Why spelling out your company acronym will help engage website users
Do you love puzzles? I don’t. There’s tons of things I‘d rather spend my time doing. In fact, the world seems evenly divided between people who love puzzles, and people who can’t stand ‘em.
Your users: puzzle lovers or haters?
What kind of person visits your website, a puzzle lover or hater? It’s easy to find out.
Do you have an acronym that stands for your organization name? Do you feature it on your website without spelling it out? For example, you might use ARC as your company name, but not bother to inform users it stands for Acme Raincoat Company.
Well, puzzle lovers might stay on your website and try to figure out what your acronym stands for. Puzzle haters, on the other hand, will depart your website immediately (that statistic is called a bounce rate, by the way).
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Acronym best practices: Spell it out
Here’s a suggestion — got an acronym? Spell it out. Explain it. Don’t assume your users know what it stands for. Don’t make them work to understand who you are.
The right way to use acronyms
But what if your acronym is wildly popular, and nobody uses the full organization name? Unless your brand equity is invested 100% in the acronym (see examples in the quiz below), here’s an acronym best practice:
In every communication, first use your full organization name together with the acronym. After that, you can use the acronym by itself.
QAQ (Quick Acronym Quiz)
What do these famous acronyms stand for?
IBM
AT&T
BMW
MOMA
NASA
CBS
(Answers below)
FACT OF THE MONTH
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches
Quiz answers
International Business Machines, American Telegraph and Telephone, Bavarian Motor Works, Museum of Modern Art, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Columbia Broadcasting System.