General Guidelines

• Mightybytes always aspires to produce educational resources that meet the highest quality standards possible. All posts are thoroughly researched with sources cited and linked.
• As a Certified B Corp, all content is grounded in ethical, responsible, and more sustainable business practices that support justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion as well as honesty and transparency.
• We aim to create and share useful information that educates and informs leadership and communications professionals at nonprofits, other B Corps, social enterprises, conscious companies, and the larger business community. We will never spam your inbox. We fight misinformation and disinformation at all times.
• As part of our Education Impact Business Model, content produced by Mightybytes is always useful and educational, not self-promotional. 
• We use artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies in ways that align with Corporate Digital Responsibility principles. See our Code of Ethics for more information.

Solicitations

We rarely accept guest posts. If we do, they are sourced from vetted and experienced contacts who are aligned with our B Corp values and Code of Ethics. However, most of our content is written internally by digital professionals with specific expertise in ethical technology, sustainable marketing, inclusive design, and responsible business and advocacy practices.  

We are not interested in basic marketing posts. You can find those anywhere on the internet. We’re interested in exploring how marketing, communications, design, and technology can be used to advance sustainability, improve society, and address big, wicked problems, like inequality or climate and environmental injustice.

Finally, if you reach out to us to exchange links with your poor quality content, you won’t hear back from us.

Content Requirements

The editorial guidelines below help us create effective and impactful content. A page brief template helps us jumpstart this process quickly. Read more about this template on our blog.

E-E-A-T

Mightybytes strives for content that is well-researched and adheres to E-E-A-T Guidelines:

• Experience: First and foremost, we write from our own experience.
• Expertise: Our seasoned team has deep expertise in digital marketing and sustainability, which forms the basis of our content strategy.
• Authoritativeness: We’ve been covering these topics on our website, in books, and through workshops and presentations since the company started in 1998.
• Trustworthiness: Through our B Corp certification and other means, the company adheres to high standards of honesty, transparency, performance, and accountability. We make every attempt to reflect these values in our content.

Voice, Tone, Grammar

• Our voice and tone are casual yet conversational and lively. Humor is great as long as it’s respectful and inclusive, not disparaging or unnecessarily snarky.
• We try to write to a 5th or 6th grade reading level whenever possible. We keep sentences short and use simple, easy-to-understand language. If necessary, we use Hemingway.
• We avoid jargon or corporate lingo. If an author must use industry-specific or technical terms, they are defined in the content.
• We use inclusive language whenever possible: avoid pronouns, gender-specific language, ageism, or anything that perpetuates stereotypes, bias, or discrimination. When necessary, we test content with Whole Whale’s Inclusive Language Checker.
• Next, we use transition words when possible to improve readability.
• We’re fans of the Oxford comma and use it regularly.
• Numbers: one to ten, 11, 12, … 100, 101, etc.
• When in doubt, the Chicago Manual of Style probably has an answer.

Word Count

• Website content is as long as it needs to be to most effectively tell a story. Our goal is always to create the best content possible. 
• Many blog posts range from 1,500 – 3,000 words. However, longer or shorter posts are fine as long as they support the story being told.

Format for Sharing

• Google Docs are always preferable for joint collaboration, especially during editing.
• If not possible, use Word’s doc format.

Links

• We link to relevant external content when it will add value for readers.
• We also link to relevant internal content when possible to improve SEO and help readers find related topics that might interest them.

Paragraph Length and Spacing

• We strive for legible content with short paragraphs, 2-3 sentences max.
• We use one space after a period, not two.
• Images, bulleted lists, icons, and other visual elements help break up large blocks of text to improve readability (see next section).

Formatting

• We use headings and subheadings to break up content.
• Big blocks of text are avoided.
• Headlines are as specific as possible. They indicate a benefit to the reader. If SEO is important to the post, we include keywords in headings and subheadings.
• We use bullet or numbered lists often.
• We often end the post with a question or a specific call to action a reader can take. When possible, we provide additional resources.

Images

Images are used to first and foremost support data within a published post. They are also occasionally used to break up text and make posts more scannable. We compress these images as much as possible without reducing image quality to improve page speed and sustainability.

• Stylistically, our blog uses mostly illustrations (versus photos).
• Each post includes at least one hero image and potentially 1-2 images to break up text. However, don’t use too many images. Keep pages lightweight with a target digital carbon rating of A or higher, if possible.
• Follow brand guidelines for color, style, typography, etc. when creating imagery.
• Post images should be 1000px wide. 
• Use stock photos only when necessary to illustrate a concept.
• Images that illustrate “how to” do something or that support content and data are always preferable.
• All images should include alt text and/or image descriptions to improve accessibility. Text in images should be decorative.

Editing & Cancellation

We may edit posts or return them to an author for revisions. We may edit anchor text and links that are not relevant to the post. Sometimes scheduling may change but we will let you know ahead of time. We reserve the right to cancel publication at any time.

Exclusivity

We ask that any submitted article not be published elsewhere previously, or simultaneously. If you’d like to republish a guest post that ran on our blog, please wait at least two weeks to do so. Update it to make it current and create a canonical link to the original post.

Deadline

We ask that articles be submitted at least two weeks prior to a scheduled run date. Don’t worry, we’ll coordinate a date together.

Commenting

We don’t use comments on our blog (way too much spam), but we do encourage people to engage with us on LinkedIn. 

Corrections & Feedback

We do our best to maintain a high-level of publishing quality and accuracy through diligent research, verification, proofreading, and editing. If you notice an inaccurate statement on this website, please reach out via our contact form. We will get back to you as soon as possible to discuss the matter and, if warranted, make any necessary corrections..

Promoting

Please plan to promote your post via social networks. We ask that any contributors share content more than once on multiple networks over multiple days. The time frame and scheduling is up to you.

Brand-specific Considerations

Other things to keep in mind that are specific to our brand. 

• The ‘C’ in Certified B Corp is capitalized.
• Ecograder has a small ‘g’ just as Mightybytes has a small ‘b’.
• For other questions on logo or image use, please see Mightybytes Brand Guidelines.