Don’t just repost content from one platform to another

Recently I was asked to type up my notes from a workshop I’d given into a chapter format for inclusion in a book. “Oh, this will be quick,” I thought.  “Everything is there. I just need to delete some bullet points and fill out the sentences.” Off I went to a café and opened up my laptop. An hour later I’d hardly progressed past the first page. It should have been obvious to me, since I’ve been in communications for so long, but I guess I’d forgotten how much the medium we use impacts the way we communicate our message. 

What you unlock when you change your message for the medium-sarah sambles

Now, it could be that time had passed and I did the typical revising thing we writers do of wanting to tweak what I’d said. It could be that we just talk differently to how we write (though I think it’s perfectly possible to have a ‘conversational’ writing style). Or maybe there were words missing from the page which I’d naturally filled in as I spoke. Whatever the case, I found myself wanting to change a lot, both in terms of order as well as content and style.

The communications theorist, Marshall McLuhan, claimed that ‘the medium is the message’ (though there’s a funny story about a typo in the title of his book).

His theory was that the way we send and receive information is more important than the message itself. Or, put another way, the medium through which a message is experienced shapes the user’s perception of the message.

We could debate whether the medium actually IS the message, or whether it just impacts it, but you try typing up speaking notes verbatim and you’ll find it doesn’t translate well. Or vice versa: If you’ve watched someone read their notes word-for-word in front of an audience, you know what I’m talking about.

Consider your medium

So, just as I urge you to consider your audience when you craft marketing messages, you also need to consider your medium. You’ll unlock considerably more impact when you do. Here are some prompts to help you tailor your message to your medium, whether it’s a webpage, blog post, social media post or an author profile.

  • What have people come for? What are they expecting? Information, education, entertainment … it significantly changes how you communicate. You also need to consider what’s the norm – to an extent – for that particular medium. If you depart too far from it, people will be confused or worse, frustrated.
  • What do I want people to do? While you might not make this obvious at the top of your content, this will impact how you choose to communicate. Ideally, you want some kind of ‘call to action’, which is a fancy way of saying an invitation to your audience to do something with the information you’re giving them. You might want them to respond and share, to contact you, to buy a book, sign up to an event, or get more information. Clarifying this ahead of time will subconsciously impact what and how you communicate. Then, when you edit your piece, you can more intentionally check that you’re encouraging your audienceto take the action you want them to take.

It comes down to structure and content more than tone or voice. As I said, you can have a conversational style in the written word. In fact, that can be a brand choice: Whether to be informal, conversational, educational, irreverent, formal etc. The elements that will most likely change from medium to medium include:

  • Length
  • Formatting
  • Visuals
  • Content

OK, let’s put some skin on this skeleton. How does this actually work with some different mediums?

A webpage

  • You have to think carefully about length and layout. Visitors will easily see what’s ‘above the fold’ but won’t necessarily scroll down to read more unless those first impressions say ‘I get you, my message is for you, here’s something for you’.
  • You have the option to include visuals, unlike some mediums. For authors, a professional picture of you is gold. It makes you relatable and can go a long way to conveying your brand attributes.
  • This is a one-way conversation so while you’ll include a call-to-action on each webpage, you can’t expect responses. Not really.
  • Think about navigation. I don’t know about you, but I don’t typically spend long on a single webpage, unless it’s a long article that I’m seriously interested in. So, on several of your webpages (especially the home page) you’ll be pointing people somewhere else. That’s OK, that doesn’t mean the webpage is redundant. Read my interview with communications strategist, Kristen Vanderhoek, about how your home page is like the foyer of your home.

Social media posts

  • Length is an obvious consideration here. With Twitter you’re literally limited to 280 characters but even with Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, you have to be pretty snappy.
  • You can be more personal, and I would encourage you to be. Of course, you need to decide how much you want to share – personal doesn’t have to mean vulnerable – but readers genuinely love to hear the ins and outs of the writing process.
  • Ask questions. Your ‘call-to-action’ with a social media post is likely to be conversational, apart from those times you’re sharing a blog post, podcast, or other resource (which shouldn’t be all the time!) The secret is in the name: Social. This is a great place to ask readers and fellow writers to join a conversation topic that interests you.
  • Consider the platform. As I intimated above, each social media platform has its own set of users, expectations and norms. I find Twitter more political than Instagram, LinkedIn more professional. This is one reason why automatic posts and re-posting from one platform to another might not work. It feels painstaking to re-write every post for each platform, but it’s worth it in the end.

Blog posts

Your post might be a how-to, a template, your opinion, an interview or a personal story. Each type invites a slightly different layout and style. While I said this isn’t all to do with tone and voice, here’s an exception. With a personal story you might choose to adopt a more conversational tone, whereas you might want a more formal tone for a how-to. If you’re doing a more in-depth, journalistic-type article, you’ll want links and references. Whatever style you pick, you do want to make sure you use formatting to make your piece easy on the eye. Use:

  • Headers
  • Bullets
  • Paragraph breaks
  • Quotations
  • Bold & italics

Think of formatting as arrows on a map. You’re showing the reader where to pay attention. If you use formatting well, even a reader who is skim reading will hone in on the important elements.

So, whether you’re preparing for a book event or writing your home page, remember that you will unlock more impact when you tailor your message to your medium. And the opposite is true too, of course. Make sure you pick the best medium for your message.

Would you like help compiling or editing copy for your website or author page? Contact me, I’d love to help.