Simple, short, and sweet. Period. The end.

Brevity is de rigueur for PR professionals, especially when it comes to pitching—both traditional journalists and bloggers. And while we’re now using social media to assist with these efforts, these tools have created an entirely new dimension of brevity.

A leader in the PR and social media world, Peter Shankman suggests that brevity is among his four “rules” for communications practitioners in effective social media engagement. If today’s average attention span is 2.7 seconds, then long gone are the days where journalists are reading much beyond your headline!

Surely strong writing helps to crack this nut. The trick is to balance brevity with clarity, as shorter may not always be better. Another challenge is to be brief without compromising captivation. It’s tough when you want to paint a full picture while filtering words that may give your pitch that “oomph” to sell in your idea.

It really boils down to basics for all communicators, not just PR practitioners. Strong writing is clear, concise, and balanced with compelling punches. Condense your idea(s) into a short but sweet message.

Well it was a valiant attempt to practice what I’m “preaching” here. My post was not quite as brief as I had intended, but hey—I’m not on Twitter now, am I?

Anyone have Twitter-esque thoughts on the importance of being brief in communications?