Part of earning and keeping the attention of your audience is having them trust that you won’t waste their time with verbosity. If you’re looking to write tighter, allowing your brand to keep the attention of your audience, spend less time laboring over what to write and more time thinking on how the audience can benefit from your ideas.
Helpful hint: Write shorter
- Focus on the exact point you wish to make.
- Write down precisely what the point is, as clearly and in as few words as possible.
- Think of what supporting points or quotes you need to help make that point.
- Begin the post by making the point, maybe using an anecdote for emphasis.
- Write a sentence of two on why that point is important to the community.
- Include a sentence or two about any significant breakthroughs the idea can be credited with uncovering.
- Share how the audience can likely find similar success with your solution.
- In a sentence or two, make the case for how the world (or your market) would be a better off if more people adopted the idea.
- Restate the main point and why it’s so significant.
- End by sharing a successful, succinct anecdotal example of how the idea solved a real problem (could be a quote).
Using this framework, you can consistently write 400- to 700-word blog posts with ease. In fact, I’ve even used this framework for writing pithy but informative press releases. What are your thoughts on writing shorter, more compelling content? Do you see the value in writing shorter?
