Do you want to know what top airlines are doing to tackle their carbon footprint? Or maybe you’re looking to challenge how big businesses are run? With Tumelo’s platform, you can use your shareholder voice to get answers.
Our new feature lets you ask a company your own question via your pension provider. Then, we’ll ask other platform users to support their favourite question and your pension provider will ask the company for a response.
To make sure your question gets the most support on Tumelo’s platform we’ve got a few tips and tricks for writing an engaging question.
1. The question title
Perhaps the most crucial part of your submission is the question itself. This is the first thing a user will see — it’s the hook that makes them want to read on. Think about it like a newspaper. If the front-page headline doesn’t grab your attention, you’re not going to pick up a copy. So make your question title stand out and make it clear.
- State the company the question is aimed at e.g. Twitter or Shell
- State what you’re asking the company about or for e.g. a report on x or y
- Keep your language simple and jargon-free. Your question might be about ‘remuneration’ but talking about ‘executive pay’ could help make your question more accessible. Remember, you need the community to support your question to make sure it gets asked.
- Make it impactful and memorable — short, snappy and to the point.
2. The question description
When users click on your question they’ll want to find out more before choosing to support it. Make sure there’s a balanced description that clearly explains:
- What you’re looking to find out
- Why it’s important
- What’s being done about the issue right now at the company you’re talking about
- What isn’t being done about this issue
We like to write question descriptions in two halves:
- The shareholder perspective (the person asking the question). This is their opportunity to explain the what and why.
- The company perspective. This is where we outline what the company are already doing about the issue being discussed.
And again, keep the whole thing simple. Jargon won’t help make your argument more compelling. And neither will an essay. When thinking about the length of your description we reckon the length of a good book blurb is about right for each half.
3. Sources give weight to what you’re asking
Here at Tumelo, we do our best to provide information that is fair and balanced. Our content writing team work hard to remove bias by using facts we can verify. That way, when users make a decision to place their vote preference, one way or the other, they’ve made that decision based on fair information. Our users have made an informed choice.
So think about how the community would answer your question. Is there enough information for someone to make an informed decision?
We’re not saying you have to put a source next to every fact or claim you make. There are some things we all know and accept to be true e.g. a balanced diet is a healthy diet. But other claims need a little more substantiating.
- Drop us a link to the website, article, book or speaker you got the information from
- Please don’t use Tumelo’s platform to surface personal vendetta’s — whether they’re yours, or your favourite celebrities.
There you have it, now you’ve got the perfect question. All that’s left is to submit it to the Tumelo team. Then log in to the platform and watch it dance around the leaderboard.
We’ll send the winning question to the company and share what they have to say on the platform.
