{"id":5230,"date":"2019-12-02T06:46:45","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T14:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=5230"},"modified":"2019-12-02T06:44:39","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T14:44:39","slug":"how-long-should-text-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2019\/12\/how-long-should-text-be\/","title":{"rendered":"How long should text be to communicate effectively?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/wizard.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1920\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>How long should a web page be?<\/li><li>How long should text on a brochure page be?<\/li><li>How long should a press release be?<\/li><li>How long should a blog be?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I get these questions fairly often from nonprofits, NGOs, charities and small government offices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tweets have a text limit. Facebook posts have a limit on the amount of text you can post that will be seen in your timeline at a glance, without someone having to click &#8220;more.&#8221; But other communications products, in print and online, don&#8217;t have such strict character limits. So, how long should they be when it comes to their text?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of communications professionals will tell you to make web page text, blogs, brochure text, etc., no longer than what would fit into a social media post. I am NOT one of those communications professionals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m hearing people say, &#8220;People don&#8217;t read. Don&#8217;t write long bodies of text EVER, especially online.&#8221; I am NOT one of those people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have different learning styles: some prefer learning by engaging in an activity, some prefer learning by listening, some prefer to learn by watching, and some prefer to learn by reading. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have different reading styles as well, even just online: some prefer reading short bits of text and seeing some short videos. But some do still like prefer &#8211; and WANT &#8211; to read comprehensive text, even if it&#8217;s &#8220;long.&#8221; <strong>What is great about a website is that your organization can easily cater to both of those groups<\/strong>: you can have a web page with introductory, summary, &#8220;catchy&#8221; text, or a video that&#8217;s just a minute long and gives the overview you think certain groups want, but that page or video can then link to the more in-depth information for all those many other people that want more information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s worth noting that some people may want a bit of information today, but may come back later for more in-depth information. People rarely stay in exactly the same categories when it comes to how they want to access or consume information.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s also worth noting that by having in-depth information on your website, you create the messaging that everyone on your staff can refer back to, and that better ensures everyone is saying the same thing &#8211; that everyone is &#8220;staying on message.&#8221; It means your Executive Director, your receptionist, members of your board, volunteers &#8211; EVERYONE &#8211; can find the exact wording to describe absolutely everything about your program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Catering to just one group of people when you are trying to communicate a message is a mistake. Don&#8217;t let any communications consultant or marketing manager pressure your organization into creating communications products only for the people that supposedly don&#8217;t like to read. <strong>Don&#8217;t be convinced that you can eliminate all of your long-form communications &#8211; you absolutely still need those. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" src=\"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/donate_icon_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4685\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/\">my web site<\/a>&nbsp;and would like to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/me\/payme.shtml\">support<\/a>&nbsp;the time that went into&nbsp;researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work),&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.coyotebroad.com\/me\/payme.shtml\"><strong>here is how you can help<\/strong><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How long should a web page be? How long should text on a brochure page be? How long should a press release be? How long should a blog be? I get these questions fairly often from nonprofits, NGOs, charities and small government offices. Tweets have a text limit. Facebook posts have a limit on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[98,294,346,943,394],"class_list":["post-5230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-relationsoutreach","tag-communications","tag-marketing","tag-outreach","tag-public-relations","tag-publicity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3fFJB-1mm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5230"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5253,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5230\/revisions\/5253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}