One of the random gems I’ve stumbled across in recent years is RainToday.com. It’s an offering of Wellesley Hills Group, a “management consulting, marketing, and lead generation firm focused on helping professional services firms grow.”

(btw, The Hired Pens has no relationship with Wellesley Hills Group, so I have no ulterior motive here.)

Anyway, I highly recommend checking out this article: “5 Myths of Internet Marketing for Independent Professionals.” Author C.J. Hayden believes you can’t market professional services (e.g. management consulting) the same way you market Internet-only products and services (e.g. Web hosting). And if you do, “you’re likely to make some serious mistakes … that may be hazardous to the health of your business.”

She then goes on to dispel the five prominent myths. Two of them concern copywriting, which caught my eye.

Hayden cites “It all starts with a great website” as Myth #1. That is, before committing to building a fancy website, make sure you’ve clearly defined your service offerings. And that means getting it all down in writing:

“A brilliant design and dazzling graphics won’t pay off anywhere near as well as a clear explanation of why a client should work with you. Useful material such as articles, assessments, and other samples of your expertise will go much further to persuade prospective clients than flash intros and interactive menus.”

Amen to that.

Myth #4, says Hayden, is “Killer copy is the secret to sales.” Here, she recommends turning down the hype with your website copy. If you’re selling professional services – as opposed to, say, “steak knives on late-night TV” – you should look to create an aura of quiet confidence, not unfettered chaos:

“Your Internet marketing persona should reflect the same professionalism as the work you do with your clients. If writing marketing materials isn’t your forte, by all means hire a professional copywriter. But be sure you hire one with experience writing for professionals like you.”

A recommendation that readers hire a professional copywriter? Amen to that, too.

One of the great things about our work at The Hired Pens is the variety of projects. On any given week, I might be working on a website, brochure, newsletter and feature article.

One type of work that rarely enters the mix is writing for catalogs. That’s Anna’s bag. She’s had dozens of catalog assignments for clients like Hasbro, Stride Rite and Brookstone. So she knows all about writing hundreds of clever little product descriptions in a short time span.

Recently, we landed a new client – a major shoe and apparel manufacturer. The assignment: Write 60-word descriptions for roughly 250 products. I was one of three writers on the project, so I took on about 80 products.

At first, I felt a bit out of my comfort zone. How can you come up with something unique and witty to say about wristbands? Or the 12th pair of running shoes that you’ve written about today?

Eventually, though, I got into a groove. I knocked off my group over the course of about a week. Here are some lessons I learned about catalog copywriting along the way.

1. Get started first thing in the morning.
When it comes to writing that puts a premium on creativity, I’m most productive in the a.m. hours. From 9 to noon, I plowed through the descriptions. But if I tried to go back to the work late in the afternoon, my pace ground to a halt. At that point, my time was best spent on other projects.

2. Don’t just sit there – write something.
Sure, you can spend 10 minutes staring at a photo of a handbag. Or, you can start typing and see what comes out. By letting my mind go and improvising, I was able to come up with some great ideas. And some lame ones, too. But that’s OK. It’s all part of the process.

3. Find an angle and then tell a story.
Good catalog copy doesn’t just describe product features. Rather, it tells a story about the person who buys the product. For instance, what kind of reaction will you create by wearing these awesomely fashionable shoes to the club tonight? Or, imagine the fear in the goalie’s eyes as you sprint down the field wearing these high-end soccer cleats. Those are the types of scenarios that pique the reader’s interest.

Now we’re in the midst of project No. 2 with our new client. I’m happy to say this one’s been much easier (and more enjoyable) than the first.

Do you have any tips about catalog copywriting? Let us know.

We’ll be honest: With Anna out on maternity leave, we’ve decided to dig into our newsletter archive to keep our blog fresh. Here’s a piece from a good friend of ours, the Grumpy Old Copywriter. Enjoy.

Since its inception in 1993, the “got milk?” ad campaign has helped reinvigorate milk sales and indirectly led to millions of cases of excessive bloating.

While I’ve been a victim of the latter, I’d prefer to focus on my first point. In particular, the success of this landmark campaign has sparked countless imitations. And that really burns my britches.

Just today, I saw a dump truck that had “got junk?” pasted on the side. I also spied a bumper sticker that read “got veggies?” and another that asked if I “got lift?” (My great-great grandson explained this was a reference to a sport known as “snow-boarding.” I’m not familiar with that activity.)

Back when I was working on the first Ford Model T marketing campaign in 1908, this kind of blatant mimicry would have gotten me permanently barred from the National Copy-writers Association. And you know what? I would have deserved it.

Yes, imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery. But if the best your copywriter can do is come up with “got milk?” rip-offs, I suggest you fire him post-haste.

Thaddeus Van Haltren founded The Hired Pens in 1931 and now serves as our senior copywriter emeritus. His current accounts include Moxie soda and Burma Shave.

Social media is supposed to be red-hot, right? Not so fast. According to a pair of recent articles, two of the giants of social media may have trouble ahead.

Although Anna tweets (as do dozens of other people I like or admire), I’ve never been a big fan of Twitter. In certain cases, it can be quite effective. The post-election Iranian protests are perhaps the most potent example, and some businesses have also put it to good use.

But personally, I just can’t get into Twitter. There are enough distractions in my life – I don’t need a constant stream of tweets to make things even worse.

Over on Slate.com’s The Big Money, I have an ally in Mark Gimein. He posits that Twitter is “in danger of collapsing under its own weight.” Why?

“The volume of material that Twitter unleashes now puts impossible demands on its users’ time and attention. The problem, in a nutshell, is information overload. The more Twitter grows and the more feeds Twitterers follow, the harder it gets to mine it for what is truly useful and engaging.”

Gimein goes on to cite his personal experience. Each of his followers on Twitter typically follows 200 feeds; one ambitious soul follows over 3,000. How can marketers expect to break through all that noise, a situation that will only worsen in the years ahead? You got me.

Meanwhile, Virginia Heffernan on nytimes.com notes that “while people are still joining Facebook and compulsively visiting the site, a small but noticeable group are fleeing – some of them ostentatiously.”

Heffernan identifies a number of reasons for the departures. Some users are disgusted with Facebook’s growing commercialization. Others are unnerved by the privacy concerns. Still others have decided to stop wasting so much time posting and checking status updates.

Is Facebook about to face a mass exodus? I’d hate to think so. However, Heffernan’s article is enough to make you wonder whether Facebook is late 1990s-era Whitney Houston – on top, but about to enter a long, slow decline into irrelevance.

Do you think Twitter and Facebook have become a bore? Have other forms of social media sparked your interest? Let us know.