I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Tash
What is the point of promoting something without explaining how to get it?
Due to my connection with Love Santa, I keep an eye on Christmas news around the world. Recently, I went to a site to read about some Christmas movies coming up – it mentioned things like Home Alone and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (one of which is debated to its place as a Christmas movie every year!) This is a news type site with a section on entertainment – it was Australian but I hadn’t been there before.
What struck me though was the lack of basic details. Paraphrasing, the article said “SuperChannel {made up name!} is starting some Christmas movies in November and here’s their full schedule”‘ then listed all the movies for November.
The article had some links to other pages on the site about types of movies and so on, but no link to SuperChannel.
Personally, I have never heard of SuperChannel so I’m pretty confident it’s not a free to air TV channel. So how do I see movies they play? It is within a subscription to an on-demand service? Or maybe its an online channel of some sort?
When writing, for pleasure as well as business really, make sure you give necessary information rather than assume people know it. Even when you know the audience well, be careful to not miss important details.
From the article I mentioned above, I can now tell you when Home Alone will be showing. I have no idea how to find it and watch it, so knowing the timetable is fairly useless. Maybe the writer or site assumes ‘our site members knows SuperChannel’ but what about new members or people coming across the article (as I did) for the first time? What about the members who know the name but can’t recall access details?
Even if your audience does know the basics, where/how to access something you are promoting is critical information to include.
“I use to get jewelry and a print or something they made . It was a nice jester.”
This is a comment I spotted on social media recently in response to a request for some gift ideas. It took me a moment to realise that ‘jester’ was meant to be ‘gesture’, but then it all made sense.
I must admit this is not a pair of words I had thought of as spelling options before, but I now know they can be confused so here are the meanings…
jester [noun]: a person who entertains, especially in medieval times, and often does so through silly behaviours. Also known as a fool, a jester often wears a funny hat with bells hanging from it.
The King laughed as he watched the jester before dinner.
gesture [noun]: a movements of limbs, head or body to express an emotion or thought.
A nod of the head is a gesture of approval.
The key thing I can see that may help you know which word to use is the relationship between jest (to joke or laugh) and jester.
While there is an expression about having a long drink, length is not usually a measure of drinks. So I was surprised to see an ad for 300m of a soft drink in some recent junk mail!
As always, the message is that proof reading is really important – best done by someone else or at a later time as proofing as you write has limitations.
Of course, the person preparing the ad may have written 300ml and something happened at the design or printing stages, but that is why printing proofs also need to be checked carefully.
Do you know what a closed question is?
I’m sure I didn’t learn about open and closed questions until much later, but my children have been learning this in primary school. This is a good thing as it can help them communicate socially as well as within their school work.
Closed questions – elicits a simple response such as “do you like blue or green?” where a one word response answers the question.
Open (or open ended) questions – give scope for more detailed and complex responses such as “why is blue your favourite colour?” or “what do you like about that book?” which require longer answers and can lead to a discussion.
Have you ever heard questions referred to as thin and thick questions instead of open and closed?
The first time I knew of the thin/thick nomenclature was when I viewed some work my daughter had done at school. I know enough about open and closed questions to figure out what was meant by thin and thick so I could interpret the schoolwork very quickly. And I assumed the children had been taught thin/thick instead of open/closed.
Then I read the schoolwork in more detail.
The instructions swap between thick/thin and open/closed questions without any explanation that they are the same concept (and not even in the same order which makes it even harder to correlate the pairs of words). Given that this activity is obviously aimed at teaching children about open/closed questions, surely it would be better to use the same terminology for the one activity.
It’s one thing for me as a professional writer to read these instructions and follow them easily, but something else entirely for a seven year old who is grappling with what these terms mean and how to find examples of each type!
And my daughter said they had been taught about open/closed questions – she figured it out (and I think she did a good job devising relevant questions in the activity) but I’m sure many of her classmates would have struggled if they were left to do this activity just by reading the instructions.
If you start using one term (or set of terms) when writing, then continue using that term throughout.
Even if you explain there are alternatives, stick to one term in your content. For instance, if you are writing about saving money, you may write something like
Contributing to your savings can be done more or less frequently. Contributions, also known as deposits or account credits, will attract interest and thus increase your savings over time. When deciding how much to contribute, you may consider your income, expenses and lifestyle choices.
You may not be writing for children, and your audience may easily figure out your message, but why make it harder to read than necessary? Why risk them not understanding and/or disengaging in your content?
Being consistent makes your writing easier to read and understand, looks more professional and will probably help search engines recognise a keyword in your online writing.
Not all websites have a FAQ page, and not everyone things positively about FAQs, but I think they are worth adding to a business website.
In very simple terms, it helps people find information about the business and/or products and services available.
Some of the information just doesn’t fit very well elsewhere on the site and others bit are important enough to justify repeating.
I know when I am looking for specific information, I often go to the FAQ page, and the lack of a FAQ can be really frustrating as it leaves you searching the entire site.
Having a FAQ page
Of course, the FAQ has to be worth visiting or it can undo all the benefits – but we’ll cover what’s in a good FAQ page another time!
*Image courtesy of icreative3d at 123rf
Looking at options for some software, I viewed a few FAQ pages lately (FAQ being Frequently Asked Questions).
Some FAQs are better than others, and some were great – informative and easy to understand.
An FAQ page is full of facts, otherwise what’s the point of having it? But that doesn’t mean you have to make it all staid and boring.
Here are some examples for amusing FAQs I have spotted:
Q: How do I invite someone?
A: The basic invitations are simple SMS messages. Naturally, you have other options to bring your friends here. Try sending them a download link via any other messaging service: email, Facebook, WhatsApp, an actual telegram — you name it.
Q: Will you have ads? Or sell my data? Or steal my beloved and enslave my children?
A: No.
Q: will these faqs ever end?
A: well it always has before!
Q: You didn’t answer my question. How come?
A: Probably because this FAQ was written by a marketing person. Please ask us your question using our contact us form.
A bit of humour and lightness makes the whole page easier to read – and more memorable, too, and every business wants to be remembered.
How can you add some humour to your FAQ page?
*Image courtesy of Frugo at 123rf
I came across this great infographic outlining why children need to be able to read.
As well as being a good message in itself, the infographic also supports Buk Bilong Piknini (a charitable organisation funding books and reading programs for children in Papua New Guinea).
What do you think – why is it important we encourage children to learn to read, and then read some more?
I would also encourage everyone to help ensure our children are literate – whether by donating to groups such as Buk Bilong Pikinini, helping at schools or giving books as gifts, every bit helps.
I frequently help at my children’s school by listening to children (usually not my own!) read and helping them build the skills of sounding out new words, ensuring the words make sense and getting a full understanding of what they are reading.
What have you done to help children (or adults for that matter) learn to read and enjoy reading?
We attended an indoor play centre recently for a child’s birthday party.
I spotted a sign on a wall opposite an inflatable slide, within the enclosed rock climbing area, that I think was missing the audience.
Where the sign was
The sign was up on a wall and printed in a large font so it should have been useful.
However, it was on an angle that made it hard to read except for by children rock climbing.
Surely putting it above the inflatable would have been more effective as it would be visible at the time you would be considering climbing up the forbidden walls.
What the sign said
Remembering this was in an indoor play centre where most of the patrons are under eight years of age, the sign was not written for the audience.
Apart from the very young children who can’t read at all, many youngsters would not be up to reading ‘inflatable’ and many would not know the word ‘banned’. Even for those who can understand the sign, it will be most effective if people get it instantly, without having to think about its meaning.
The inflatable is more known to children as the big slide, so that is the type of language they would be better using.
A much simpler sign would be “Do not climb up the slide”.
I think this is simpler and more effective, but also has a second meaning as it tells children not to climb up the slide itself, as well as not climbing on the support walls.
It is always important to know who you are aiming your communications at, and aim for clarity more than cleverness.
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