Susan B. Weiner's Blog, page 40

Glossaries for investment and economic jargon

What can you do if you want to purge jargon from your vocabulary, but you don’t know how to explain investment and economic jargon in plain language? Glossaries can help.

Online glossaries of investment and economic terms

Here are some online options:

Finimize Glossary—I like the conversational tone of the Finimize entries, but its entries include some grammar mistakes. Proofread carefully before you quote a Finimize explanation.
Glossaries from major financial institutions—for example, J.P. Morgan Glossary of Investment Management Terms or Nasdaq Glossary of Stock Market Terms
The Economist‘s Economics A-Z terms (free registration required)
Glossary of Economics and Personal Finance Terms from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Investing in Bonds
Investopedia
InvestorWords
Morningstar Glossary
Wikipedia—I know Wikipedia doesn’t focus on investments or finance, but it has some helpful explanations. The quality of entries may vary in this crowdsourced resource.

Another option is to search in Google, as I explain in “Resources to help you cut through investment jargon.”

A printed glossary

If you prefer to use a printed book, the Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms from Barron’s is a classic.

How to use glossary explanations

I suggest that you read the glossaries’ explanations, and then explain the relevant concepts in your own words.

If you copy a glossary’s explanation, please credit the glossary.

If you’re publishing something online, consider linking to an online definition. This is especially useful if only a small number of your target readers won’t understand the term. I wrote about this in “Help your readers by linking to definitions.”

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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MISTAKE MONDAY for April 30: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for April 30: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner's Blog on Investment Writing.

Top posts from 2018’s first quarter

Check out my top posts from the last quarter!

They’re a mix of practical tips on proofreading (#1), punctuation (#2), white papers (#3), writing (#4, #5, #7, #8, #9), marketing (#6), and blogging (#10).

I’m only listing one Mistake Monday post, although more were among the most viewed. Thank you, readers! However, one Mistake Monday post is much like the others, so I’ll only list one per quarter. Check out my Mistake Monday posts if you’d like to improve your proofreading skills!

White papers (#3) were the focus of my meatiest popular post. Many challenges prevent financial professionals from creating compelling white papers. In this post I describe some of the challenges and how to overcome them.

The popular post in the #2 slot proves that popularity isn’t the only thing that matters for your blog. I imagine that the traffic came from people doing online searches for “U.S. or US for United States?” I imagine that few of those people are likely to become my clients—or even to be interested in many of the other posts on my blog.

My posts that attracted the most views during 2018’s first quarter

MISTAKE MONDAY for Feb. 19: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?
Abbreviation: U.S. or US for United States?
The compelling investment white paper that wasn’t 
What if your article has 5 points, but 1 is a digression?
Avoid long introductory clauses, or lose readers
Marketing wealth management to women with Charlotte Beyer
7 tips to help you write more and be a better person
Write your book on multiple devices
7 factors that affect reading ease
Financial blog topic: write a letter

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Does the end come before the beginning?

[image error]I was intrigued by the following tip in Draft No. 4, a book written by John McPhee, a staff writer for The New Yorker.

I settled on an ending before going back to the beginning.

It’s always good to have the ending in mind before you start a draft. That will take you to your destination more efficiently. However, McPhee does some work before he settles on his ending.

What to do when you’re “wallowing” in notes

Earlier in his chapter on “Structure,” he wrote about a time when he was “wallowing” in notes. Rather than plunge into writing, he organized his notes into piles. But he started that process only after generating a lead sentence. On one occasion,

I spent half the night slowly sorting, making little stacks of thematically or chronologically associated notes, and arranging them in an order that seemed to hang well from that lead sentence: “The citizen had certain misgivings.”

That process sounds familiar to me. That’s how I organized my notes from my Ph.D. dissertation. I wrote about that in “Index-card approach to writing.” I wish I could say that I, like McPhee, had my ending in mind before I spread my index cards on my floor. However, aside from chronological order, I didn’t have a good idea of where I was going.

Today I’d use mind mapping, which I discuss in Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients to organize my thoughts. When I wrote my financial blogging book, I started with posts written for my blog. I also did a bit of mind mapping to decide on the order of my chapters, though I also tweaked the order based on feedback from my writing group.

Knowing the end makes it easier to edit

When writing something short, like a blog post, it’s much easier to start with the end in mind like McPhee, knowing your destination makes it easier to decide what information to keep. You can prune anything that doesn’t lead to your destination.

The next time you write something, try to figure out its ending before you start writing.

Disclosure:  If you click on an Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I link only to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.

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MISTAKE MONDAY for April 23: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for April 23: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner's Blog on Investment Writing.

Is there a place for influencer marketing in asset management?

After Joe Polidoro of Polidoro Marketing and I traded emails about influencer marketing for investment managers, I asked him to contribute this guest post.

 

Is there a place for influencer marketing in asset management?

By Joe Polidoro

 

“Influencer marketing” is such a buzzword that it’s lately been declared dead.

But word-of-mouth and peer recommendations have been with us for as long as people have had something to sell. Influencer marketing—leveraging word-of-mouth promotion from online influencers—is just the latest evolution of this time-honored marketing technique.

Influencer marketing:

Lives where we live, at least regarding news and information: on social media. According to the Pew Research Center, six out of 10 people get their news on social media platforms.
Relies on the greater trust most people have in word-of-mouth. Nielsen has found that an overwhelming 92% of people globally trust user-generated content and word-of-mouth over traditional advertising.
Ideally consists of user-created content, which is seen as more authentic and more trustworthy than advertising content. (Less ideally, but still effective, the influencer shares company-created content.)
Often focuses on personal experience, not on the product or service. Seeks to educate, humanize, or even entertain—not to sell.
Is more affordable, more targeted, and more measurable than traditional advertising.
Can accomplish a number of precise goals, from raising awareness to increasing online engagement to encouraging specific actions.
Successfully reaches not just millennials but also older audiences.

Banks are doing it

Influencer marketing comes in two flavors—paid and earned. Firms will pay celebrities and even lesser-known people who have sizeable, passionate social followings to interact with their brand.

For example, American Express’s #MyAmex campaign gave control of its Instagram account to six owners of small but high-profile business owners to produce running stories of how the Amex Card facilitates their businesses, earning 10 million impressions and 40,000 engagements. Scotia Bank, Chase Sapphire, and US Bank have run equally successful paid influencer marketing campaigns.

Earned influencer marketing tends to rely instead on larger numbers of smaller-scale influencers or everyday people.

TD Ameritrade’s multi-platform #humanfinanceproject “movement” relied on real people—advisors—“to showcase the great work that financial advisors are doing, particularly independent registered investment advisors.”

Capital One’s #EveryDayMoneyBoston Instagram campaign sought to humanize its brand within its community, featuring photos of Bostonians supporting local causes, and attracting a much viewed post from New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman.

And TD Bank’s #ShouldaBeenAVideo featured an Instagram-based photo contest held in partnership with Polaroid, receiving over 3,000 posts, many by Instagrammers with very large followings.

Even relatively small-scale earned influencer marketing campaigns can make a big business impact.

To promote its Cardless Cash mobile app feature, Massachusetts-based Avidia Bank relied on financial social media influencers as part of an integrated online campaign, resulting in a 13% increase in app enrollments, positive sentiment of 83% around the campaign, and an over 100% boost in Twitter engagement.

Can asset managers do it?

Great. Influencer marketing works well with consumers. What about with intermediaries—particularly the often highly sophisticated audiences most asset managers market to?

The first hurdles for asset managers are the FINRA and SEC proscriptions on testimonials, entanglement, and adoption. Recent FINRA notes seem to clear a path for influencer marketing. With compliant disclosure, it would seem that even influencer marketing for products might be feasible.

But for Rule 2210 to apply, online content has to relate to products or services. Educational or otherwise non-product-specific content wouldn’t apply. The faster way to the hearts and minds of advisors is not to push product but to educate and inform. This creates a fairly large space for some interesting influencer marketing approaches.

For example, a manager of advisor-sold municipal bond funds—a more retail product—might engage end investors and advisors by sponsoring a photo contest of fund-financed public projects on targeted social media (Instagram, Facebook) with the hashtag #WeBuiltThat.

For asset managers who want to influence a much smaller, specialized, non-retail audience, highly targeted efforts that look less overtly like campaigns may be more fruitful.

A liquid alts manager seeking to break into the institutional market might produce a series of institutional-level content relating to its philosophy and approach—then share it over time with a growing set of highly selected institutional investors, consultants, reporters, and other influencers. And share similar content created by trusted third parties.

Campaigns like this require time, content, coordination, and cooperation from its more social media-savvy mid-level and senior employees, who would be expected to share the same content with their networks.

Hey, I didn’t say it as easy. But as a researcher on peer influence at MIT Sloan School of Management said, “most human behavior is the result of learning from other humans.” Especially in today’s hyper-connected, super-cynical environment, asset managers may do well to learn from their bank brethren.

More reading

Pass the Word: Peer Influence Has a Big Impact on Online Market Dynamics

A New Way to Measure Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Getting a Sharper Picture of Social Media’s Influence

McKinsey Says Influencer Marketing in Social Media Generates 2 Times the Sales of Paid Advertising

 

Joe Polidoro is founder and president of Polidoro Marketing, offering strategic communications consulting and agency services since 2003 that have helped B2B companies better express their value—increasing sales, improving revenues, and enhancing brands.

 

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Avoid this embarrassing mistake in your publications

What will your readers think if they see Latin text where your photo caption should be, as in the image below? They may wonder about more than your proofreading skills. They may wonder if your lack of attention to detail extends into your professional services. That’s not good. It’s okay to use placeholder text, but you need a strategy to ensure that you replace it.

I understand why the designer inserted Latin text as a placeholder for a caption. As Cynthia Bartz says in “Review Design Proofs with Confidence: Lorem Ipsum,” Latin is “used to approximate the look of text and paragraphs in design work” while the designer waits to receive the final text.

A person eyeballing the article in the image can judge that the design looks good. The use of Latin should alert the proofreader in the next step that the text should be replaced before publication. Somehow, that didn’t happen.

How can you avoid letting placeholder text get published? I have some ideas.

1. Hire a proofreader

A proofreader should have caught the Latin placeholder text in the example.

If you lack the budget for a proofreader, try the “read out loud” technique I discuss in “Why I love Adobe Acrobat Pro for proofreading.” I feel confident that the sound of Latin would catch your attention.

But perhaps the designer told you or the proofreader, “We’ll fill it in later.” I can understand why you’d let it go temporarily. That’s why you need a process.

2. Flag text for later review

If placeholder text hasn’t been replaced by the time a proofreader reviews it, the proofreader needs to flag text for later review. There are several ways to do that.

Create a checklist of text that needs to be replaced and proofread. Schedule a time to review and update the checklist. Don’t let the piece publish before every problem is checked off.
Format the placeholder text so it stands out. A friend told me that newspapers type placeholder text in ALL CAPS so it’s easier to find it when your eyes sweep over the page. I sometimes highlight placeholder text in yellow, as in the image below.

 

 

Please don’t embarrass yourself with placeholder text that gets published.

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MISTAKE MONDAY for April 16: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for April 16: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner's Blog on Investment Writing.

Only my latest grammar mistake

If only I had paid more attention to the rules of grammar, punctuation, and usage when I was younger, I wouldn’t make so many mistakes today. I feel embarrassed because some people look to me for guidance about how to write better. Oh well, my mistakes help me to feel empathy for everyone who makes mistakes.

My mistake

A reader gently pointed out a mistake I’ve been making for a long time. I’ve been misusing “only” in my affiliate disclosure. Here’s what I’ve been saying:

If you click on one of the Amazon links on this website and then buy something, I may receive a commission. I participate in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. I only link to books in which I find some value.

I’ve been putting “only” in the wrong place. The way it’s written now, it emphasizes that I link but don’t do other things with books in which I find some value. (In an extreme case, could this be interpreted to mean that I don’t read books in which I find some value?).

Instead, the last sentence should say, “I link only to books in which I find some value.” This version emphasizes that if I link to a book, it means I find some value in it.

An editor friend suggested this alternative: “I provide links to books only when I believe they have value for my blog’s readers.” That could work, too.

Placement matters

The bottom line? Word placement matters. When using “only,” place it as close as possible to the word to which it refers. One tricky thing about placement is that “Additive/restrictive adverbs most often modify a word or phrase rather than an entire clause,” as discussed in Erin Brenner’s “Adverb Placement, Generally and Specifically” on the Visual Thesaurus website. For more on placement, read Grammar Girl’s “‘Only’: The Most Insidious Misplaced Modifier.”

I’m going to try to use “only” correctly in the future. But please forgive me if I don’t correct the gazillion examples of misplacement in this blog’s archives.  I only have time to work on the new content.

 

 

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MISTAKE MONDAY for April 9: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one didn’t jump out at me when I reviewed the image. Will you do better than I did?

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for April 9: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner's Blog on Investment Writing.