Whether it’s a small child whaling golf balls, a drunk mayor, or a college kid dancing in his desk chair to a Romanian techno-beat, people love viral videos. If they didn’t, well, then they probably wouldn’t go viral. Instead, it would just be one of those videos that you click on when you’re bored on YouTube, and regret 5 seconds later when you recognize that this person on-screen is just pandering for likes and shares. So, what makes a video enjoyable enough that we want to watch it? And what makes it good enough to share? Find out with these blogging tips.
Become a Master Storyteller with these Blogging Tips
In screenwriting, we always talk about the need to develop compelling characters. It’s a strange term. What might be an appealing trait to one person may not align with another, so finding the cultural fabric that unites pretty much everybody in a world that revolves (supposedly) around everyone being unique is pretty difficult, but not impossible. Aristotle argued that good content was created on the foundation of three principles: ethos, pathos, and logos. In other words, content should have either an ethical appeal, an emotional appeal, or a logical appeal. We’re going to focus on that emotional appeal. Why? Because Aristotle was not creating blogs or posting on Twitter; he was writing speeches for audiences 2,350 years ago. Times have changed, but the need to engage the audiences emotions have not. Great writers have always understood what they need to do in order to compel their readers, and now you can too. With these 5 blogging tips, prepare to unleash your inner-Shakespeare (please don’t write a blog in iambic pentameter), and watch your blog run victory laps around the internet.
Before You Create Emotionally Gripping Content, Understand Your Audience
This is probably the most basic principle of writing, and it’s also the easiest one to mess up. Writing can be an incredibly private experience, and when you choose to share what you have written, things can get a little complicated. It’s easy to write for you, you know what you want and what interests you. When you write for an audience, you have to know them as well, if not better, than you know yourself. Here are some basic questions to ask:
- Who is my target audience?
- What do they look like?
- What are their hobbies and interests?
- What drives them?
- What do they care about?
- Who do they care about?
Research, Research, Research
Alright, so now that you know your audience like the back of your hand, it’s time to learn your topic. Without knowing the ins-and-outs of your topic, it will be very difficult to write a compelling and trendy blog. Viral blogs are dependent on trends. It’s like surfing—you need to paddle out to that wave before anyone else finds it, and then you need to have enough knowledge and experience to catch that wave. Find a niche, dive into it, and before you know it you will be surfing those trendy waves.
Time to Write Some Killer Content
You have all the necessary tools to write a viral blog; you just have to write it. In a perfect world, you would be able to take all the time you needed to create the greatest blog ever created. But, unfortunately, there are deadlines that have to be met. Do everything in your power to write the best blog you can in the time that is given to you. It’s about quality, not quantity. Those blogs that have the best content will rank well in Google, those that don’t will be relegated to page 10.
Cuddly Pandas are Essential to Amazing Headlines
Okay… you called my bluff on that one. But cuddly pandas DO evoke some kind of emotion, which is exactly what you need to do. If your title lacks emotion, or anything of interest, the reader will bypass your blog for another, no matter how good your content is. Figure out what relevant emotion you want your headline to play off of, and go for it.
Sharing is Caring
You need a lot of people to read your work in order for it to go viral, and to do that you need to share it. Promote yourself across every social network you can, ask people to read your blog, and make it easy for other people to share. Let yourself be known! Hopefully these blogging tips will help you create an awesome viral blog, and if you’re stuck or have any questions, reach out to us on Twitter or Facebook!
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