Editing Key Messages

I've written in this blog, in the past, that editing seems to be the dominant aspect of 2nd-year CreComm for me. This trend continued yesterday in Public Relations class. We spent the afternoon working on developing key messages.

Key Messages are essentially what you want your audience to identify with your company, brand, organization, campaign, etc. They need to convince an audience that there is "something in it for them." Good key messages emphasize the organizations objectives, while explaining why audiences should care. They should be roughly 5-7 seconds in length, when read. This is the perfect length for a broadcast sound byte.

Now here is where editing comes into play. Key messages must be comprised of every day words, with a conversational tone. They must be written and delivered in a positive manner. Because the message needs to be short, every word needs to be hard hitting and make an impact with the audience. Good editing is essential to crafting key messages.

We sat down in class yesterday and attempted to hammer out key messages for a fictitious Red River College initiative. It was tough. People don't natural write in a conversational manner. My first draft came out extremely wooden. Then there were extraneous, filler words. These needed to be removed and sentences needed to be tightened up. After 45 minutes of work, and draft after draft of the key message, we were able to each come up with a fairly succinct, informative message for the college.

This wasn't bad for timing. I had the opportunity to work on some key messages at my summer job. I spent a full afternoon editing and re-editing, until I managed to have concise key messages.

Vigilant editing is essential to the public relations industry. It's always better to get your message across as succinctly as you can, so they can have the greatest impact with your audience.