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Lauren Plüss

@digital_pluss

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Strategy | Comms | Digital
Freelance strategist and comms consultant, helping purpose-driven organisations grow and connect

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I have completed my first 3 days at AIConfident this week, and I feel like I have learned a lot already (and I had forgotten how tiring that can be!). It has been a great start though, and I'm glad to be working with such a fab team, who I already know I'm going to learn a lot.

One thing I learned came from a discussion with Tim Cook is about how we write about AI. In the news, and even inside organisations, AI often gets talked about in a way that makes it sound like humans have no agency over it. But if we say "AI technologies" or "AI tools" did something, instead of just "AI", the choice sits back with the people using them.

I love language, and the nuance of how we talk about things. It matters especially now, because the news has been full of negative stories, some of it about existential risk, and it is scary. But, language can play a big part in how we feel about a topic and how much power we have to control things.

I was also introduced to Better Images of AI. If you're writing about AI and are not sure what images to use, it's a free resource with Creative Commons licences, built to move away from clichés, like blue brains with cogs coming out of them. Which can all add to the narrative of scaring people, looking like something that is outside of our control and add to the mistrust of AI.

And finally, not a learning, but a reflection. When I worked in the digital team at SCVO, we used to say the pace of change is the fastest it has ever been, and the slowest it will ever be again. I feel like this week I've really noticed that. The speed we are all working at, and the speed at which things change, is genuinely wild.

And with that I'm spending the afternoon with my son, playing RNLI crew members many times over (I'm not sure what's more exhausting) but hoping we might make it to the allotment soon 🤞🏻 by @digital_pluss

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19 days ago

Did you know that using can't in your copy can make it harder to read?

Can't, don't and won't are called negative contractions and they're used frequently in copy. But when you read online you tend to skim read copy, especially when we're distracted and multi-tasking.

The GOV.UK style guide, from GDS, advises against negative contractions: many readers find them harder to read, or misread them as the opposite of what they mean. When "not" is contracted to "n't", the negative is easy to miss, especially for people with dyslexia or learning difficulties, or whose first language is not English. That misunderstanding can be the difference between safe and unsafe, seeking support or not, doing something lawful or unlawful.

The fix costs you nothing. Keep the friendly, positive contractions like you'll and we're, because they keep you sounding like a person. But the moment it turns negative, spell it out: cannot, do not, will not.

These are the kind of rules that are listed in style guides. They help content be consistent across your whole site and ensure best practice is implemented and readability of content is prioritised.

If you do not have a style guide yet, or have one that's been gathering dust, you might be interested in StyleScout - a new tool I'm building to help organisations create a style guide, keep it alive and check new content against it. Sign up at stylescout.io or DM to be part of the beta testing.

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I'm Lauren, founder of Plüss Digital, working with charities and social impact organisations on content design, comms and marketing. I'm currently building StyleScout, a tool that helps organisations build a style guide and check their content against it.

#Content #CopyWriting #WritingTips by @digital_pluss

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3 months ago

A while back I posted on LinkedIn about a tool I wanted to build: something to give organisations their own style guide and check every page against it. The response told me I was onto something.

Building it around client work and real life has been slower than I hoped. But StyleScout is nearly ready for testing, and I want some of you in early.

This is the tool I always wished my teams had. After 14 years in charity content and comms, and a fair few style guides built by hand, I know how hard both halves are. Writing the guide means carving out time among competing priorities, agreeing the rules, and getting it all signed off. And once it exists, keeping it alive is harder still: the team is busy, the website keeps growing, and the guide goes out of date.

Meanwhile the stakes keep rising. People read as little as a quarter of the words on a page (Nielson Norman Group). And over half of UK adults now use AI tools (Ofcom, 2026), which read and represent your content too. Clear, consistent writing is how you stay understood by all of them.

StyleScout takes on both halves. It creates a style guide tailored to your organisation, built on trusted best practice, ready to review rather than write from scratch. A built-in checker reads every page of your website against your standard and flags what needs updating. And when anyone on your team writes something new, they can check it against your style before it goes live.

Useful, practical support for content teams doing more with less.

Two ways to be part of it:

• beta testing: run StyleScout on your own website and tell me what works (comment beta or message me)
• the mailing list: join at the link in my bio for early discounted access and honest updates as I build - stylescout.io

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I'm Lauren, founder of Plüss Digital, working with charities and social impact organisations on content design, comms and marketing.

#ContentDesign #Marketing #Communications by @digital_pluss

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3 months ago

My husband just started a new job and at the first chat he had on his first day he was asked: "what does your morning look like - do you have school drop off or childcare runs to do? Paul joins stand up from his car on the school run."

Yes to this organisation doing Parenting Out Loud from day one.

One of our constant conversations we had when he was applying for jobs was about flexibility, when you bring it up in the hiring process, and how we'd make it work depending on the answer (or if that job was a non-starter).

I love that this workplace didn't wait until they were asked about flexibility. They knew he was a dad, they asked the question and they clearly make working life flexible around family commitments. More of this is needed 👏🏻

#ParentingOutLoud #FlexibleWorking #FlexAppeal by @digital_pluss

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3 months ago

What a day and what a week.

So much energy, love and enthusiasm over the last week. It's been incredible to be a part of.

@iamelliottrae and @joelibrearley you did it 💪🏻

Feeling hopeful change is coming. 6 weeks at 90% pay for all dads feels closer than ever.

#PaternityLeave #PushForPaternity #PushForPaternityLeave #EqualParenting #EqualParentjngWeek by @digital_pluss

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5 months ago

5 things you might not know about me, and that don't always make their way into work conversations (although I did manage a quick chat about growing tomatoes this week 😂).

Since going freelance I've loved the variety of the work, and getting to work with so many great clients doing fab things. From progressing an AI chat tool for a charity, to content crits for a new website, to finalising plans and content for Equal Parenting Week next week (are you in?).

In quieter times (not so much the last few weeks), I've been using Claude Code to create a new tool - and it's been great to learn a new skill and see something I think will be genuinely helpful come to life.

I'm looking forward to a sunny weekend before heading to London on Sunday for Equal Parenting Week, because next week is going to be a busy and important one 💪🏼 by @digital_pluss

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5 months ago

Over the past few months I've been working on Equal Parenting Week and Push for Paternity Leave. It's a personal one, because I believe being equal parents is hard work but is possible. It's hard work now because the systems in place around parents set the defaults from the very beginning. And it doesn't need to be that way.

My partner had 4 weeks of paternity leave. I took 10 months of maternity leave. From day 1, the defaults were set.

When you're the one on maternity leave, you don't just become the primary carer. You become the organiser of everything else too. Sorting finances. Sorting jabs, appointments, health issues. Sorting childcare benefits. Sorting childcare. Researching how to get a baby to sleep. Holding the mental load while physically recovering.

My partner was back at work full time, running on very little sleep for the first 3 months (thanks to a dairy intolerance we had to fight to get diagnosed). As soon as he finished work, he took over so I could get a few hours sleep. We ran a shift pattern through the night. I genuinely don't know how we functioned.

We were both exhausted. We were both doing everything we could. But the system had already decided who was the default parent.

On maternity leave, you become the keeper of information. And we weren't intentional enough about how that load would shift when I went back to work. Undoing those early defaults took time. And work. Being an equal parent doesn't just happen. And nobody talks about it in any of the classes, appointments or contact you have with health visitors and midwives as a new parent.

It took us nearly 1.5 years to undo what unequal parental leave set in motion. We need an absolute bare minimum of 6 weeks paternity leave. Really, we need equal leave. Because until both parents can be discriminated against in the same way, we won't achieve equality. But back to 6 weeks - it's not a nice-to-have. It's the bare minimum that's needed to start life together as a family - to set in motion shared care, maternal recovery, mental health and long-term equality at home and at work.

Continued in comments ⬇️ by @digital_pluss

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6 months ago

Time seems to be flying at the moment - in part because I'm working on lots of exciting projects. Last week was a busy one:

• continuing working on a replatforming project and doing the first content crits of newly content designed pages + a contract extension and change to my role 🙌🏻
• a project kick off meeting for phase 2 of an AI chatbot project - really excited to work on this one and project manage it
• lots of @weareparentingoutloud content and prep for #EqualParentingWeek and Push for Paternity Leave - some changes in the Employment Rights Act from 6 April means lots of opportunity to raise awareness about even more improvements to statutory paternity leave
• a meeting with a potential new client for later in the year 🤞🏼

Plus on the non work side - potty training a toddler and the big emotions that come with it (bed time is currently a battle of wills), my 18th @parkrun and continuing to go to my running club, and busy planting seeds at my allotment 🌱

A few weeks ago, I thought I'd be finishing most of my existing client work by May and would need to start looking for new clients again soon - but a contract extension and potential new client last week landed at the right time. But it's also given me the kick I needed to start posting on socials again! So keep an eye out for more regular updates and let me know what you'd like to hear - freelancer life, content tips, marketing ideas, balancing family and work life - or a combination of all. by @digital_pluss

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6 months ago

If you use Meta ads to reach your audience, there is a change coming from 1 July 2026 that is worth factoring into your budgets now.

From July, Meta is passing on the costs associated with digital services tax to advertisers. That means new location fees, added on top of your ad spend after delivery.

The fee is based on where your audience is located, not where your business is based.

For UK audiences, that is 2% on top of your spend.

Spend £500 reaching a UK audience? You will be billed £510, plus VAT.

Other affected areas:
Austria 5%
France 3%
Italy 3%
Spain 3%
Turkiye 5%

If your budget has to go a long way, or you report back to others on what you spend, now is a good time to update your forecasts before July.

#Meta #DigitalMarketing #Advertising #PaidSocial #SocialMedia by @digital_pluss

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7 months ago

I’m experimenting with an idea and I’m curious whether it would be useful.

Over the last few years, a huge amount of my work with charities has come back to the same thing: content fundamentals.

Things like:
• clear, shared writing standards
• consistent tone and language
• patterns people actually use
• content that works for users and search
• governance that doesn’t rely on one person holding everything in their head

Most organisations know these things matter. But documenting them, maintaining them, and helping everyone actually use them is hard, especially with stretched teams and lots of people editing content who aren’t content specialists. I know, because I’ve been there before - and there are ALWAYS other priorities. But SEO and now GEO are under the spotlight and content fundamentals are key.

So I’ve started exploring an AI-powered tool working with No Code Labs, that could help charities get these foundations right.

The idea (still very much in progress): an AI tool that helps organisations create, understand and use a content style guide, not by replacing human judgement, but by:

• surfacing patterns that already exist in your content
• highlighting inconsistencies and gaps
• guiding teams through the decisions a good style guide needs
• grounding everything in plain English, accessibility and best practice
• highlighting where best practice isn't being followed and what changes could mean for readability and user experience

Right now this is an experiment, and it’s really interesting learning how the tech works and what is possible. But longer-term, I’d love to work with a small number of charities to test and shape it together, especially organisations juggling lots of editors, stakeholders and legacy content.

So this is me testing the waters to see how much time I should spend on it (because that’s the real juggle of freelance life!) - would a tool like this be useful in your organisation? What would it need to do (or absolutely not do)?

If you work in digital, comms, content, or lead teams who manage websites, I’d genuinely love your thoughts. by @digital_pluss

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8 months ago

One simple way to improve the readability of your content: write 8, not eight.

It feels small. But it makes a real difference.

Why?
• Digits are recognised faster than words
• They reduce cognitive load so the reader’s brain does less work
• They’re easier to scan
• They support accessibility and plain language principles

When someone is reading, especially online, they’re rarely reading every word.

They’re skimming. Scanning. Deciding whether to keep going.

Using digits helps your content work with how people read.

That’s why many content and accessibility style guides recommend using numerals for numbers in most digital content.

If you want to dig into the why and when there are exceptions, the Content Design London readability guidelines is a great explainer.

Tiny tweaks. Lower cognitive load. Better readability.

And yes, this can take some getting used to if you’ve had “always write numbers 1 to 9 as words” ingrained in you. It has taken me a while! by @digital_pluss

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8 months ago

Recently I've been writing, or updating, style guides for a few different organisations. And I love them. Because they bring consistency, clarity and professionalism to written work.

They lay the foundations for writing good content. A good style guide:

• makes writing more clear and more consistent
• helps teams feel more confident publishing content
• saves time (for editors, new starts and external writers)
• shows professionalism to external audiences

I’ve shared some tips for anyone who wants to start writing a style guide but isn’t sure where to begin. The key thing is to start.

And if you already have a style guide, consider this a reminder: it’s allowed to be living, collaborative and imperfect.

Is there anything else you'd add?

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I’m Lauren, a freelance digital, content and communications consultant, working with purpose-driven businesses to give impact a voice. Follow for more tips like this.

#StyleGuide #ContentDesign #CopyWriting by @digital_pluss

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9 months ago