What can a famed architect teach internal communicators?

If all the focus on “snackable content” shows anything, it’s that communicators apparently love to eat. Or at least love food metaphors like “bite-sized messages.”

Whether all this talk helps achieve the goal of creating information that is easy for audiences to understand is a different matter. Even Wikipedia’s guidelines say, “Be as concise as possible.” How’s that going?

Here are simple tips to help you develop digestible (another food metaphor) content your employees will savor.

1. Use fewer words.

If Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had been a writer instead of a famed minimalist architect, then “Less is more” would have put him in Snackable Content Hall of Fame.

“Today, people who are tasked with communications are working against overloaded, time-strapped, and very distracted audiences,” says Julie Baron, an expert in strategic communications and an affiliate consultant with Ragan Consulting Group. “The shorter the content, the better.”

The format can be your friend.