How to Make a Powerful Digital First Impression? Start from Good Writing

There’s no way we can escape dealing with words, even if your job is not in the editorial and content creation domain. From writing emails and proposals to preparing for a speech, writing is a key component to all these tasks. Being able to do it well will boost your professional image and give glimpses of your organisational and communication skills — especially during the age where everyone is making their first impressions virtually.

I am by no means entirely comfortable writing an article about how to write better. But as a matter of fact, I’ve spent a huge chunk of my professional life dealing with words: writing magazine features, TV and radio scripts, online articles, video content, social media posts and editing all of them for reporters and content professionals.

From years of “wordsmithing” for different mediums professionally, I realised being able to write is not a skill that we are naturally born with and there are many people who do struggle with it. With that, I decided to share some (tried and tested) tips I learnt over the years.

Don’t overthink

Imposter syndrome is real, even in writing. Many people tend to think using big words will make them sound smarter, but they often end up misusing the terms or creating a clumsy word dump of unnecessary words that do not mean anything. Less is more. I repeat, less is more. Ineffective communication means writing a 1000-word essay to convey a message that can be explained with just one sentence. The last thing you want to do is wasting people’s time and hurting productivity.

Good grammar

Writing a copy with good grammar is just as important as maintaining good personal hygiene and a tidy appearance. There are tools such as the spell check function of most word processors and softwares that provide digital writing assistance. And if you still somehow end up with a copy full of errors, it just makes you come off as lazy and unprofessional.

Write for your audience

When no one knows what you are talking about, all the hours that went into crafting the copy will go to waste. It is important to understand your audience well, and don’t assume people just know what you are talking about without properly articulating the message or information you are trying to deliver. Other than yourself and your editor, no one will re-read an ambiguous sentence 10 times just to understand it — unless it was written by Stephen Hawking.

Everyone makes mistakes, so does your editor

As much as your editor is considered a trusted pair of eyes for the copies you turn in, it is always good to help your editor out and check through the edited copy one last time before considering the assignment done. While editors are professionally tasked to spot mistakes and fact check everything, they could be looking at more than 10 copies a day and factors such as stress and hunger could lead them to underperform sometimes. Just like anyone else, editors are not immune to making mistakes. And it does not matter who made the mistake, a mistake is a mistake.

Not to mention the writers of the articles should often be the ones with the most knowledge about the data and sources quoted, and how they should be presented to make the copies impactful. So next time after you receive an edited copy, check through it once more. Don’t be lazy, and don’t let mindless mistakes spoil your hard work.

ROL

READ OUT LOUD. A simple habit that makes a huge difference but many people just won’t give it a try. When you are writing an article or even just a sentence, read it out loud after you finish writing it and check if it sounds right. Is it so wordy that you are running out of breath? Are you not able to say the word because it is actually misspelt? From my experience, 90% of the errors can be immediately spotted when we read our writing out loud.

How does it look?

After figuring out how it sounds, check if the copy looks wordy or oddly formatted. Think from the point of view of your audience, will they find the copy hard to read? You can decide whether a copy is well written just by looking at it, from a visual perspective.

Many think writing just means the process of churning out words. But with us living in a completely online age, writing no longer just means texting and writing an email. Words, images, animation, emojis and all become one package. And what does that mean? It means to write compelling content, you literally have to write something that LOOKS good.

Make them (and yourself) care

A lot of people tend to think writing is all about themselves: showing off what they know and think people care about their thoughts without making them more “readable”. If you want your article to generate the most impact, the first thing you need to do is not compile a sheet of what you know or what you want to say but to research and understand who your audience is. Identifying a targeted group of audience will help you narrow the focus of your writing and write according to your audience’s knowledge and interests. No one is interested in reading a 10-page document that lists out everything that you know or did, write smart.

Finally, it comes down to how much you care. If you do not care about your work in general or how you are represented professionally, you are not going to be able to spot any mistakes in your copy. A couple final tips: Use credible sources to support your writing, and present your facts and figures in a clear and precise manner. Until next time. Cheerio.