Thinkshift recently completed messaging work for several clients, which got me thinking about what good messaging is all about.

Good messaging is credible and exact. It handles the communications task at hand, whether it’s a pithy quote from the CEO in a press release, a boilerplate description of the company, or the brand voice and framework for a report, presentation or website. A messaging document should provide messages that are as close to plug-and-play as possible, with examples for as many contexts as makes sense.

Good messaging gets used. Reporters use it when writing about the company. Partner organizations use it when they describe you on their website. Employees use it, not just in presentations and formal communications, but also on their LinkedIn and Facebook pages and when they talk about their work with friends. For one client, the test came with the release of significant company news requiring media outreach and a new partnership. It was extremely gratifying to see the messaging work take hold and appear in newspaper articles, customer blog posts and on the partner website. Meanwhile, employees used it on their LinkedIn pages and elsewhere.

This doesn’t just happen naturally. We don’t just create messages, toss the client a guide and expect them to get it right away. Introducing the messaging, explaining how to use it and when, showing examples and providing training for written and spoken use are key.

Good messaging is flexible. Messaging should be used consistently, but shouldn’t be rigid. It should grow and change with the organization, and be adaptable to the person using it, the communications vehicle, audience or a other factors.

The key test—and I find this especially satisfying—is whether people genuinely like the messages. They won’t unless the messages are written in natural, ordinary language, so that people are comfortable using them without rewriting. When that happens, employees and others become advocates. They are able to provide the right message and information succinctly.

And that kind of communication brings an organization to life. You can’t do that with jargon, corporatespeak or vague and imprecise phrases.

Accuracy is essential to credibility. Duh, right? Yet organizations miss the accuracy boat all the time. And even one or two innocuous slip-ups can cast doubt on everything you say.

Just look at the “climategate” kerfuffle, where a few questionable (stolen) e-mails between scientists were taken to indicate rot at the heart of all their work. Or at how the inclusion of an unsubstantiated speculation on the melting rate of Himalayan glaciers in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report brought forth a barrage of claims that all climate science is bunk.

Sure, these reactions came from people who are climate science skeptics (at best)—but that’s the point. Every business making a benefit claim for its products or services and any advocacy group promoting a policy solution faces skeptics. Inaccuracy encourages doubt to spread.

So why is there so much inaccuracy in communications of all kinds? Anyone who’s not actively trying to deceive realizes that factual statements should be correct; when they’re not, speed and sloppiness are usually the culprits. The rule: check every statement. Then check it again.

The more slippery (and common) problem is claims that are inaccurate by implication—for example, packaging that can be recycled only at rare, specialized facilities but is simply  labeled “recyclable” with no explanation. Companies that do this may earn greenie points from the uninformed, but once people find out their recycling can’t actually be recycled, they tend to get peeved—and massively distrustful. Credible claims are realistically correct, not just technically correct. The rule: if you’re implying something untrue, then you’re not telling the truth.

Sometimes I imagine all the companies claiming to be the “the world leader,” “best,” “greenest,” and most whatever having a smackdown in some sort of marketing Thunderdome to see who’s really on top. OK, so I’m a communications geek. But the point remains: almost certainly, none of these companies is the ultimate, and if any of them are, they can’t prove it.

What of it? Some would say (and I’ve heard some green gurus say) that these kinds of claims are “just marketing”—people know it’s hype. True, and that’s how companies that make unprovable claims start teaching their customers that they are untrustworthy and their marketing is B.S.

Probably not a huge problem if you’re selling diet snack cakes (your customer has agreed not to question the implausible), but if you’re selling sustainability, think again. This kind of marketing can undermine a great product by inspiring skepticism and overshadowing claims that are well-supported. It can also raise the suspicions of greenwash monitors (see Carolyn’s earlier post on spotting greenwash).

To be credible, claims first have to be provable (that’s why this is a highly rated factor in the Thinkshift Credibility Quotient™). And provable claims are both specific and verifiable. Make the strongest statement you can support, be specific, and back it up. Then you’ll have some support when you get challenged for a smackdown.