How To: Get Your Message Out
Be brilliant, be brief, be gone and you will be remembered. Something that I have learned in my time in the Public Relations program at Loyalist College is that the importance of and the need for great writers in today’s society. With so many articles and stories thrown at people daily great writers can ensure that they get their message out because they know their target audience, they have key messages in their piece and they are clear, informative and as concise as possible.
If a writer doesn’t have a target audience their message will not affect change or provoke thought. It will simple be passed over by people who don’t see how this topic concerns them. Readers choose the stories they read by how informative or enticing they seem to be. But they are missing some great and highly important articles because the writer failed to reach them. If you post your article for mothers be sure its where they are, they won’t go looking for it.
Readers not only need to see the three to five key messages that you presenting they need to understand why they need to care. People are only interested in WIIFM (what’s in it for me). Making people care about your message is the hard part but grabbing their attention with a clear headline and informative hook is a great start.
Be clear and concise. Readers will not continue to read an article that is confusing or filled with grammatical errors. There are thousands of articles that get read daily simply because they are well written. Readers appreciate a writer that speaks not only to them but for them, in a way that many can’t.
If you can grab the attention of your target audience with a good hook and keep them engaged, your words will jump off the page and be passed on to others. If your article doesn’t intrigue you or your editor in 30 seconds it won’t hook your target audience and although you may be brilliant, brief and gone, you will not be remembered.
amiebronson 