A sound of constant incessant pinging is resonating from your cavernous bag. You take out your phone trying fervently to silence it. Extremely embarrassed for you are sitting under the sign, “Turn off cellphones”. People are looking at you at the doctor’s office. Some are startled, some are snickering and some giving you the eye. Don’t you want that kind of attention on your blog? Well not a negative attention like that but a more positive and engaging one. Attention, engagement and collaboration it is done through a well written, organized and engaging blog. The blog has a purpose. It is to serve the interest and benefit of the audience. The audience is giving you their time, don’t you think it is worth your time to craft a great blog for them? Don’t worry, it is easy once you follow a few simple steps. It is an art, you are the artist and its your creation. This creation will either win or fail to attract the audience. It is up to you to pick which one. Here are the steps on how to create a good blog post to capture audience engagement.
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Content is the heart of the blog. The scrumptious peach in the pie. It is important to capture the audience’s attention by attracting them to what is in the content. The content that peaks their fancy and stir their emotions. To make the audience feel that they have to know this, they need to see this, they need to talk about this. This is where your ideas, information and creativity comes in. It is important to craft the format in a casual, easy read manner depending on the content whether it is technical or general purpose. This will give the audience a benefit from reading your blog. As an example, “How to Build a Vertical Garden under 20 dollars?”, “What to do with leftover mashed potatoes?” After giving the instructables, give a controversial comment and questions to intrigue your readers and invite their comments. This will engage participation and interest. If the blog is an instructable, you will get questions on what are substitutes, where to get materials, how to do it alternatively and other related questions and comments. This gives you a live engagement to interested like minded people and thus will create a sense of belonging. If it is a blog about health. Information on what new research are available? Which health facilities are reputable? What are the symptoms? What to ask your health practitioner? A “how to” usually elicit more interest due to the events that happen and audience need to know how to address them. For example; “How to change a flat tire?”, ” How to make your dog stop howling?” It will then generate trust and loyalty which are two scarce commodity in the internet world towards your site. You are slowly building a sense of community by giving a part of yourself through the blog. This help foster a circle of followers and audiences that appreciate and understand the benefit you are sharing with them. In return, you reach your goal of engagement and exposure to your brand.
What topics to pick for blogging? Are you a DIYer?, computer expert? Gamer? Cook? or fashionista? Whatever your interest or passion, there is no boundaries in blogging. Topics to be discussed are endless and it is up to you to pick what you want to blog about. Sample topics like personal experience essays on childhood, child rearing, dieting, general interest post like travelogue, DIY, and things like how to sculpt garden animals with a chain saw, game strategies for games, computer algorithms for programmers and the list goes on. It is important to find and write what you are passionate about and not just because it is a popular topic and will make money. The key to success is that your audience will feel if you are really giving a part of yourself to the blog to help them benefit. Passion in blogging trumps money. If done correctly the money will come.
Psychological impact of the blog. You need to make the audience feel elation, frustration, excitement, anxiety and other psychological and emotional states. In my opinion, we are living is such a jaded world that the media has desensitized many of our human emotions and psychological states. It takes a lot to make us feel anymore. Due to the instant moments we seen in Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook people are focused on the tangible things to show to their followers, peers and audiences. Majority of the intangible moments such as happiness, sadness and fear have some tangible objects associated with it. A great blog can elicit these states through words and format. A well written one will address the audience’s high arousal emotions like joy or fear using the wheel of emotions. A blog that can make the audience feel anger, happiness, loss of control, subservient, dominant is engaging the psyche of the audience. It shows the power of the blog to control the audience and let the psyche and emotions go. This release is a form of a mini therapy for the audience. They are not aware that subliminally these feelings make them feel that they are alive here and now. It makes them detach from their current present moment and travel into your world through your blog. The benefit to the audience is not only the knowledge but the escapism experienced while reading the blog.
Blog https://www.act-on.com/blog/2015/06/business-blogging-as-an-equalizer-for-small-and-medium-businesses/
A blog has to be engaging, well organized and well written. These basic foundations are not enough to engage and capture audience’s attention. What is needed is a captivating, scintillating headlines. This is the first step to catch the eye of the readers scanning millions of information on the web. The evolution of searches has changed the many ways to search for information. Let us look at the latest Google search query format. It can be done more efficiently with semantic search query rather than the old Boolean search query format. With the changes, Google is encouraging the use of natural language through use of Google Voice Search as opposed to the old format. To see the trend of the importance of natural language search even Amazon is entering into this method of query. They have launched a method of query to use Alexa as a browser with Echoism. This is only a few of the many changes coming in the future of queries. Knowing how queries work can help in creating headlines and titles that will appear when searches are done. This is very important to enable the blog to have public exposure. Picking the right keywords and title on the blog. After writing the blog, a great title or keyword is needed. The the whipped cream on top of the pie. The right keyword and format is not only necessary. It has to be search friendly, it is more important for the longevity of your blog. The usage of the right keywords will be more visible in RSS feeds, SEO and other searches. On the subject of words, use words with high impact, common and meaningful. You need to use words that captures imagination. Make the audience feel that they are in the blog. Stir their emotions and psyche and captivate them. Read and re-read what is written. Revise and rephrase. If the blog makes you doze off. It will also make your audience doze off. Read more books, blogs and articles. This will help in structuring your writing skills and creativity. Use antonyms, synonyms, phrases, stories, quotations and other methods to make the blog interesting. Photos, videos, gifs and other forms of media to attract and engage. A blogger is a movie maker, director and producer for the audience. When print media was prevalent in the old days, audience get their information and escapism from newspapers, magazines and books. In the digital age, blogs, rss and other social media application replaces that need for tangible media. The constant bombardment of news and information causes a world of information overload. Living in a world of instantaneous gratification a blogger has to immediately engage the audience’s attention or lose the audience to somewhere else.
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Its important to have fun creating and sharing information and ideas. Blogging is an art with a fine balance of semantics, proper grammar, creative writing and great ideas. When these are done right audience engagement, attention and collaboration will be achieved. It is crucial to take into account the keyword and text use to make the blog search engine friendly and has longevity. The quality of the blog reflects the confidence of the blogger will promote loyalty and branding. Do what you are passionate about and your audience will keep coming back for more. Have fun blogging and make money doing it.
One more thing, due to the main intent of this blog as an assigned work with certain parameters. The length of the blog varies it could be a 200 words to 2000 words but it all depends on content. The most important thing is to have fun and be creative.
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