One of the first things we tell our media training clients is that they should eliminate the TLAs (three letter acronyms)- pun intended. Cut out the TLAs, techno speak and jargon and you are well on your way to getting your message delivered. 

To the point of communicating clearly, I saw a blog post, reprinted below, telling emergency workers the importance of clear communications and thought that we could all take a lesson from it in how we communicate with and deal the media.

I think this sentence from their post says it all:

“While your target audience may understand specialized language, acronyms, and regional slang it is important to remember that they will not be the only ones looking at what you create. Not communicating using common terms will limit the ability for your message to be understood by a broader audience.”

The entire post is reprinted below with permission.

Communicate In Plain English

Posted by Dave at 12 October, 2009, 6:00 am

Josh Hanagrane wrote an interesting post at CopyBlogger titled Blogging Is A Dialect: Do You Speak It? While the post is deeply involved with discussion about dialects, language, and that successful blogging = relationships, there is a simple and important point that needs to be understood and more importantly practiced.

Communicate in Social Media using “plain english”.

One of the major directives in the Incident Command System (ICS) is that responders and providers use common terminology or “plain english” in communicating with one another. This practice is meant to avoid misunderstanding while operating with providers from other agencies and possibly other geographical areas areas.

The same can be said about Social Media. While your target audience may understand specialized language, acronyms, and regional slang it is important to remember that they will not be the only ones looking at what you create. Not communicating using common terms will limit the ability for your message to be understood by a broader audience.

Try to keep your Social Media simple and uncomplicated.

 http://piosocialmediatraining.com/2009/10/communicate-in-plain-english/

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