Writing about business for a global audience: MasterClass by Kevin Delaney

ScrollStack MasterClass on How to write about business for a global audience was held on December 23, 2020. Kevin J. Delaney, the head of content strategy for ScrollStack, a senior editor at The Information, and cofounder of Reset Work, shared key tips on how to choose topics readers will be interested in and how to present the material so they discover it.

"The key to getting readers," according to Delaney, "is to figure out ways into a topic that are particularly interesting."

Here’s a brief of the MasterClass.

Choosing topics your readers will be interested in

There are a few basic rules that serve you well when thinking about what you might actually want to write about. “The first thing that is really powerful is if you can find topics that are at the intersection of interesting and important,” Delaney noted. These are topics that matter to people, but you’re not writing about them in a “dry way.”

The following story is an example of this, where an engineer’s job offer was revoked by the CEO of Zenefits after he posted about it on Quora. 

“It’s an important issue because it speaks to the interactions around work and jobs that are outside of the traditional job interview and the traditional process that people are used to,” Delaney said.

You may have a topic in mind: finance, interest rates, etc. The key to getting readers, according to Delaney, is to figure out ways into the topic that are particularly interesting. 

An alternate way to choose a topic is to think about things people want to talk about and share. Ask yourself: ‘Is this something that someone will tell a friend about when they read about it.’

An example of this from Quartz is below.

How to engage your reader

This post by Delaney on ScrollStack satisfies that basic ingredients you need to engage a reader: solid headline, strong image, accessible writing, great analysis, bullet points where they make sense, and charts or other images.

Topics of interest in 2021 and beyond

Delaney also shared a list of miscellaneous topics that might be of interest to readers.

Watch the full MasterClass here:

The ScrollStack Academy will next host a session on City Photography with Gopal M Sukumara on January 7, 2021, from 6pm IST to 7pm IST.

His session will focus on how to use photography to document places, using a blog to create lasting stories and the process involved in documenting and using images to tell stories. 

You can RSVP here and join us on our YouTube channel

To learn more about our upcoming classes, reach out to creators@scrollstack.com. 

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