Here's how you can enhance your writing skills for internal communications.

Absolutely stay away from jargon and acronyms - even if people say ‘everyone’ will know what they mean. I’d stick to 1 message per article with a clear call to action. Within the first paragraph, people need to know what you need them to do and why.

Personalisation through audience segmentation can be a driver for company culture. Talking to people in the way that’s relevant to their role shows you understand what they do, their role in company goals - and stops people reading things that don’t apply to them. This builds trust. People will learn that if you’re communicating with them, it will be relevant and worth a read.

Internal comms are rarely 'one-size-fits-all' and should be tailored to the segment you're writing for. Treat them like any other form of marketing communications - segment your audience, work out what each group needs to take away and then adjust your messaging accordingly.

Sentiment is key when deciding the tone. You wouldn’t want to announce a redundancy programme (for example), in a chatty tone, even if that’s your tone of voice.

The devil is in the detail but not everyone will read it. Make use of summaries and sections like TL;DR (Too long, didn't read) to ensure everyone can easily digest the key points.

You need to attract people with the headline and first paragraph. Unless interest is piqued, who’s going to read on. For this reason, make sure the most important thing (call to action and why) is right there at the start. People will also skim read so use headlines to make text more accessible (and it seems shorter).

I would challenge myself (and my team) to do this all the time by trying to cut down the word count by 50%. While we didn't always get to the halfway point, we got closer, and our communications became more succinct.

Reading the copy out loud really helps. It slows you down and helps spot typos or a sentence that’s really long. Where possible, get someone else to read it through.

Feedback auf Texte geben und nehmen: Das ist so wichtig wie schwierig. Mal fehlt das Wissen, mal die Zeit, und mal haben wir unterschiedliche Vorstellungen davon, was einen guten Text ausmacht. Deshalb bin ich ein Fan von KI-Feedback. ChatGPT ist für mich unerlässlich als Feedbackgeber im Alltag. Zusätzlich nutze ich verschiedene KI-Assistenten für individuelles Feedback sowie Tools für Grammatik und Rechtschreibfehler. Das funktioniert super, unter einer Beddingung: Ich muss stets selbst entscheiden, ob und wie ich das Feedback verwende. ChatGPT ersetzt keine erfahrenen und fachkundigen Kollegen. Wir bleiben die "Human in the Loop", die KI als Tool einsetzen.

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good" -- sometimes getting a critical comms out sooner is better than a perfectly written comms later.