The 8 qualities of a great social media headline (aka being araceous)

Barack Obama’s recent re-election has once again highlighted his team’s stunning use of social media. Neat, soundbite tweets such as ‘This seat’s taken’ and ‘Four more years’ have grabbed our attention – and the media’s, too. (‘Four more years’ was the most retweeted tweet since Twitter began.)

It’s worth spending a bit of time working on your headlines and tweets. Research suggests that there is no better way of increasing the effectiveness of your digital writing than looking at what works and then using what you’ve seen. There is – sadly - no substitute for hard graft...
 
But the good news is that a strong, short headline can be used in a variety of media - on Facebook, in a blog, as a tweet - and sometimes also as a call to action within an email or webpage. So, given that you can use it more than once, spending some time making it as good as possible is well worth your while.

I was preparing a workshop about writing brief messages and wanted to see if there was something that the most successful examples of social media headlines, tweets and calls to action had in common. And I came to the conclusion that they do, they have 8 common qualities. I’ve dubbed this 'being araceous', because ‘araceous’ means ‘of the arum (lily) family’ - and is, therefore, the epitome of simple elegance, which is what we're aiming at with this sort of short, focused writing.

Here’s what araceous stands for:

•    Action-orientated
•    Relevant
•    Authentic
•    Clear
•    Explaining the benefits
•    On message
•    Urgent
•    Specific & short

Make sure your headline or tweet or call to action has these 8 qualities and the result will be more elegant and effective. And if you want to know about this in more detail, you’ll have to book the workshop!

Read more

•    http://personalweb.about.com/od/tweettips/a/Writing-Good-Tweets.htm
•    http://www.copyblogger.com/why-some-people-almost-always-write-great-post-titles/
•    http://blog.hubspot.com/Portals/249/docs/ebooks/how_to_create_effective_ctas_april.pdf

The Power of We: It really does take all of us

Today is Blog Action Day (#BAD12). And I’ve signed up to blog alongside thousands of other people across the world on the subject of The Power of We. It’s an obvious topic for the internet - but no less good for that.

We all know that the internet has transformed how much of a voice we have in today’s world – and how that gives us a kind of power that we could only previously have dreamed of.

But what I want to write about is something a bit more prosaic and practical. And since this blog is usually in the business of giving practical advice/information to people who work digitally in the not for profit world (the sort of thing I would have found useful when I ran a charity’s website), that’s how I’d like to look at this subject.

When I think about what makes us more powerful when we work together, what I’m struck by is something that I see regularly in different organisations. It’s the need for everyone in an organisation to take the internet on board. For everyone to include the internet in their plans. For everyone to think about whether a web page or a blog (or an email or a tweet or whatever else...) could help them get their message across more effectively. Fundraisers, campaigners, press or information officers, no matter who. The internet can make a real difference no matter what we do, especially if we plan to use it right from the start of a project  or campaign.

I’m constantly reminded that a digital officer (or, if you’re really lucky, a digital team), no matter how skilful and talented, just can’t do it by themselves. If digital is treated as an add-on or an afterthought, there’s no way it can be really effective.   

Studies show that for digital tools to be most effective, they need to be led from the top – and that makes it far more likely that they will be embedded right across the organisation. Organisations with a digital strategy in place are far more likely to use digital tools well - and to reap the rewards.

It doesn’t take just one or two, it really does take all of us.

Read more

Charities’ use of the internet – Current activities and future opportunities by Dr Eleanor Burt and Professor John Taylor for the Nominet Trust:
http://www.nominettrust.org.uk/sites/default/files/NT%20SoA%203%20-%20Charities%20use%20of%20the%20internet.pdf

Why do we bother?

Back at work after the summer, I find myself in need of some reassurance that there is still work to be done, helping the not for profit sector with digital development. 

So I take a look to see the latest figures on how strongly the UK has bought into digital media. And I'm astonished by what I find:

• 51.4 million of the UK's population of 62.3 million are now internet users. In 2007 the figure was 38.5 million, so it's definitely still rising - and pretty fast.

The media paints social media as being predominantly a young person's game but the stats tell a different story. Of the UK's 48.6 million adults, an astonishingly high number use social media:

• 37.4million adults use Facebook regularly
• More than half of the UK’s pensioners are now on Facebook
• 32.1 million adults use YouTube regularly
• 15.5 million adults are on Twitter
•  7.9 million adults are on LinkedIn
•  6.7 million adults are on Flickr. 

The other noteworthy development is how much the use of mobile devices has increased. 39% of adults in the UK now own a smartphone. And 42% of these smartphone users use the phones as their primary point of internet access (for web, social media and email). This growth is incredibly rapid: in the 18 months to January 2012, the volume of data consumed by mobile devices in the UK doubled. This is clearly the space to watch. 

And I feel duly reassured that there is plenty still to do.

Read more about this for yourself:

• http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/uk.htm
• http://digital-fingerprint.co.uk/2012/01/social-media-in-the-uk-statistics/
• http://digital-stats.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/data-on-uk-smartphone-usage.html