A lot has been said about “clickbait” content from sites like Upworthy, whose headlines tug on (some say exploit) emotions and curiosity to lure readers to their content. While I don’t feel as strongly about these headlines as many do, one type of headline that particularly grates on me is the faux first-person headline. For example: A News Team Follows Potential Models For One Week. My Face Is Now Stuck In Disgust Mode. I’ve Tried To … [Read more...]
Creating a Social Media Style Guide
January 30, 2012 by
Style guides are essential partners in the creation of effective content. They help ensure consistency of tone, voice, brand, spelling and grammar, giving our content credibility and value. Rick provided a great breakdown of the elements of editorial style for the web last August. But what about social media? Since we can’t erect an editorial process around every individual tweet, status, comment or response, it is critical to have a style … [Read more...]
Using Jargon? Inconceivable!
March 27, 2011 by
On the Sametz Blackstone blog, Meg Fowler warns against using jargon in our communications—a plight to which nonprofits are particularly prone. If you ask every level of an organization how they share the organization’s story, you’ll often get a lot of different answers, expressed in vastly different language—with a particularly large divide between the public and private voices. Which means that, both internally and externally, … [Read more...]