Concrete details bring tedious topics to life When Ian Jones needed to craft a — yawn! — diversity story for employees at Columbia Gas of Virginia, his first instinct was to go with a fact pack. You can see Ian's natural creativity peeking through with the concrete details in the headline and — buried deep but still breathing — in the … [Read more...] about ‘From Tina Turner to Taylor Swift’
Articles
Fear factor
Why negative messages gain traction Did Stanley Kubrick fake the moon landings? Was President Obama holding a rocket launcher in a car with an ISIS leader? Does your favorite shampoo cause hair loss? No, no and probably not, according to Snopes' "25 Hottest Urban Legends." Fear appeals work (Rev Up Readership members only; join Rev Up Readership), according to 50 years … [Read more...] about Fear factor
Hit Return more often
People skip long paragraphs Readers take measure of — and make decisions about — your copy based on how it looks. One of the most important visual cues is paragraph length. If your message looks too hard to read, people won't read it. So hit Return more often: It's one of the easiest ways to make your message more readable. How often should you hit … [Read more...] about Hit Return more often
But what’s the topic?
Silver Anvil winners show it's not 'us and our stuff' Front-loading your headlines with your topic word just makes sense if your readers are going to encounter those headlines in online lists — a search engine results page, for instance, or your online newsroom. That's because readers look at only the first two or three words of the headline when scanning lists … [Read more...] about But what’s the topic?
Site for sore eyes
Online reading causes dry eyes, blurred vision Thanks to our obsession with screens, there's now a diagnosis known as digital eyestrain. (Not to be confused with screen sightedness (Rev Up Readership members only; join Rev Up Readership).) People who spend hours staring at screens — and that's your online audience, right? — suffer chemical changes in their … [Read more...] about Site for sore eyes