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7 Trends for Business Writers in 2020 (Part 2) · The Daily Writer

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome to episode 123 of the Smart Business Writing Podcast.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kent Sanders, and this is the show dedicated to helping you share your message, increase your impact, and grow your business through the power of writing.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the last episode, we began looking at seven trends for business writers in the year 2020.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that episode started to get a little bit long, so I decided to break it up into two separate episodes.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't gone back and listened to episode 122 where we talk about the first three trends, I encourage you to do that to get the full picture.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: But just to recap, here are the first three trends that we talked about, and then we'll move on in depth to the final four.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first trend was storytelling needs to be a major part of our communication and marketing.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, self-publishing options are getting better and more sophisticated.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And trend number three, authors must begin thinking like author entrepreneurs.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mentioned this in the last episode, but I'll mention it again here.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Rather than seeing these trends as a threat or in some other kind of negative way, I believe they represent opportunities for reaching people in new and interesting ways.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And like most things in life, our attitude and our perspective will determine whether we embrace these changes and continue to grow, or whether we'll ignore these changes and become increasingly irrelevant.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I know none of us wants that to happen, so my hope is that we can all begin to embrace these trends and see them as positive things.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about the final four trends for business writers in 2020.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Trend number four is that audio is huge and shows no signs of slowing down.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the very fact that you're listening to this episode is proof that people love audio.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's audio books or podcasts, people love to listen on the go.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Audio is so huge, in fact, that car manufacturers, they've been creating their sound systems with podcasting in mind.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this means a lot of opportunities for us as content creators and writers.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a few months ago I prepared a consulting proposal for a prospective client, and one of the things that they were really interested in was getting some help creating an internal podcast for their team members.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, now that I mentioned it, I hadn't written this down earlier in my notes, but I just now remembered that I'm working with a client now who wants some advice on producing a podcast.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So podcasting is huge and it's become mainstream in a huge way, and people are really getting interested in it.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not just large companies or businesses, it's also solopreneurs and people who have a small business.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's all kinds of businesses that can take advantage of podcasting.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't yet thought about creating audio products for your brand, your company, or your organization, I want you to begin seriously thinking about this in 2020, whether that's doing something like a podcast or doing audiobooks.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Again, audio is huge and it's only going to get bigger.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about delivering your content to readers and listeners in a way that they want and in multiple formats for different types of people.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: People want options.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when you put a book out, they don't just want the option of reading a print book, they also want an ebook and an audiobook and perhaps other ways of experiencing that content as well.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, one more thing before we move on to trend number five, and this is really cool.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that Google can now search audio and podcasts?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is a major development because not only is your written content on your blog searchable, your audio content will be searchable by Google as well.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that is really a cool development.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So again, audio is huge, it's not going anywhere, so this is a really cool trend that we can take advantage of as content creators to deliver our message in new and interesting ways to our audience in the ways that they want to experience it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Trend number five, AI and VR will continue to transform our lives.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for those not in the know, AI refers to artificial intelligence and VR refers to virtual reality.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And these are two things that are going to really continue to transform our lives in ways that we cannot even comprehend yet.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Here's one example.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Recently, as my son and I were watching The Mandalorian on Disney Plus, I thought to myself, there's going to come a day in the not too distant future whenever we have robots just as intelligent as what's featured on this show.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Star Wars has always featured highly intelligent forms of artificial life, but science and technology are bringing us closer and closer to the time when that's actually going to become a reality.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just like I do, you may have a device in your home, like an Amazon Alexa or a Google Home device.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: We have both of those and have used those at various times.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, just this evening, um, my son was fixing pizza, and anytime that he fixes a pizza or puts something in the oven, he always has his Alexa set a timer for him, and it's become so second nature that it's just part of our everyday lives.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: On my iPhone, I use Siri multiple times a day.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's things like this that are becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives, and nobody knows where this is all ultimately gonna take us.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know this.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: AI makes life more convenient, and we're only beginning to scratch the surface of where this is all gonna go.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: For Christmas, just a couple weeks ago, we helped our son purchase an Oculus Quest, which is basically virtual reality gaming.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of skeptical because I thought, you know, do we really need another video game system?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to confess, when I started playing it, I was absolutely immersed in the Vader Immortal video game.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a game that comes with Oculus Quest.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Star Wars game where basically you are the smuggler and you get drawn into Darth Vader's castle on the planet Mustafar and you're completing this sort of like a fetch quest in his castle, and it is just the coolest thing in the world.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was absolutely immersed and I loved it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm kind of a Star Wars fan anyway, but this was really, really something special.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, who knows what the implications of these technical developments are?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Things are moving so fast in culture that no nobody can predict where they're gonna go.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But these are trends that we need to watch closely because as content creators, we have amazing opportunities to write stories, content, and media that's gonna impact people in a variety of ways.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'm gonna include in the show notes a link for a great post by Joanna Penn from the Creative Penn website and podcast.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's an article called Nine Ways That Artificial Intelligence Will Disrupt Authors in the Publishing Industry.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really great read, and I'll again put a link to that in the show notes.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Trend number six, email is still king.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that moving from the last point where we're talking about VR and AI, to this point where I'm talking about email, it kind of feels like getting out of a really fast convertible into a 1982 Chevy citation.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, that was my first car, an 82 Chevy citation.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a jalopy, which is why I made that reference.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I realized that email is way less exciting than AI or VR, but hear me out on this.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: When I say that email is still king, here's what I mean.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Email is still the most reliable way to connect with your audience.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is that most people still check their email on a regular basis.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: For example, you can send out an email to your list, and if you have a 20% open rate, that's considered pretty good in the email marketing world.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But if you blast out something on social media, you're probably not going to have 20% of your total audience or your friends or your contacts see whatever it is that you post.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably going to have a way fewer than that see what you post just because of algorithms and all that stuff.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Email is still one-to-one, email is personal, and email is very, very familiar.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's also really cheap as far as marketing goes.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't yet built an email list or created one or haven't worked on years in a while, you're really missing out.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Internet marketers will tell you the money is in the list, talking about the email list, of course, and that's really true.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's the final trend that I see as really important for business writers in 2020, and that is number seven, LinkedIn continues to be a great place to connect and share content.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have a confession to make.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to go in with the attitude of giving first and adding value to others.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of ways to do that are to comment on other people's stuff, share their stuff, support what they're doing, encourage them.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, be a person who's giving, just like we would expect you to be giving in real life.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Online relationships are no different than real-world relationships in the fact that we want you to be a giver, we want you to be generous, we want you to be positive and supportive and encouraging and all the things that we want a real life friend to be.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So just take those qualities that you would bring to a real life friendship and apply those to LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever you're doing in life, whether it's face-to-face or whether it's in a virtual environment.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hey friends, those are my thoughts.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those are seven trends that I think are going to be really big for business writers in 2020, and honestly, they're only going to get bigger, I think.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: However, nobody can predict the future, so who knows?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: These trends may be totally different by this time next year, but my guess is probably not.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those are my thoughts, but I'd love to hear what you think about this episode.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: What trends do you see on the horizon, and which of the trends I mentioned are you excited about?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Which ones intimidate you?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: What are you scared about?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you see as a good opportunity to get your message out there so you can impact more lives with your writing and with your content?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can let me know your comments in a couple different ways.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, you can head over to KentSanders.net slash one two three for episode one twenty-three, and you can leave a comment there on that blog post.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, when you go there, you can also find the show notes and links for this episode.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want, you can also go to Apple Podcast and leave a rating and a review for the show.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would definitely appreciate that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a preview of what's coming up on the next couple of episodes.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: On 124, I'm going to have Dr.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wayne Purnell talking about his amazing book called The Significance Factor.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be a really fun interview.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then the following week on episode 125, I'm going to be talking about the number one writing lesson from Disney's Star Wars trilogy.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is going to be a really, really fun episode, and I definitely have a lot to say, so it's going to be really hard to bring this episode down to like a 10 or 11 minute episode, because I have a lot of things to say about Star Wars because I'm a huge Star Wars nerd.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway, that's what's coming up, and I'm really excited about that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you so much for checking out the show.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's a lot of things you could be listening to, but hey, you're here listening to this, which I greatly appreciate.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that your writing has the power to change people's lives.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.