4 ways to keep readers riveted

Your messages compete every day with catchy online content. That means copy must now be more clear, concise and creative to stand out.

Here are four tips for more captivating writing. Whether you’re writing for internal or external audiences, these powerful ideas will help you rivet your readers:

1. Be brief—get to the point. “Even if employees are mandated to read your content, they’ll retain more and resent the task less if you keep it as succinct as possible,” says Kelly Stone, global social media director at CompTIA.

The average social media user will scroll through 300 feet of content a day, she says. If your content constitutes six inches of that, chances are high they will breeze right by.

“The solution is to challenge yourself to a game of word golf,” says Stone. “The fewer the words, the more you and your audience win.”

One way to keep word count low is to get to your point immediately. “Add details and provide context after making your first salient point,” says Ragan Executive Editor Rob Reinalda.

For example, don’t start an article or post with a statement like: