I’ve read a ton of coworking space and flex office blog content, websites, and newsletters.This includes single and multi-space owners marketing to new members as well as managed model providers marketing to asset owners and brokers.I often see them falling into the fluff trap:

• Using obscure, inflated verbiage and buzzwords with the goal of conveying high-level thinking
• Stating the obvious
• Going off-topic
• Unnecessarily increasing word counts
• Adding ideas that are hard to understand, boring, confusing, or misaligned with the topic at hand
• Lacking a real point of view

In fairness, writing well is tough and for the most part, fluff is simply a byproduct of that. It's a common misconception that saying more is better.But your best bet is to be concise, specific, and relatable. People have short attention spans and they want to get the most information possible for the least amount of effort and thinking.So, next time you’re writing content, fluff-proof your work by:

• Focusing on one single topic
• Knowing what you want your audience to take away from your writing
• Creating an outline and sticking to it
• Writing first then editing later
• Ensuring you’re writing to the knowledge level of your audience
• Using short sentences and paragraphs
• Reviewing your writing to identify any secondary topics (then removing them and turning them into their own dedicated piece of writing)
• Looking for jargon that your target audience might not understand and replacing it with layman’s terms
• Breaking down high-level ideas into more digestible terms
• Getting critical in identifying redundancies
• Looking for opportunities to replace words and phrases with shorter ones
• Writing with a direct and active tone rather than a passive one
• Limiting your use of adverbs and adjectives (make them count)
• Asking someone to review your work

Remember: fluffy writing is less engaging and takes more energy to digest. That means it’s less likely people will read it and, worse yet, will probably deter people from coming back to read more.Get critical. Cut the fluff. Your content will be a lot more impactful in doing so.