Blog Posts and Song Lyrics – the Memorable Ones are Understandable

Lyrics are poems meant to be heard and understood in real time, says lyricist Sean Hartley.  “A song lyric that needs to be studied to be understood has failed. Most lyricists strive to be simple and clear,” he adds, “to express the feelings of the heart and the head in a way that is effortless, original and succinct.”

“Over the Rainbow”, “Moon River”, and “Summertime” are good examples, Hartley says. Those songwriters used vivid, colorful language, not for the sake of sophistication, but to be more easily memorable and understandable.

I think business blog writers’ “best practices” should incorporate the same simplicity principle.  After all, social networking is a form of conversation, and, to use Hartley’s expression, if we want to do business, we need to be heard and understood in real time.

Keeping blog content relevant to the topic and up to date with what’s happening in the field – and in the news – is one courtesy we can extend to our readers. Going light on jargon and technical terms without “dumbing down” the material shows respect for  readers’ intellect – and for their time.

A Readability Index Calculator can tell you how you’re doing on simplicity. The most-used calculator is the Flesch-Kincaid, which tells you what grade in school a person would need to have reached to be able to understand your content. At Say It For You, we aim for different levels readability depending on the target audience for each client’s business or professional practice.

For any document to be easily understood, as juicystudio.com points out, the writing style should be clear and simple, direct, and familiar to the intended reader. But layout and design are also important factors in the readability of a document, juicystudio.com continues. As a corporate blogging trainer, I couldn’t agree more. Having a simple navigation path on the blog site is essential, so that viewers don’t have to play hide-and-seek to connect to your website, contact you, or get more information.

Whether it’s business blog posts or song lyrics – the memorable ones are the ones most easily understood!