Writing They'll Never Read: WebTalk 201

Church Communicators,

To blog or not to blog: is that your question? :)

Perhaps you've elected for an e-newsletter over print and need to find a starting point? Or delivering quality web content has become a dilemma? If you'd raise your hand on any of the above...

Welcome to the world of web writing.

It's an arbitrary world of conventions, applied to intangibles with a short shelf-life. Which explains the lack of journalistic practices...which leads to a lot of writing that doesn't get read.

Which is the reason for this WebTalk.

If you or your pastor are staking out new blogging or e-news territory, or have never applied a process to your church's cyber-communications, here's a brief on:

How to Write So They'll Read It

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1: Know your audience (and how to reach them).
Blogs, e-newsletters and web stories each hit different rings of the demographic bull's eye, and most web providers have features that accomplish their basic functions.

Learn yours, then define your target readers for each vehicle, then determine calendars and contents. As you assess your writing investments, consider:

• Is this for congregants, or those outside, or both?
• Viewable online, or to land in an inbox?
• RSS-enabled, or pushed through a distribution list?
• Who will author and who will edit? Who will manage the admin?
• How often will it be posted or published? What would best serve the recipients?
  

2: Know your purpose.
Our purpose in every piece is to inform, inspire and instill. To adopt it as yours, coach your team to...

• Inform: Write about what really matters.
  Of course cover sundries and events, but don't be limited to them--ministry news and personal stories are all around. Keep track of what's important and worthy, and shout it from the housetop!
  
  
• Inspire: Let Scripture breathe verticality into your posts.
  Every story is ultimately a God-story...but not everyone will see that. A reflection on Sunday's sermon = obvious. Promoting a parking lot redirection = less so. Look for opportunities to reveal the greater narrative and help connect the vertical dots, and without over-spiritualizing, seize them.
  
  
• Instill: Find angles that reinforce core values and your church's DNA.
  Every Harvest Bible Chapel has four Pillars. Worship, Walk with, Work for Christ. Life-transformation through small groups. Contemporary worship without compromise. Quality discipleship, not a quantity of disciples...

3: Know your voice.
For solo writers and projects, this one's easy. But if you're writing for yourself and ghosting for your pastor, and/or speaking generically for your church, it can be a challenge--and becomes more complex with a writing team.

If your church's online presence waffles between vibrant first person and corporately-bland third, or your team needs some unifying direction, it's time to develop a writing style guide.

Identify the "vocal" qualities, and the categories and types of articles you're after. Include editing and formatting guidelines.

Identify the following:

• Are you aiming for a collective voice or individual expression, or both? Whichever your aim, defining it will increase your effectiveness.


• What tone do you want to convey? Avoid sounding too casual or elitist; keep the "dude" and über-scholastic references to a minimum. Extremes on both ends lose readers.

• What buckets do your pieces fall into? Identifying the category and article type will help streamline the writing.

Most God-stories start out as events, updates, testimonies, or teaching (categories), then become fillers, 150wc; shorts, 200-300wc; or features, 500-600wc (article types). If you're managing a team, clarify your categories and types, and find strong examples of each.

• Are you writing with reader gender in mind? It's worth noting that a succinct, authoritative voice is received more favorably by both men and women than a descriptive, explanatory one.

Include formatting basics:

• visual design principles: contrast, alignment, proximity, repetition
• bullet item lists (as opposed to paragraph form)
• bold selectively; italics rarely; underline never
• Scripture texts: generally italicize; only use quotes if someone is speaking
• Scripture references: very small, no brackets
• embed videos or galleries above the web fold
• capitalize ministry categories, i.e. Children’s Ministry, Worship Ministry, etc...

Gather your guidelines into a visually-friendly doc for reference and share with your team, staff, anyone with web or writing access.


4. Now write so they'll read it.
Not write what they'll read--we're not pandering to itching ears. But it pays to write for how they'll read. Most web readers are skimmers and will dismiss dense content. Short sentences, one-thought paragraphs, bulleted lists, white space, bold for emphasis, tight content--these are the keys to skim-writing.

Not convinced?

Consider how long an average visitor stays on your site. Analytics for HarvestBibleFellowship.org reveal an average of 2.44 minutes and 3.3 pages--which is relatively high.

These stats indicate 28% or less of the content per page actually gets read. Pretty deflating if you've spent hours perfecting your transient piece.

So let's raise the standard for:

• high-caliber content / high-caliber writing
• clarity, simplicity, urgency
• strong titles, opening lines
• quick, engaging answers to the who-what-where-when-why
• one-thought paragraphs
• short, active-voice sentences
• bulleted lists
• proofreading

And be ruthless about word counts. If your "feature" pieces regularly top 700, start whittling down the content. If you're new or tend to be verbose, I'd commend the 50% rule: half of any first draft could probably be deleted. Seriously.

The tighter the writing, the higher the caliber, the wider the reach...which is the whole point, right?

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Okay, so maybe this wasn’t a brief. :) Call it a “resource.”

Know your readers, know your purpose, know your voice.

And. Make. Every. Word. Count.

Making Him known with you,

About the Author Sharon Kostal oversees the Harvest Bible Fellowship website, digital media and other aspects of communication. Her delight is in spreading the word of God's work in our world today, encouraging Harvest church plants and pastors, and helping to further the reach of their ministries.