Writing Teasers
Online writing is a paradox. You have unlimited space. Unlimited.
But readers have a lot of distractions and have become accustomed to finding more succinct, to-the-point writing.
To write well online, you must be able to get to the point in a clear and engaging manner.
You must also be able to summarize the main point of your article in one to two sentences, to try to attract readers to your audience.
Teasers
I call those summaries “teasers.” They pop up in many places:
- On the homepage of your website. (Here and here)
- In an e-mail newsletter. (Here and here)
- In a Facebook post. (Here and here.)
- And in Twitter posts.
The Hartford Courant (“sharelines”) and many other news sites have started crafting short, to-the-point tweets to accompany stories. It is becoming part of the job. You’ll need to be able to summarize, in a straightforward way, the most important point from your story.
Elements of a good teaser
Delayed leads might work for some online news articles, but they don’t work for teasers.
A teaser has to draw a person in — and give them a good idea of what to expect from an article.
A cheap way to do this is by asking a question — but remember what you learned in JRN 201. Starting an article with a question is a No-No.
Likewise, writing a teaser in the form of a question should be avoided.
(See @HuffPoSpoilers on Twitter for a funny response to the cliff-hanger teasers Huffington Post often uses.)
Lots of people are now writing different teasers for the web and for social media. The idea is that different phrases make something more “sharable,” while on the homepage of your website you want people to click.
The difference might be subtle, like these two BuzzFeed Books teasers.
Or it could be more distinct, like the examples in this slideshow.
The following are some good examples of teasers in action:
Just because you’re giving a clear example of what to expect doesn’t mean you can’t have an element of surprise. The following tweet does a good job at this.
