What are takeaways?
The takeaways should be three statements, about a sentence long, that summarize the important parts of your story. They cannot be sentences that are copied and pasted directly from the article; you must write them fresh.
Takeaways are the first thing that readers read (save title, subtitle and author), so they've gotta be good and have stimulating bits of information. Personally, I like to include statistics if possible.
Example of good takeaways:
• Homeowners want to trust their agents when it comes to pricing.
• 1 in 8 homeowners will recommend their agent to a friend.
• 74 percent of sellers fall in love with their buyers' agents.
Takeaways should not be statements telling the reader what he or she will read or learn in the article.
Example of takeaways that need a little more love:
• Learn what to say when your client doubts your pricing strategy.
• How to create a pricing strategy that works for everyone.
• What the No. 1 cause of hiring a new agent is according to sellers.
• 4 tips that will help agents price right.
Pro tip: I like to go through the text and pull out click-to-tweets, which are short statements that readers might want to tweet from the story. I think that stats work really well here, but also snarky comments and quotes are also great click-to-tweet fare.
I try to find or write three in each story. They can be one line and two or three words long in WordPress, which looks like this:
- [Tweet "The reptilian brain lacks language and controls feeding, fighting, fleeing and reproduction."]
- [Tweet "Almost all real estate marketing is cortical rather than reptilian in nature."]
- [Tweet "Stage your listing for relaxation and have snacks -- the reptilian brain always wins."]
The examples above are from Bernice Ross's story "Why buyers buy -- unlocking your clients' reptilian instincts."
So once you have your click-to-tweets, you can easily rewrite the sentence, and boom -- you have takeaways.
So, [Tweet "Rapaille's work shows the first thing women want in a car is cup holders -- creature comforts."] became "Be sure to have creature comforts at hand during open houses,"
as a takeaway.
I left the second click-to-tweet as is in takeaway form. Please feel free to take a look at the example live.
I hope these examples and tips help you create your takeaways and click-to-tweets, and I encourage you as writers to own as much of your post as you can.
Think about your keyword when writing the post, and use it wisely in the body copy, and at least once in the headline and first paragraph of the story. Fill out the categories and tags section, add relevant Inman links (possibly to your other stories on our site) and suggest titles and subtitles.
I, as your editor, love seeing as much filled out as possible because it clues me into the writer's vision, voice and style, which is helpful in editing. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. And thank you for all the hard work you do.