A prospect asked me to look at his blog and see if his post would make for a good press release.

I turned on my iPhone, went to his mobile site and quickly found the post.

His press release was well written, but it seemed to take forever to get to the point – and I told him so.

I agreed to rewrite it so the key points would be higher.

When I sat down to do the work, I copied the post into Word and was shocked at what I saw.

  1. He made his point quickly.
  2. The post was only 364 words.
  3. It looked and read fine.

What was the difference?

The first read was on a small iPhone, while the second read was on a regular laptop with a 12-inch screen.

Perceptions shape reality.

For an iPhone, the post was long. I scrolled and scrolled to read it all.

But on a normal screen, it was fine.

No scrolling.

He also included a large piece of artwork in the middle of the post.

That might have led me to think the post was longer than it actually was.

I think this point can’t be made too strongly:

People’s attention spans on small, mobile devices will be less than on a larger screen.

Therefore, you have to write for the screen you think your target audience will read.

In today’s world of short messages and shorter attention spans, I don’t think you can write short enough.

I’ll stop here before I lose you.

Just know I’m here to help with press release writing, editing, and distribution.