion on the matter!

When it comes to startups, everybody wants to be a unicorn. And no this doesn’t refer to the mythological creatures you read about in children’s novels, but instead, it’s a term that was coined to describe a privately held startup company with a value of over $1 billion. However, one of the biggest pitfalls standing between your early-stage startup and that $1 billion valuation is trying to achieve too much with too few resources. The solution to this problem is to focus your efforts instead on using tools and implementing strategies which are cost-effective and aren’t labour-intensive. So as a founder, you may need to forgo scope in order to achieve higher depth: in steps content marketing.

According to research from Forbes China, the number of unicorns reached 1,653 as of June 30, 2023 – and astonishingly more than 90% of the global total are new companies in China and the United States, representing a 20% increase compared to last year, so the possibility is out there. But unless you’re one of the few that has created a category killer or major market disruptor, you’re likely competing in an overcrowded industry with a stream of established brands all claiming their product to be “superior”. So how can you make sure that your new brand not only stands out but is viewed by potential audiences as more desirable than others that are already on the market? Because you don’t have brand equity yet, one of the best ways to build it, while simultaneously growing your exposure and awareness is content marketing. We’d even go as far as to hang our hats and say it’s one of the most important tools in a startup founder’s toolkit.

In any business, there’s no guaranteed checklist to success, but there are strategies, if put in place correctly, that can work to a startup's advantage and that begins with a robust content marketing strategy. So, join Wordsmith as we make the case for startups using content marketing.