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Give your message momentum.

Invaluable Insights

Give your message momentum.

‘Cut the Fluff’ and Make Your Content Flow

You’ve written your content piece, and it’s ready to go out. But wait. Pause before you press the ‘send’ button. Are you sure you’ve cut all the unnecessary words, sentences and paragraphs? In other words – have you cut ‘the fluff’?

In one of our previous blog posts, we talked about how to use ‘power words’ in digital marketing to make your copy flow, and how to stick to your unique brand language. We’re now onto the final stage of writing successful copy. Brace yourself. They don’t call it ‘kill your darlings’ for nothing.

Print and Highlight

We’re all short of time these days, but this seemingly lengthy process can really make a difference to your writing. Step aside from your screen and use the old-school approach of printing your content on paper and attacking it with a highlighter, circling any repetitions. For extra punch, read the copy backwards as this will make you step outside your story or message, and notice any grammatical errors. For more ideas on how to proofread your copy, see our previous blog post.

Social Media Digital Marketing Brand Marketing Strategy Brand 1, Cre8ion

Mix and match

Use varied sentence length when constructing your paragraphs, and don’t pack too much info into a single sentence. Use the ‘mix and match’ approach to help you. You could start your paragraph with a longer sentence, and gradually cut it down. Until there are. Very Few. Words. Left.

Social Media Digital Marketing Brand Marketing Strategy Brand 2, Cre8ion

Slice your paragraphs

It’s equally important to keep your paragraphs short, especially if you’re writing digital marketing content, such as blog posts or emails. In the techie age that we live in, these posts are most likely to be read on a smartphone. And we all know how much we hate long-winded chunks of text if we’re reading something on a mobile device. Our eyes get exhausted and our brain can’t cope. So spare your readers the pain of retaining too much information, and slice those paragraphs down to a 100 words or less.

Social Media Digital Marketing Brand Marketing Strategy Brand 3, Cre8ion

Use bullet points

If you do have a lot of information that you want to convey to your audience, and you don’t want them missing out on that digital content, think about breaking up the text using bullet points. We often skim-read when we read digital content. Whereas long chunks of text will distract your reader’s attention from the meaning of the words, a list or bullet points will highlight the information and draw their attention in.

Social Media Digital Marketing Brand Marketing Strategy Brand 4, Cre8ion

Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly

Do you remember this from school? If not, here’s a reminder. Adjectives describe a noun. For example, ‘this apple is sweet’ (this is the adjective) or ‘that car is red’ (that’s the adjective again).  Adverbs modify the meaning of adjectives and can express things like manner, place, time or degree. For instance, ‘this apple is (very) sweet’ or ‘that car is (shockingly) red’. While adjectives are acceptable in some cases, it’s best to adopt an almost teetotal approach to adverbs, if you want your copy to flow.

At Cre8ion, we not only have a great editorial department that can make your copy flow and speak your brand language, but also a team of web developers, producers and video makers, who can implement your brand across multiple media streams. Contact us today to find out more
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