Other support for creating social media content
Words and phrases to watch
- “Blog post” instead of “blog” (unless referring to the blog itself and not a blog post within).
- Do not begin a tweet with “Today” – we often publish content on more than one release, and beginning this way implies this is the only thing we’ve published.
- Avoid writing full bulletin titles; write out the description instead.
- Do not waste characters by writing the statistics two ways, for example, “Almost half (48%) of people…”.
- Do not write “Between 6 to 10 June”. It should be “between 6 and 10 June” or “from 6 to 10 June”.
Helpful tools for writing social media
- The reading age tools in Microsoft Word may help when drafting content for social media.
- Hemingway – make sure not to input any sensitive or pre-publication data and aim for Grade 9 (plain English reading level).
- Collins COBUILD dictionary word frequency tool – search words in the dictionary to find out the word frequency rating.
- The A to Z of alternative plain English words – you can search words or phrases, or browse through the A-to-Z pages, and find plain English alternative words to use.