Communicate!

Helping you win loyal friends through your communications

Love Your Audience

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peasants in a tavern

Do you know what hurts me?

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he had discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant.

The rabbi was visiting the owner of a tavern in the Polish countryside. As he walked in, he saw two peasants at a table. Both were gloriously in their cups. Arms around each other, they were protesting how much each loved the other.

Suddenly Ivan said to Peter; “Peter, tell me, what hurts me?”

Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: “How do I know what hurts you?”

Ivan’s answer was swift: “If you don’t know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?”

Love your audience.  Know what hurts them.

Know what excites them, frightens them, makes them happy, makes them proud.  Know what they want and what they detest.

Love your audience and you will frame messages just for them.  They won’t read your messages if they don’t feel the love.

The Golden Rule of Nonprofit Writing

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Golden Rule

You know it and I know it: a lot of nonprofit writing is just painful to read.

We donate to our favorite causes. In return, we get newsletters full of jargon, emails full of typos, fundraising letters that sound like they’re written in French because the organization says “We, we, we.”

As people who work for nonprofits, and to ensure their success, we can and should do something about this! Make sure your organization asks itself these five tough questions:

1. Are you listening long enough before you write?

2. Do you think longer and more complicated is more impressive? (Your readers don’t!)

3. Are you writing memos when you should be telling stories?

4. Are you burying the lead? (Does the reader know from the start why he or she should read on?)

5. Are You as Good a Communicator as Shakespeare’s Fools? (Will people invite you to speak truth fearlessly to them because you leaven it with humor?)

None of us wants to cause pain to our supporters. But that means we must think what our supporters want to read! The golden rule of writing is to write unto others the way you wish they wrote unto to you.

The ABC of Social Media

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Are you just starting out with social media? Learn the ABC.

A is for Audience. You are not writing for the general public. There’s no such thing–and if there were, 99% of them aren’t the people you’re trying to reach. Identify the community you’re trying to reach, find out as much about them as you can, then tailor your social media messages to give them what they want.

B is for Blogging. Zuckerberg owns Facebook, but you own your blog. The rules won’t change, and you won’t have to start paying for what you used to get for free. Your blog establishes you as an expert in your field. It’s the key to your content marketing. And you can turn every blog post into ten posts on social media, or in your newsletter, or in the local papers.

C is for Content. Nobody has to read anything you write. Given the chance, they’ll watch cat videos instead. If you want people to look at your posts, and to look for your posts, and even to look forward to your posts, you have to give them content that serves them. It doesn’t always have to be original writing. It could be video. It could be curated from another site. What it does have to be is useful to your audience.

As the Jackson Five used to sing: ABC-Jackson 5

A B C it’s easy
It’s like counting up to 3
Sing a simple melody
That’s how easy love can be

Show your readers some love if you want them to love you in return. Start with the ABC.

Come and learn more about social media at the No Nonsense Social Media webinar tomorrow, January 21, at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Just click on the link to register!

 

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