One of my goals since joining Intercom has been to encourage more of the talented engineers, designers, product managers and business execs that work here to write for this blog.
To de-mystify the process and hopefully make it easier for them to contribute I drew up a set of principles that inform our writing at Intercom. I’d advise any company that has more than one person writing for its blog to consider drawing up a similar guide. At the very least it’s a useful exercise to think about what you want to achieve with your writing and how you intend to do it.
Here’s an edited version of that document distilling the points that are relevant to anyone running their own blog or writing for their job.
1. SPEAK WITH AUTHORITY
2. BE YOURSELF
3. BE CLEAR AND CONCISE
4. PRESENT YOUR IDEAS VISUALLY
5. FOCUS ON QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
6. WRITE INTRIGUING HEADINGS AND HEADLINES
7. PUNCTUATION MATTERS
8. ENGAGE WITH YOUR READERS
