One of the best books ever written on business news feature writing, The Art and Craft of Feature Writing, by William Blundell, offers a lot of tips and ideas, many of which are perfect for the corporate blogger. This book was first suggested to me as an introductory text by an experienced journalist friend. He was right to recommend it. I re-read this book every so often to remind myself of its vital lessons.
One of the best mental tricks to finding new ways to make blogs, social media posts, press releases – even annual reports – more engaging is Blundell’s chapter on Story Dimensions. He points to three: Time; Scope; Variety; and Movement. What do these dimensions mean?
Time
A new product, service, or a milestone in a company’s development can be illuminated by what happened in the past. In the case of a new product, what led to its development – why was it necessary to make changes? What do the developers of a new product anticipate about its future? By adding a time dimension to questions around a new release, copywriters can uncover a story that exists beyond what’s happening here and now.
Scope
Where does a new product or service have an impact? In all regions or just some? In all sectors or just a few specific ones? How much of an impact will some development in our business have? Can we measure it? These questions are related to the scope of some event that we wish to publicise. By putting some thought into questions such as this, a simple post can achieve a greater impact.
Variety
There are a variety of ways to “prove” your case in marketing communications. A happy customer, a flattering statistic, or a good quote can all go to show what a great new product you have. Mix them up; don’t just hit people with statistics. A quote backed by a statistic is more engaging than two quotes strung together. Also, look for different points of view. Of course, a CEO will say that he or she is proud of a new widget. What about the factory worker that built the new widget?
Movement
A business blog may not have the kind of story development that a real news story would have – an event, followed by a reaction, and then a countervailing event – but it can have a sense of movement by shifting the writing between abstract statements and concrete examples. A statement of general fact followed by a detailed description of what that fact entails can help enliven a blog post or press release.
These are just a few ideas, but used well they can help turn relatively bland prose into something more intriguing for the audience.
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