Keep It Simple – Say One Thing

Have a Goal

When writing for social media, while we are telling a story, we are also writing with a goal in mind. Our writing has a purpose. 

There is either an implicit or explicit desired outcome from people reading what you wrote such as:

• be convinced
• follow me
• share my words
• buy this product
• hire us
• donate money
• visit our site.

Your post wants to achieve something beyond the mere reading.  It needs to leave the reader with one clear point of view, opinion or action. You need to be aware of what that is.

Don’t start writing until you can articulate your goal. 

Say One Thing

The best way to achieve your goal is to focus on one single idea. Put simply, “say one thing”.

If you find this is hard to do then you might need have a bigger story that needs to be broken into smaller stories …

For example if you are disseminating the content of a white paper then it is likely that there are a number of ideas contained within it contributing to a common goal such as hire us, buy our product and so on. This kind of material would best be presented in a series keeping each part focused on saying one thing.

Saying just one thing does not mean your message cannot cover multiple ideas …

For example, a listicle can make a single idea out of a bunch of disparate ideas (options, suggestions). For example, a post titled “10 Fun Things To Do This Summer” obviously has ten distinct ideas but the overall goal is to convey “Fun Things To Do This Summer.”

Remember, saying one thing makes life easier for your audience; often a busy impatient audience that is already saturated with content. 

Say it concisely

Say one thing in your post and make it clear what you’ve said.

If people think “but what does that mean?”, your writing has failed.  So keep it simple.  While some people believe that “good” writing is about using lots of big words and complex sentences, it’s not.  Verbosity does not augur well for clarity, and complexity can often obscure rather than reveal. See?  What did that mean?  Did you have to read it more than once?

Too many big words and long sentences can make it hard to work out what the author is actually trying to say. People often get lost in long sentences.  So while that style of writing might be suitable for a textbook, in social media you need to keep it short.  Simple words. Simple sentences. If you have a lot of commas. you probably need more sentences.

The bottom line is if your audience doesn’t understand what you wrote, its likely you will achieve your goal. 

[What was the goal of this post?  To contact us and ask for our help with your social media efforts, of course, because clearly we know what we’re talking about!]