5 Great Ways To Tailor Complex Posts To Your Audience

This week on our #AtomicChat, we spoke to Jessica Mehring (aka @HorizonPeak) about how to write about technical or complex topics. The chat was quick paced and involved many contributors, both old and new. Here are five tips that we’ve taken from our time with @HorizonPeak that can help you fix your content in order to really connect with your readers.

1. Simplify your message

In a perfect world, you are writing to only your target audience but in reality, everyone should want to share your content. It may seem unnecessary but by simplifying your message, it becomes usable to multiple audiences in real life situations. A good rule of thumb that @HorizonPeak recommended is to write with a high schooler in mind: technically savvy enough to understand technical terms but still related to them in a simple way.

2. Make your content relatable

Use analogies or examples in order to connect with your audience. People understand more when there are real world connotations that illustrate your point. You should also try writing to one ideal reader, not to your entire audience.

3. Compose easy to read pieces

Keep your information bite-sized and use headers, lists and bold text to break up your content. Most blog readers generally skim through posts, so make it easy for them to find the important parts. If you find that you have too much information, write a series of posts that relate to your topic. Also, if you find that you’re getting too technical, don’t be afraid to attach links within your post. If your reader needs further explanation, you’ve put it right at their fingertips.

4. Use evocative language

Complex topics can become monotonous and boring to your reader when things get too technical. Take a page from the world of fiction and use emotive language within your text. You can also try to vary the length of your sentences in order to pace your reader: long sentences to slow them down and short sentences to quicken them. The idea is to leave your audience both educated and entertained.

5. Proofread!

This was @HorizonPeak’s most important piece of advice of the night and with good reason. Which one of us hasn’t written a blog post, only to later find a simple spelling or grammar mistake? It’s mortifying and can ruin the best of posts. If you aren’t good with editing, have a co-worker or friend reread it for you.

For more information, you can check out @HorizonPeak’s original blog post that inspired this week’s chat.

And that’s a wrap! If you’d like to learn more about our #AtomicChat, check out the graphic below. Don’t forget to join us every Monday at 9PM EST/8 PM CST/6PM PST. See you next week!

Writing Blogs About Technical or Complex Topics from Atomic Reach

5 Great Ways To Tailor Complex Posts To Your Audience