As I stood in front of the Marketing/Business section at Borders last week, there was one book in particular that caught my eye >>
140 Characters : A Style Guide for the Short Form by Dom Sagolla.
Something I have spent quite a bit of time practicing and discussing in both the classroom and the workplace is how to reach my audience with such a short message.
As one of the pioneers of Twitter, author, Sagolla explains in his book the art of writing short and sweet for the information age. He touches upon several key points, providing readers with insight into how to develop their own voice and writing style in 140 characters.
Key Points >>
>> Developing your own honest and unique writing style
Who is anyone to teach you about style?
Style is the sound your words make in the mind. It is the tone taken when you are read aloud by someone else. Style is the ineffable, immeasurable spark of life in the text. Style is a mystery (1).
>> Avoiding the too-much-information syndrome
Don’t become a fable about too much information.
There are many things to avoid in social media as there are in real life, and perhaps a few more. A leader is marked by history as much by action as by restraint. Make it your goal to balance bold, descriptive writing with a conscious effort to avoid giving away too much private information (23).
>> Making the most of your messages on Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Media sites
The brilliant thing about social media is that our audience is fairly well defined. Whereas with traditional broadcast media there may be many more people paying attention, their identity and point of contact is relatively unknown. Social and interactive media provide access back to the audience, which multiplies the value of each participant.
There are many strategies of the moment to affect certain statistics that reflect this value. Most of them are feeble, because they neglect a central fact:
It matters not how many followers your have, but rather who they are (46).
Establish a track record for meaningful audience members. Define relevance for yourself along the following curves >>
>> Total audience
>> Power of audience
>> Number of updates
>> Time since last update
>> Readers/reading ratio
>> Retweets, likes, and favorites
Ask yourself the question >> “How would I rank myself as a member of the community?”
0 comments:
Post a Comment