Key to success of any blog is blog posts and info graphics that will inspire people to share them. Social sharing, such as on Facebook and Twitter, emails and personal blogs, are one of the top ways that news spreads in the blogosphere. If your blog isn’t interesting enough that readers are going to recommend it to their friends and colleagues, it isn’t going anywhere, period.
But how do you attain the ultimate goal of share worthy posts? It’s not just about the information you present, but also about how you present it. Here are a few tips to help you perfect your posts.
Make it something somebody cares about. People share blog posts and articles only when they find it personally relevant, or they know someone who will. The number one rule of blogging, therefore, is to post stuff that your target market will care about. Company news may seem interesting to you, but it probably isn’t going to convince anyone to follow your blog, let alone share your posts. Posts that address the concerns, interests, or fears of your target market, on the other hand, will. For instance, if you sell medical supplies, a seasonal post on five ways to protect yourself from the flu is probably going to generate a lot of interest.
Make it compelling. A day in the life of a computer programmer probably isn’t going to inspire anyone to share your blog post, unless you can find an interesting twist. The same goes for posts or graphics that share statistical data. Find some way to draw readers or viewers in, whether that is by making them laugh, asking a rhetorical question, or staging a rant. Do more than just relate dry information.
Make it easy to digest. Studies show that online readers tend to skim more than readers of any other media, which means your blog post needs to be structured in a way that makes it easy for readers to take away your main points. Bulleted or numbered lists are therefore great for blogs, because they allow readers to skim without missing anything important: “Five Ways to Save Money Every Day,” for instance. How-to posts, with clearly numbered and labels steps, also work well. And of course, visuals such as graphs are always great ways to relay information.
Make it visually appealing. You can’t always offer a graph or pie chart that will offer information in a visually stimulating way, but there are other ways to make your post aesthetically appealing. Using headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points makes it easy for the eye to skim, and more blank space around text tends to be more visually appealing to readers. You can (and should) also use pictures, graphic images, and videos to draw the eye.
Having your posts and graphics shared via Facebook, Twitter, email, or even linked to on someone else’s blog should be every company’s goal. When people share your posts through social media, it expands your readership exponentially — at least for that post, and sometimes for your blog in general, too. A blog that regularly has posts that are important and compelling enough to be share worthy is likely to have a large, loyal, and very active readership.
Kevin Harris is a freelance writer for Adobe. Adobe software, such as image editing program, and services revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information; anytime, anywhere, and through any medium. They also offer many other services such as elearning.
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