The title of this article consists of 51 characters. That’s short enough to post on Twitter, include a short comment, and add the link. Columnists like me who are trained in journalism put a lot of thought into the title because it grabs your attention, sets the tone for the rest of the article and tells you what you’ll learn. If the titles are catchy but fail to support the promise we’ll lose readers in the long run. A good headline is short, provocative, actionable, and accurately frames the discussion.
Neuroscience teaches us that headlines are important because the brain needs to see the big picture before details. That’s why every newspaper article and every blog post begins with a headline. The newspaper USA Today started “social media Tuesdays,” encouraging the staff to write headlines for the way readers now get their news—through Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms. Magazine editors spend a lot of time focusing on the cover’s “sell lines.” What’s your company’s sell line? You should have one. Every product and service should have one, too. In fact every time you deliver a pitch or a presentation you think about your headline first.
The most successful business headlines fit within the 140-character limit of a Twitter post, and they did so even before Twitter was invented! For example, in 2001 Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod as “A music player that puts 1,000 songs in your pocket.” The sentence consists of only 52 characters and is famous for being one of the most perfectly crafted pitches in business history.
Every one of your presentations should have a headline, whether you’re launching a new product, pitching a prospect, selling your idea, or simply delivering an update. Create the Twitter friendly headline before you open PowerPoint because it will help you structure the rest of the narrative—key messages, stories, examples, and data should all support and reinforce the headline. For example, in 2010 I was meeting with a famous entrepreneur to help him craft the story for an upcoming investor day. Eli Harari pioneered flash memory and the company he started, SanDisk, is a leading supplier of flash memory for digital cameras, servers, mobile devices, etc.
“What’s the one thing investors need to know?” I asked.
“The opportunity is massive. In the next ten years, the market for flash memory market is far bigger than they know,” he responded.
We decided on the headline: In the coming decade flash will be bigger than you think (56 characters).
SanDisk’s shares were trading in $25 range at the time of our meeting. It recently topped $100. Harari turned out to be correct about the future and he found a Twitter friendly way to express it concisely and accurately.
My experience with Harari taught me two valuable lessons in communication. First, your audience is looking for a headline. I noticed that analysts in the room during Harari’s presentation were actually tweeting out the headline and using the headline as the subject line in their emails to partners and clients. The Twitter friendly sentence even appeared as the actual headline in some of their blog posts. Second, Harari was right and the majority of pundits were wrong about the future of his company. This taught me that if you don’t take the time to craft your company story someone else will, and their version might not be accurate.
Your brand deserves a headline that clearly and concisely differentiates your company in the marketplace. Recently I read about a team of photographers in Northern California. The story caught my attention because, while most professional photographers are struggling to stay in business, this small business run by two women—Heidi Margocsy and Tara Baxter—is thriving. I could tell that the owners had put a lot of thought into how they position and communicate the vision behind their business, In Her Image photography.
I spoke to Heidi who calls the business, Empowerment Photography.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We counteract negative imagery of women in the world with authentic, empowering photography that makes our clients feel beautiful,” Heidi explained.
In 128 characters Heidi and Tara articulate a company headline that differentiates their business from thousands of others in their field. They created the headline even before they started the business nine years ago. The headline gave them direction, set their strategy, and communicates a benefit.
Brevity and clarity take work. In order to craft a Twitter friendly headline that actually says something specific in 140 characters, you have to give serious thought to the one thing you want to say to the world. The next time you have to sell yourself in a job interview, pitch your company, or deliver a pitch or presentation, ask yourself this one question: “What is the one thing that I want my audience to know?” If you can’t express the one thing in fewer than 140 characters, keep working on it until you find a headline that sticks.