In a world dominated by online communication, it can be hard to understand what’s required in your writing. Do we use full stops anymore? What’s a CTA and how do we use it? How do we cut through the noise to ensure our messages are getting to the right audience?
In this blog, we share some best practices to help you nail effective content writing, communicate with credibility and keep your audience hooked.
The Importance Of Writing Tight
Why is it important for your content to be ‘tight?’ And what do we even mean by that? ‘Tight’ writing means that you are writing what you mean to say, in as few words as possible. In practice, you may find it’s more like ‘tight editing’ as you trim the fat from your first draft. Tight writing eliminates superfluous words, allowing your writing to breathe as you share the information with your reader. It allows you to cull your word count, essential for social media where you’re limited to just a few characters.
Tightening your writing lets you pack more facts and ideas into the same number of words. Overlong ebooks can be turned into a series of interesting tidbits that keep your readers hooked, packing your information into a 150 character social media caption becomes easier than ever, and narrative content becomes engaging, structured and enjoyable to read. For longer form content such as articles, ebooks and blogs, you can hold your readers attention better with content that doesn’t waffle.
Don’t worry – it gets easier the more you do it, and before long, your content will be commanding, interesting and say precisely what you mean!
How Can You Tighten Your Writing?
It can be difficult to recognise in your own writing where you could use some tightening up. We recommend writing on one day and editing the next (if your deadline allows it!).
Having a clear idea of what you want to write about before you start writing can help you convey your message more precisely. This will also make it easier when you come to edit your content, as you can clearly make decisions about which words to cut, and which to keep.
Being clear about who you’re writing for will keep your writing succinct. A broad or unclear audience can lead to broad and unclear writing. We recommend creating audience personas to help you define and personalise your audience, so you can keep them front of mind as you write your content.
A tip for curating your writing: cut out padding phrases or words that you might use frequently in your own work, such as ‘perhaps’ ‘in order to’ ‘just’ ‘in fact’ ‘of course’ that soften your message.
With that tip in mind, let’s look at…
Grammar In The Age Of Social Media
You may think that close attention to grammar is stilted, stuffy and irrelevant when writing your content. You couldn’t be further from the truth!
Grammar is necessary for credibility, communication, and clarity. Mastering grammar will allow you to make your writing clearer and more readable; you will also have the freedom of making stylistic choices to make your content more interesting.
Your reader’s first impression of you is a reflection of your image. Regardless of the type of business you’re operating in and the platform of your content, grammatically correct communication puts your best foot forward.
Our top tops for keeping your grammar on point:
- Use an active voice, it’s much more exciting
- Use commas sparingly, and never at the end of a sentence
- Parentheses are good ways to pack in an extra thought (or explainer) in a sentence
- Use tense consistently…you’re not a time traveller
- Avoid idioms, be frank
- If it sounds clunky, revisit your word choices
Now we’ve covered some great grammar tips, let’s take a look at how to finish off your content…
Cunning Calls To Action (CTAs)
Telling your audience to like, follow or comment on your content boosts audience engagement on social media, directing the reader to a sign up page on your website can turn a warm lead into a win. A strong call to action is a clear sign post to let your audience know what to do next.
Our favourite calls to action are relevant to your audience, and round off your content in a way that makes sense. Give your audience a reason why they should do what you’re suggesting, like ‘call today to schedule your free consultation!’ Not only have you stated the action you want the user to take (call today), but you have also provided them with a reason why they should take that action (a free consultation).
Spicing up your CTAs makes your content more memorable. ‘Check out today’s deals!’ does the job, but ‘tons of deals at your fingertips!’ is more exciting and takes into account how mobile users shop online. You could even try getting controversial, for example ‘your yard sucks, let us fix it’ is more attention grabbing than ‘call our landscaping business today!’
The way we communicate can change depending on your platform, audience and message. Clear, concise and considered messaging helps you sound more credible. Once you’re nailing key grammar and your content is tight, there’s always room to explore and have fun.
Do you have any pro tips to ensure your written content is precise, clear and credible? Let us know! Here on Linkedin
