Key Messages: Connecting With Your Audience

Key Messages:Connecting With Your Audience

Ellen CrawfordRich MatternBob Bertsch

NDSU Ag Communication

Creating Key Messages

What is your goal?

What behaviors will lead to the change you want?

What do you want people to do?

How do you want them to do it?

Photo by William Neuheisel, www.flickr.com/photos/wneuheisel/

Creating Key Messages• Provide a roadmap –

what to do and how to do it

• Shrink the change – don’t give too many options

• Focus less on what you want people to know and more on what you want them to do

How to write a news release

Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.

– John Wayne

Photo by cromely, http://www.flickr.com/photos/cromely/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cromely/

Writing process

• Plan: Find an idea, research and organize.• Draft: Get things down on paper.• Clarify: Revise your draft.• Edit: Remove the excess.• Proofread: Get it all correct; ask for help –

four eyes are better than two.

Inverted Pyramid

A useful guide for organizing your news release

• Readers start at the top.

• Editors cut from the bottom.

Really Important FactsWho What Where When Why

Useful detail and history

Information that helps readers

Information that provides context

From News Release to Blog

Turn one news release into multiple blog posts. Blog posts that focus on a single aspect of a topic or issue help users get directly to the content they need. Make good use of keywords, so your web content can be found through search. Make your web content scannable. It is more difficult to read on a screen than off paper. Because people reader slower from a screen they save time by scanning. Large, unbroken strings of text are difficult to scan. To make your content more scannable, write in small paragraphs, use lists and use headings and subheadings. Connect the content to a real-time, real life scenario - Think (and possibly write) about why the reader should care about this post now. Why is the post timely? How can the post impact the reader's life? Be present as the author - In most web content, the author is absent. In blog posts, you need to be present. Refer to your stories and experiences. Be real. Share some of yourself. Include a call to action - Focus on what you want the reader to do, not just what you want them to learn. Include a picture. The web is becoming more visual. Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and other tools make use of images to make shared content more engaging.


Turn one news release into multiple blog posts.

• focus more directly on your key messages

• add context and depth to your subject

• help users get directly to the content they need


Make good use of keywords.

• keywords help your content be found through search

• keywords help news aggregators find your content and deliver it to users

• use keywords consistently in your title, metadata and throughout your content


Make your web content scannable.• Because people reader slower from a screen,

they save time by scanning.• Large, unbroken strings of text are difficult to

scan. • To make your content more scannable,

– write in small paragraphs– use lists– use headings and subheadings.


Connect the content to a real-time, real life scenario

• Think (and possibly write) about why the reader should care about this post now.

• Why is the post timely?

• How can the post impact the reader's life?


Be present as the author

• In news releases, the author is absent. In blog posts, you need to be present.

• Write in the first-person

• Refer to your stories and experiences.

• Be real. Share some of yourself.


Include a call to action

• Return to your key messages

• Focus on what you want the reader to do, not just what you want them to learn.


Include a picture.

• The web is becoming more visual.

• Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook and other tools use images to make shared content more engaging.

Photo by doug88888.http://www.flickr.com/photos/doug88888/

Using Key Messagesin Social Media

• Use key messages to guide sharing

• Engage people – find out why they are not doing what you want them to and what could help them change

• Don’t nag

Questions?

Key Messages: Connecting With Your Audience

Documents

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