No. 8: Bar buddy talk
Sound like a human in your startup communications.
Hey folks,
It’s been an eventful two weeks since the last newsletter.
On October 20th, around 7pm, the Nigerian military shot into a crowd of peaceful #EndSars protesters who gathered at the Lekki tollgate.
The next day, Lagos entered the second day of a strict curfew. No one went out.
At least, I had my bean stocks from Covid lockdown.
Needless to say, it’s been an unsettling time. I hope everyone in Lagos is doing okay.
I’m also thinking about my friends in Abidjan. They just held elections on Saturday which aren’t looking great.
Speaking of dicey elections, I’m staying off of Twitter today. I can’t take the suspense of Trump vs. Biden. I’ll wait to see what happens tomorrow.
Now on to the newsletter.
Talk like a human
I must confess something. I’m overly fond of big words.
My friend called me out on this recently. He’s shooting a one-minute promo clip for my business.
In the first draft of the script, I wrote: I “believe ardently in the power of storytelling.”
He scratched it out.
“No one talks like that. Except for ministers.”
He was right. I cut out ardently. In fact, I removed the whole sentence from the script.
When you edit for language, you also edit for ideas. Glad to have avoided this trope.
We think that bigger words are better. They make us sound smarter.
But, they work against us. We confuse the people with whom we’re trying to communicate. (I wrote about this in an earlier post on Wiliam Zinsser and effective writing. )
Just like in your writing, you need simplicity in your messaging.
You want all your startup communications to be simple, clear, and above all, human.
Pithy language is crucial -- whether for your website copy, marketing materials or your elevator pitch. This is doubly so in the social media era. We’re used to reading punchy phrases that get to the point.
Simplifying your comms will also force you to reexamine your business model.
Over the summer, I advised an ed-tech startup on PR and communications. They had a complicated B2B and B2C business model which muddled their comms.
When they pitched at a startup competition, they received some important feedback: people struggled to understand what they did. They couldn’t put them in a “bucket.”
Simplifying your communications will help you steer clear of this problem.
To do that, communicate as if you’re talking to your grandma, or a buddy in a bar. [The last tip comes from John Collison of Stripe.]
That’s it for this week.
I’m also giving a free PR 101 workshop later this month. Keep your eyes peeled for more details.
Stay safe and be well.
Until next time,
Victoria
Victoria Crandall | African Startups | Communications & PR Strategist | Lagos 🇳🇬