But this ugly turn of events has prompted some businesses to get creative—and made for some lively pages. Sure, there are the typical go-to like-me posts: inspirational quotes, customer testimonials, article links, discount offers. Nothing wrong with those. But there are also more interesting ways to inspire engagement.

Here are my top-10 tips for new ways to engage your Facebook fans.

10. Ask for advice. People love sharing advice, so ask for it! It doesn’t have to be for you personally; it could be for your fans. For example, the Editorial Freelancers Association posted, “Tell us how you make working alone work for you without feeling too cut off from the outside world.”

9. Teach your language. Do your readers struggle with your industry’s jargon? Post definitions they’ll appreciate. China Highlights even teaches useful Chinese phrases on its page.

8. Inspire creativity. Sprinkles Cupcakes asked fans which flavor described their personality and offered up a giveaway of a dozen cupcakes as an enticement. Who could resist? The update received 840 comments, 587 likes and 30 shares (with over 351,000 fans). From other companies, I’ve also seen creativity-inspiring posts that asked fans to caption a picture. Granted, these challenges are more involved than I’d normally recommend; they require fans to work at an answer. But they can make for fun giveaway challenges, and you can go simpler for an everyday post.

7. Go blank. Fill-in-the-blank posts are easy and fun for fans. Here’s an example from Savoring Your Sixties: “FILL IN THE BLANK: Today I’m feeling good about ___________.”

6. Pander to the CCD (cutesie common denominator). Go on, post a cute picture. You don’t need a reason. On tax day, Zappos posted one of a puppy licking a turtle. “Forget taxes, we declare today Cute Puppy Day,” they said. “Flood Facebook with cute puppies!” They got 480 likes and 47 shares (of about 245,000 fans).

5. Make an inside joke. Have special fans? Make ‘em feel that way. Post things they’ll uniquely relate to, like The Introvert Entrepreneur’s picture of a fortune that reads, “For people who like peace and quiet: a phoneless cord.”

4. Promote through interaction. When Panda Express was promoting its new Peppercorn Shrimp, it could have just told people it was good. Instead, it got the fans themselves to say why the dish was tasty, with a poll that asked, “What’s your favorite ingredient in Panda Express’ new Peppercorn Shrimp?”

3. Make ‘em cheer. What do your fans love, besides you? Entertainment Weekly tapped into its fans’ passions by posting brief breaking-news updates when cult-favorite television shows were renewed.

2. Engage their brains. Merriam-Webster doesn’t just define terms, it challenges its words-loving audience to use them, like with this simple Mother’s Day post: “How would you describe your mom, in a single word?”

1. Go local. If you’re targeting fans in a certain region, you have a ton of options. Just take your camera for a spin. For most of its posts, Fisher Honda Kia, in Colorado, forgets about cars and engages its audience in local fashion—like this post challenging fans to name the springtime flowers pictured.

Bonus tip: Pit your fans against each other! I’m halfway kidding. But in a just-for-fun poll this month, The Survival Doctor (my dad’s blog, which I consult on) asked fans to vote on two photos by liking whichever they preferred to illustrate a certain post. Altogether, the photos got 44 likes. (The Survival Doctor had about 1,460 fans when the poll was posted.)

After all these ideas, I do have one “don’t” recommendation: Don’t ask fans to like your posts just to show support. At least don’t do it too often. It may inspire some likes, but it’ll also inspire some eye rolls if overdone—maybe even, after a while, some unfans or hides. And wouldn’t that just be a bummer after all this?

Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer and an expert in writing for the Internet. Her specialties include health, long-term care and aging issues.

The official date is March 4 (Sunday), but I say this fine subject deserves a whole weekend of hoopla. To kick things off, let’s go myth bustin’. I gotta warn you, though, this may be the start to a bad day. The thing is, I’m going to guess that most people believe at least some of these myths are true. So most people will soon be realizing they’ve been steadfastly sticking to rules they didn’t need to. But look at it this way: Your writing is now freee!

You can find a lot of grammar-myths lists, but my favorite is “Top Ten Grammar Myths” by Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a., Grammar Girl. Here’s my take on five common ones, which she includes:

1. Myth: You shouldn’t start a sentence with however, but or and.
   Fact: As long as you write a complete sentence, starting with a conjunction is A-OK.
2. Myth: You should never use passive voice. (Passive: “A ball was thrown.” Active: “A boy threw a ball.”)
   Fact: Passive voice isn’t wrong, and it’s even useful if you don’t know who did the action. Just don’t overuse it.
3. Myth: If someone asks, “How are you,” it’s incorrect to answer, “I’m good.”
   Fact: Not only is it correct, but Grammar Girl says some grammarians prefer it unless you’re talking about your health.
4. Myth: Splitting infinitives (to go, to see, to do) is a no-no.
   Fact: It’s perfectly OK to brazenly split. (See what I did there?)
5. Myth: Ending a sentence with a preposition is a no-no.
   Fact: To, at, in, up and all the other prepositions end sentences just fine, as long as they’re not redundant. (“Where are you going to?” is redundant.)

Grammar Girl’s post explains the facts in more detail and includes five additional myths you’ve probably heard. Are you taken aback, or did you already know all this?

Have a wonderful National Grammar Day weekend. Celebrate your writing freedom—now in more ways than one!

3 Quick Tips for Starting a Blog:

• If you’re looking for a customizable WordPress theme, consider Atahualpa, which he’s using. It has many options that are relatively easy to work with.
• Need ideas for your first few posts? Think of them as the base of a pyramid. Write about general topics that will be helpful to link back to later. My dad has written a few of these—for example, “Arteries Vs. Veins: How to Tell the Difference and Stop the Bleeding.” He links to it in other posts about wounds.
• Learn the art of the nut graf. It’s one little paragraph that can make the difference between readers zoning out and reading on with interest.

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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance writer and an expert in writing website articles. Her specialties include health, long-term care and aging issues. Contact her at la [at] lawordsmith [dot] com.

My posts have gotten more and more personal on that site—different from what I usually do for clients. It’s fun to incorporate life experiences every once in a while.

I had a client ask me this week about how personal blog posts should be. I may blog about that at some point. It was a good question. How personal are your posts?

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Leigh Ann Otte is a freelance website-article writer and blogger. Her specialties include health, long-term care and aging issues. She’s a journalist at heart, a former magazine editor and, in her own mind, a famous actress with 10 miniature dogs all dressed in tutus.

But I would like to keep folks up-to-date on my latest writing projects, so I’m starting this little blog. I plan to post no more than once a week—maybe even once a month—because it’s more of a newsletter/blog meld.

So, if you’d like to hear from me periodically, please subscribe. (See the box to the right.) I’ll not bug you too much, and you might find some downright interesting articles to read in the meantime.

You must read this post.

OK, whatever, you can read it if you want. I had to get the lede over with so I could get to …

the nut graf! In my opinion, you see, this little paragraph (this one right here) is one of the most important parts of an article. It’s what keeps your readers reading. It’s what most blog posts are missing. And it’s one simple addition that will improve your composition—be it a newspaper piece; magazine feature; editorial or, yes, blog post—by leaps and bounds.

What Is a Nut Graf?

At The Philadelphia Inquirer, reporters and editors called it the “You may have wondered why we invited you to this party?” section.
—Chip Scanlan, Poynter

It’s like the thesis statement in a term paper.
—Celeste Mitchell, mediabistro.com

While perusing a post, have you ever thought, why am I reading this? And then you don’t find out until near the end what the point of the thing was? That post may be craving a nut graf.

Nut graf is a journalism term. So is a related word, lede. You gotta know it too.

Lede (or lead): The first paragraph (or so) of an article. What draws the reader in.

Nut graf: The paragraph that tells what the story’s about, so people know why to keep reading—and whether they want to. It’s usually the second paragraph. It can, however, be combined with the lede, come a bit later or be longer. (News paragraphs are shorter than book ones—even one or two sentences long.)

Examples of Nut Grafs
… straight from your blogs

• Second paragraph: “Value doctors as listeners to prevent primary care burn out” (KevinMD.com)
• Second paragraph: “Bus stop diagnosis” (Musings of a Dinosaur)
• Third paragraph: “Navy investigates Murtha’s death – CNN’s Elizabeth Cohen reports unhelpful advice” (Saving Money and Surviving the Healthcare Crisis)

Without a nut graf, posts often read like diary entries or pointless compositions. And maybe that’s the, well, point. “If a writer has trouble figuring out what to say in a nut graph,” says journalist Michelle V. Rafter at her blog WordCount, “it could be because they haven’t figured out what the story they’re writing is about.”

Disclaimer

Not every blog post needs a nut graf—some narrative stories or really short posts, for example. But in my opinion, most can improve with them.

Further Reading

Chip Scanlan has a thorough article about nut grafs over at Poynter.

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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.

A version of this article was originally published March 2, 2010, on Leigh Ann’s previous blog The Doctor Writer: Helping Medical Professionals Bring Out Their Inner Writer. Read more posts from that blog here.

Images courtesy www.pdclipart.org.

Marilyn Monroe, USO Camp Show, 1954

Q: Was Marilyn Monroe really a size 14?

A: With her hourglass figure, Marilyn Monroe has become today’s poster gal for curvy women. “You think a size 12 is fat?” goes the argument. “Well, Marilyn Monroe was a size 14!” … or 12 … or 10.

… Until some dern naysayer pipes up. “Actually,” (says a whiny voice, nose in the air—at least in my head) “she’d be a size 6 by today’s standards.” … or 4 … or 2.

OK, I must admit, I never thought Marilyn Monroe looked like a size 14. She was 5’5 1/2″, for goodness sake. If we’re going to make an argument, it’d be good if it were fact-based, so I did some digging. And I found the truth. And the truth, my friends, is not black-and-white.

Marilyn Monroe’s Real Size
First of all, guess what. Though celebrated for being curvaceous, Monroe was on the low end of a normal weight. Her website (yes, she has one) says she weighed 115 to 120 pounds. That’s an 18.8 to 19.7 BMI. Normal is 18.5 to 24.9.

So, as you might imagine, she was not a size 14.

Her site lists two sets of measurements. The studio claimed 37-23-36. Her dressmaker said 35-22-35. Either way, it’s a good thing she had a dressmaker: Though U.S. charts vary, her waist today would be around a size 00/0, hips a size 2 to 6 and bust a size 6 to 10 (or around a medium).

So, although it’s not clear to me what overall size Marilyn Monroe would be, a size 10 dress would probably hang like a sack on her. I’d suggest a little number in a 4 to 6.

Are you surprised?

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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.

This article was originally published on Leigh Ann’s former blog Hollywood Weight Watch: Rebooting Our Perception of Healthy-Weight Women. Read more posts from that blog here.

Photo courtesy National Archives, via pingnews.

Bollywood

Used to be, Bollywood actresses were curvy. (Like it used to be here, come to think of it.) But alas, the U.K.’s Telegraph reports that Bollywood is shrinking:

“There’s been a lot of changes in the last decade, whether it’s in modelling or in Bollywood,” said Venu Hirani, a nutritionist and fitness consultant in Mumbai.

“Today, the basic requirement for someone wanting to go into either is that they need to be a (US) size zero,” she said.

And check this out:

“Now I have more and more of the younger generation who don’t really need to lose weight but tell me they need to knock off five kilogrammes (11 pounds).”

Argh! No, Bollywood, noooo!

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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.

This article was originally published March 5, 2010, on Leigh Ann’s former blog Hollywood Weight Watch: Rebooting Our Perception of Healthy-Weight Women. Read more posts from that blog here.

Blogger Molly McCaffrey

I’ve long believed that ultra-skinny ideals—thinking we have to be stick thin to be beautiful—set us up for failure. Why even try to lose weight with such a daunting goal?

Yesterday, fiction writer Molly McCaffrey explained the issue brilliantly at her blog I Will Not Diet:

Finally, I believe that our country’s obsession with dieting makes us actually eat more. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: when we tell people that they need to look like Angelina Jolie to be beautiful, it makes it very easy for them to give up trying to be healthy and grab another box of Mac ‘n Cheese. I truly believe that as long as we hold women to standards that are unattainable for regular people, we will have an obesity problem in our country.

Bravo, Molly McCaffrey! And hear, hear!

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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.

This article was originally published March 5, 2010, on Leigh Ann’s former blog Hollywood Weight Watch: Rebooting Our Perception of Healthy-Weight Women. Read more posts from that blog here.

A few tips were repeated throughout: Cut everything you can, read your work out loud, you will never be satisfied with what you’ve written. (Seriously. Lots said that.) Many gave the age-old advice, read, read, read. But novelist Will Self said, “Stop reading fiction—it’s all lies anyway, and it doesn’t have anything to tell you that you don’t know already.” Another theme: Sometimes, you can break the rules.

Here are my top-five favorite tips from the article.

“Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.” —Roddy Doyle

“The first 12 years are the worst.” —Anne Enright

“Don’t look back until you’ve written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in . . . The edit.” —Will Self

“If you have to read, to cheer yourself up read biographies of writers who went insane.” —Colm Toibin

“Remember you love writing. It wouldn’t be worth it if you didn’t. If the love fades, do what you need to and get it back.” —Al Kennedy

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Leigh Ann Otte is a professional writer, editor and blogger.

A version of this article was originally published March 25, 2010, on Leigh Ann’s previous blog The Doctor Writer: Helping Medical Professionals Bring Out Their Inner Writer. Read more posts from that blog here.

Image courtesy pdclipart.org.