At Wylie Communications, we believe that writers should write and that approvers should check the facts and leave the headlines alone.

At Wylie Communications, we understand that it makes you sick when nonwriters garble your beautifully constructed headlines.

At Wylie Communications, we know that you sit up at night, dreaming of ways you can go all Joffrey Baratheon on those damned approvers’ asses.

At Wylie Communications, we realize that that’s why you drink too much Chardonnay and come to work late and with a headache.

Stop we-we-ing on the reader.

It’s time to can the “At XX, we …” construction.

Why? Because it’s:

• Patronizing. At Wylie Communications, we don’t believe our insurance company really understands us.
• Formulaic. At Wylie Communications, we feel that this cliché might make us vomit.
• Off target. At Wylie Communications, we prefer that you write about us instead of about your organization and its beliefs, feelings and realizations.

What shall we write instead?

What if, instead of writing about us and our thoughts, we focused on the reader and the reader’s needs? Try this little editing trick:

At Wylie Communications, we …

You …

At Wylie Communications, we think that’s a much better approach.

What do you think?

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While news stories make up the bulk of the content on three European news sites, most of the most-shared stories are features.

Or so says Satu Vasantola, Journalist Fellow at Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

85% of the articles Helsingin Sanomat publishes are news stories, and just 15% are features. But 34% of the most shared stories were features.

Vasantola analyzed the most-shared stories from three European news sites:

• The BBC
• Helsingin Sanomat, the largest subscription newspaper in Finland
• Yleisradio, a Finnish media company

Features most shared.

Here’s what she learned:

• Features were the most shared articles at Helsingin Sanomat. 34% of the most-shared stories were features. But 85% of the articles the newspaper publishes are news stories, and just 15% are features.
• News articles and videos were the most shared at the BBC. 23% of the most-shared pieces were feature articles.
• Features were the most-shared Yleisradio pieces. 55% of the most-shared pieces were features.

Want to get shared more often? Vasantola suggests that you write stories that:

• Combine personal angles with national or international perspectives. People want stories about individuals as well as facts and statistics.
• Evoke feelings — especially positive ones. “Pure facts and figures are not enough; people want the facts to be served with emotions and stories of individuals, but stories that cleverly combine (inter)national and personal details,” Vasantola says.
• Make it relevant. Touch on everyday topics such as health, children and money.

“Interesting,” Vasantola writes, “is the new important.”

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Source: Satu Vasantola, “Do you think it is sex? You are wrong! This is what people share most on social media,” Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2014-2015

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There is one great thing about the inverted pyramid lead.

“The only benefit of the inverted pyramid lead was that it put a lot of valuable information high in the story,” write Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, authors of Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research.

But, they say, there is a workaround: “Some papers are learning to do that with more effective heads and deck[s].”

That’s right: Lift your key ideas off the page with display copy.

Six places to put your key messages

Garcia and Stark recommend that you embed your most important information in:

• A main head
• A deck to expand the head
• Color-coded summaries of the three parts or modules of the story
• Subheads and summaries at each module
• A numbering system where appropriate
• A closing box of more information

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Source: Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark, Eyes On the News: The Poynter Institute Color Research, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 1991

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If I told you there was a communication tool that reduces readership, diminishes understanding and causes engagement to take a nosedive, would you use it?

Friends, there is such a tool, and I am afraid you are using it every day. It’s called the inverted pyramid. And, according to “Ways With Words,” a classic study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors, it does “not work well with readers.”

The problem with the pyramid

“Ways With Words” researchers studied four story structures and found that traditional, inverted-pyramid stories:

• “Do not work well with readers,” and “did not justify their predominance in today’s newspapers.”
• Scored low in readership and understanding.
• Made a mediocre showing in “involvement,” or whether the story made readers care about the news. (In our business, we call this “engagement.”)
• Were the least effective at getting the reader to the jump of all story forms studied.

Researchers identified two problems with the inverted pyramid:

• “The story gets more boring as the reader reads down.”
• “Journalists put background and context in the second half of the pyramid, so the reader who does not know that background cannot understand the top of the story. As a result, only journalists and sources can fully understand inverted-pyramid stories.”

Why are we still using this thing?

Back away from the pyramid.

Instead of sticking with a story form that’s been proven in the lab not to work, you’d think writers would experiment with other story structures. But, the researchers lamented:

Amen.

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Trust saw some big changes in 2011:

• Trust in credentialed experts (70%) and company technical specialists (64%) is on the rise. It’s the “Authority Rule” of persuasion.
• Trust in “a person like myself” and regular employees has declined, possibly because of “over-friending.”
• People need to hear messages three to five times to change behavior.
• To stand out and build trust, communicators need to communicate across several spheres of media.

Or so says the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual study of global opinion leaders.

Trust me.

People are most likely to trust:

• Credentialed experts — 70%, up 8% over 2011
• Company technical specialists — 64%

They’re least likely to trust regular employees, who are down to 34% from 42% in 2006.

Bottom line: Identify your internal experts
and showcase their expertise in your marketing materials.

Breach of trust

“Over the last several years there’s been a decline in trust in ‘a person like myself,'” writes Steve Rubel, senior vice president and director of insights for Edelman Digital.

Some 47% said they trust this group, which is down from 68% in 2006.

Why?

“I believe the reason for this is that, as more of us join social networks, there’s been a devaluation in the entire concept of ‘friendship,'” Rubel writes. “A separate survey found that people don’t know 20 percent of their Facebook friends. Consider that ‘unfriend’ was Oxford’s word of the year for 2009.”

Bottom line: Don’t rely on individual employees
or “a person like me” to make your case.

Break through the clutter.

People need to hear things three to five times from three to five sources before it sinks in, Edelman’s data shows. In the most developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, that number is even higher — a staggering nine times or more.

Bottom line: Get the word out with multiple impressions.

Communicate across the cloverlead.

Repeat your message across multiple media formats — mainstream, new, owned and social — to get heard, the Edelman study suggests.

And don’t rely on advertising to get the job done: It’s the least trusted form of communication, according to the study.

Bottom line: Communicate across diverse media sources to be heard.

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Source: Steve Rubel, “A Devaluation Of ‘Friends’ May Be Driving Trust In Thought Leaders,” Steve Rubel blog, 2011

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