Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Narrative vs. Actionable Content

As a writer for both print and Web (who isn’t?) I’ve leaned to bring a different mindset to each medium. On the page, I take the reader with me on a journey by constructing active sentences that blend smoothly into enjoyable paragraphs that build a compelling narrative. But the Web requires a different mindset. I try to be aware of where the reader came from and where he/she might want to go at any point in my content. As part of this informative article, Jacob Nielson provides the best summary I’ve seen on the differences between writing for print vs. Web:

Linear vs. non-linear.
Author-driven vs. reader-driven.
Storytelling vs. ruthless pursuit of actionable content.
Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data.
Sentences vs. fragments.

1 comment:

Jonathan Kidder said...

It's good to create content that is actionable to the audience that you want to target. Very nice summary of your thoughts.

Here's another relevant thought: http://priorityresults.com/blog/dan-blank-making-custom-content-marketing-actionable/