The Upward Path

your message matters

tips

How to make great word graphics for social media sharing

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Word graphics image

Images like the one above are a great way to share little pieces of your message. If you get them right.

You can spread them on social media. They’re like message sweeties that people can share with their own contacts. Images like these are also good for putting in web pages, to show up when people share that page. (And you can’t share a page on Pinterest if it has no images.)

The point of these ‘word graphics’ is to be visually attractive, with a message the reader can take in quickly. Then they can have a smile, or a pause and think, and then carry on with their day. You might even change someone’s life, if they’re in the right place for your message to go in deeply.

A lot of us have discovered tools that make it easy to create these graphics: choosing from a selection of backgrounds and text styles and outputting the final image, without having to use full-blown graphics software. I use an iOS app called Wordswag that someone introduced me to. There are lots of other apps too. Some people use Canva, an online design tool.

But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean the software will automatically make good graphics. That’s down to you.

Remember: attractive, and easy to absorb. If the reader’s brain decides that processing your text will be too much like hard work – or if it threatens to hurt their eyes! – they’ll move on to the next thing and never absorb your little nugget of wisdom.

So here are some tips.   [Read more…] about How to make great word graphics for social media sharing

Trying to go big? Check these 10 comms pitfalls

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Person in spotlight image

At the beginning of the year a lot of entrepreneurs were talking about this being the year they took a big step forward.

And, believers or not, none of us were going to say no if the Chinese year of the Horse brought more energy and creativity!

How is that going for you?

I expect you’ve found that getting anywhere involves hard work, a generous sprinkle of luck, and a lot of frustration when nothing seems to be happening. Much like any other year.

One of those areas of work is communication. Don’t leave it to happen by some sort of magic.

Getting your message in front of someone is an achievement in itself. It’s just so wasteful if it scares them off rather than drawing them in. You need to clear away any speed bumps that would stop them getting to the thing you’ve got to say.

Here’s a checklist. Go through and make yourself a scorecard with ticks and crosses.

How many out of ten will you get? Does it highlight any areas for improvement? [Read more…] about Trying to go big? Check these 10 comms pitfalls

Things That Go Bump In Your Site

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Haunted houseIt’s Halloween! In honour of the occasion I’ve compiled a handy checklist of things to do to SCARE those pesky visitors away from your website!

Fog-shrouded mystery

Make sure visitors can’t tell what your site is about. Don’t give away any clues! They get spooked and run away.

Maze of hallways

Have eccentric, inconsistent navigation so they can’t find what they’re looking for. They plumb the depths of despair and realise they’re going round in circles. Eventually they spy an exit and run away.

Chamber of tortures

Make the text too small, or in a low-quality font, or all squished up together. Your pages hurt their eyes. They run away.

Assault on the senses

Use a colour scheme that’s pallid, disgusting or psychedelically confusing. They clutch their heads and run away.

Strange obsession

Talk about yourself – all the freakin’ time. They excuse themselves – then run away.

Soulless husk

They look into the eyes of your site – and no living personality looks back. It reaches towards them… and they run away.

 

Swamp creatureThe more of these you apply, the more you can be sure they’ll leave you alone to conduct your arcane experiments or dig your secret uranium mine.

“Zoinks! It was Old Man Gray all the time!”

Drat. I would have succeeded if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.

If you’d prefer to exorcise the scary bits from your site, check out the ways we could work together. 

 

Art by Culhain Games and Octavirate Entertainment.

 

7 practical tips for nervous bloggers

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This is for new or not-so-new bloggers. Do you have ideas for posts and things to say, but find actually writing them takes you out of your comfort zone?  Here are a few practical suggestions.

1. Chop the wall up to make signposts

textpage iconWhen you’re browsing, what happens if you encounter a “wall of text”? Most people will flee rather than endure that sort of reading experience. Reading needs concentration, and most people find it harder on screen. So when writing for the web it’s particularly important to break text up.

Short sentences

If you’re working on a sentence and wondering what punctuation mark to use to lead on to the next idea, the answer is often to make a full stop and start a new sentence. In a long, run-on sentence the reader is liable to lose their way somewhere in the middle, and it just feels flabby. You want it to feel punchier. That doesn’t mean it should all be short sentences, machine-gunning the poor reader. Vary their length, but don’t go too far. If you want to list a number of options or items, break the sentence down as bullet points.
[Read more…] about 7 practical tips for nervous bloggers

The importance of online dating

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The other day I gave some feedback on a blog post by a well-known provider of WordPress tools. Sticking my nose in, as is my wont, I suggested that it might be better if the blog displayed the date of posts. It turned out it was there, on the left-hand side of the main text in a funky designy way – but because I have my browser zoomed at 120% for easier reading the date was off my screen and I never saw it.

I’d say that’s bad design; presumably the company doesn’t agree. But anyway, it reminded me of one of the most common mistakes I see on web content: not putting a date on it.

You see it all over the place, from press releases to personal biographies. People say stuff like, “Last year I did…” or “Today we announced…” (which was indeed part of the aforementioned blog). That may be OK for people who follow your stuff and see the new thing pop up right then: like you, they can set it in context automatically. But stuff on the web draws in a wider audience (you hope!) and persists over time.

What about somebody who’s interested in Thing X and discovers your post about it a year later? They need some context clues to decide how to deal with it. Perhaps they get excited and tell their followers about it, only to look silly when they find out it’s old news. Will they trust you as an info source after they’ve experienced that sort of deflation?

What about somebody who reads about that thing you did “last year”? For people who spot the ambiguity that creates a sort of mental itch. Most people will just read it as the year previous to the current one – but it could be content you wrote several years ago (perhaps even a fragment that’s survived multiple revisions of the page).

Give your readers the context they need for clear understanding of what happened when. If it’s date-specific, like a project announcement, make sure time information is one of the first things the reader sees. If it’s general text, be aware of posterity and avoid ambiguous terms like “last year” – for example, “In 2012 I gained my qualification in…” won’t go out of date.

Don’t leave your content adrift on the seas of time.

 

The Radio-Controlled Message Bottle

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Cover image

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I was working on an ebook. I had to hold back on promotion while a formatting glitch was fixed, but now I’m happy to announce that The Radio-Controlled Message Bottle is available from major ebook stores!

This is the written-up version of my reflections over the last few years on writing to get a message across; how difficult that can be; and guidance on how to approach it and where not to go wrong. Some of it covers the same topics as blog posts here. People who have to write stuff for their work – pretty much everybody! – and would like to get better at it should find it particularly useful.

You can get it through Amazon Kindle store, Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, and eBookPie, with more outlets to follow, recommended price $2.99. A print version is coming soon. There is a Google+ page for the book.

I’ve you’ve liked any of the stuff you’ve read here, this is an opportunity to get more of it on the reading device of your choice!


Back cover blurb from the print edition:

The information age seems to demand ever more writing in our work and personal lives: emails, letters, reports, essays, websites, blogs, tweets, brochures, tipsheets…

But for most of us, writing to communicate isn’t our main skill. Sometimes it can be like putting your message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea, hoping your audience will see it, understand it, value it and act on it.

In a quick read with a light and humorous style, this book helps you build up the skills and mindset for clear, effective communications that make you look like you know and care what you’re doing.

It covers guiding principles; writing style and process; writing persuasively; layout and design for documents and websites; and a selection of common grammar and word use mistakes to avoid.