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- The Not-so-secret Ingredient of an Engaging Blog
If you read Lisa’s post on the Grace of Communication yesterday, I hope you felt as inspired as many of the commenters who added their thoughts to it.
Her heartfelt post really spoke volumes, and not just about social media. As I read it, it reminded me of a question that I see asked often in the blogosphere:
How can I make my blog more engaging?
What’s “engaging”?
If you’ve ever thought “I want my blog to be more engaging,” you probably had some idea in mind of what that means. It might be that you want to lower bounce rates, increase repeat visits, or encourage more comments on posts.
All of these are measures of “engagement,” but I find that the most engaging blogs I read offer something that’s intangible: a sense of rapport or personality. These blogs say something that interests me in a way I can relate to.
I think that’s something that’s close to the “grace of communication” that Lisa explored yesterday.
While the metrics are all valid, I don’t know if we can really measure this intangible value, which characterizes the most engaging blogs. While the stats do go some way to reflect engagement—and are very helpful to us as we try to grow our blogs—I don’t believe they’re the whole story.
The thing that’s got the greatest potential to engage your readers is you.
A more engaging blog
Yesterday, Lisa described the natural flow she sometimes achieves with her class. Interestingly, the way she explained it made is seem miraculous—something organic, which can’t be forced, but arises spontaneously when the conditions are right.
We can certainly work toward building engaging blogs, just as Lisa works toward building her fitness practice. But there’s an element of the spontaneous in establishing an engaging blog, too.
The key ingredient is you. I think the more of yourself you can put into your blog and your online presence, the better your chances of reaching that spontaneous communications flow, where readers read, share, and respond naturally, and almost effortlessly.
I’ve found Google Plus to be an ideal forum for creating the right conditions for a communicative flow. It allows for a rich exchange in real time, it makes it easy to follow that exchange and, perhaps most importantly, that kind of deep exposure encourages us as bloggers to be open and really “ourselves.”
And that, I think, is the pathway to greater engagement. By being yourself, you encourage others to be themselves: you create the sense of rapport that sets the scene for that spontaneous flow of communication.
Have you experienced that sense on your blog, or when you’ve been communicating with your tribe? Tell us about it in the comments.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
The Not-so-secret Ingredient of an Engaging Blog
Переслать - The Grace of Communication
This guest post is by Lisa Johnson of LisaJohnsonFitness.com.
Social media has changed my life in a fundamental way that I never saw coming. My first innocent forays onto Twitter had not prepared me for the ride I was about to go on.
Through social media I have started a new career, grown more close to my husband, been able to spend more time with my son, and still managed to help provide for my family.
But those are the perks to what I do. They are not why I do it … there is grace in communication.
As a Pilates Instructor I live for those moments that seem to descend out of nowhere. I'll be teaching a class and we'll all just click, every movement has flow, my voice allows my students to focus more deeply, and we dance in a way, their bodies and my voice weaving together intricate patterns. The sweat builds, hard bones and sinew become fluid, and an awesome, amazing thing happens: my class and I find grace. It's powerful to all of us.
It brings me to tears and embarrassed giggles. My students know what I mean, and then hurry out into their busy lives. It's why I've taught Pilates for longer than I've ever done anything in my life—fifteen years now—to hit those random moments of grace, of being able to give my clients a small taste of empowerment.
Social media is often maligned by the uninitiated as a place of misfits and people who can't have "real relationships" in their "real lives." I suppose for some that's true, but that hasn't been my journey at all. I have found it a place of true connection.
Keyboards click, screens flicker and millions of people pour a torrent of words into the stream. Most of it washes over us in ones and zeros, never recognized into existence.
But then a stray comment will catch an eye, a conversation will start—maybe it'll be a cascade of back and forths, or maybe it'll be a few comments here and there over time. But there is a connection.
I have my people on social media that I depend on for a joke, a pick-me-up, or a kind word. Sometimes I don't even know their real names, just a Twitter handle and a sentence or two of biography. I try to give back in the same way with an atta boy/atta girl or a warm phrase when needed.
I have experienced everything through social media: humor, fear, failure, redemption, even death, have all come at me through the screen. I have made real true friends and been humbled when I was able to help someone. Many of these connections have spilled into "my real life"—and these are people I would never meet any other way.
There is grace in that. Our disconnected lives, blown apart from generational family ties, have found a new way to connect, to find a tribe, to belong.
Social media has evolved into a business. The software companies are our conduits, advertising the currency, and brands online jumping up and down for attention, looking to win eyeballs and wallets. But it is still all driven by humans, sorting ourselves by hashtags and groups, by geography and hobby. So we find our people and connect.
How brilliant is that? How truly, truly brilliant?
It's magical that we tap keyboards and stare at screens and find humans tapping back at us. Have you reached out and found a connection waiting for you? Have you been changed, even in a tiny way, by your social media life? How do you tap your connections?
Lisa Johnson went from Pilates studio owner to one of the top fitness people on social media with her popular blog, LisaJohnsonFitness.com. She balances teaching at the studio with working with social media clients through Healthy Dose Media, a company she founded with her husband, Greg Wymer. She is frequently found on Twitter @LisaJohnson.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Переслать - Build a Successful Blog by Creating a Content Musical
This guest post is by Brad Smith of fixcourse.com.
So you want to make money blogging?
You want a popular blog that gets thousands of visitors each day, and the attention and respect you’ve been looking for.
So what’s stopping you? What’s holding you back? You’re cranking out content, just like Mashable, about the latest news stories in your industry. You get traffic, but it doesn’t convert or stick around.
Or maybe you have a unique perspective, and you share research and facts to back everything up. But no one reads your posts, or takes the time to comment.
The problem isn’t your topics, but the type of content you’re creating.
The trick to building a popular blog is to create content that appeals to a mainstream audience, but that is unique enough to stick around for years to come. That’s how you get more traffic, and actually start making money from your blog.
How to make money in music
Let’s take a look at another content producing industry: music.
There are many different types and genres of music. They range from simple and catchy (“pop music”), to complex and deep (classical). With the long tail of music, people can choose what they like to hear. But there are a select few major genres of music that are commercially successful and make money (while most barely get by).
What’s the difference? Why is some music more profitable, or why do some artists succeed, while most fail?
The difference between classical and popular music
People need classical music. Not only is it “better” (in terms of talent and complexity), it has actually been proven to make you smarter.
However, it doesn’t sell very well. The problem is that it’s too dry and complex. It just doesn’t appeal to a mainstream audience.
Now compare that to pop music. It’s light, catchy, and likeable enough to attract a mainstream audience. But much of it isn’t very good—a lot of pop music blends in with every other song on the radio, and you never hear from these artists again.
These artists have no legacy. They aren’t unique and important enough to stand the test of time. So they’re forgotten about as soon as they’re created.
How you can find success by creating a content musical
If we compare the music analogy with blogging, you could say we have the Huffington Post and Mashable on one side (popular and light), and the Harvard Business Review (classical and complex) on the other.
People won’t flock to your site because you’re writing the same news stories and light opinion pieces. The Huff Po and Mashable already have that covered. And you can’t just create content filled with research, facts and science. You’ll never out-research Harvard.
So what’s the solution?
The trick in content marketing is to find a middle ground.
You need the catchy nature of pop music and the topics that you know work well with passionate audiences. But at the same time, you need to add a layer of depth and make it a little more interesting. Otherwise people won’t remember who you are. So instead of creating pop music that’s forgetable, or classical music that’s too complex for a mainstream audience, you can create a content musical—a whole new category in between the two.
Content musicals work well because they’re made to stick. They’re deep enough to offer insight, yet catchy and clever enough to appeal to a mainstream audience. So how do you create a content musical?
Create a content musical by making your ideas stick
All good musicals have a voice. They have a unique story to tell, and they present it in a clever way. It could be the plot structure or how each event unfolds. But there’s always a profound lesson or epiphany in a musical.
That epiphany is what people need. It’s why the musical exists in the first place. The thing is, people don’t always want to hear about what they need, they want to hear about what they want. So when you’re selling your blog’s value to people, you have to make your message easy-to-digest.
If you’re knowledgable about your niche, you already know what people need. Instead, you have to learn how to give it to them in an interesting way, and make your idea stick.
Brothers Chip and Dan Heath broke down the anayomty of an idea in their 2007 book, Made to Stick:
- Simple: Before an idea will become successful, it needs to be boiled down to a core meaning. What are you trying to get across, and why is it important? At the end of the day, what is the driving force behind your blog?
- Unexpected: Make connections between unexpected things. People like novelty, because it’s new and fresh. So try making comparisons between unrelated topics, like blogging and music for example.
- Concrete: Ideas become tangible when you use concrete examples. You can make a post stand out by using real-life examples that everyone knows. Your idea immediately becomes clear in the minds of readers.
- Credible: Before people will spread an idea, they need to believe in it. You can use external research, vivid details, or a “see for yourself” test to lend some credibility to each post.
- Emotional: People don’t care about something until they’re emotionally connected. The goal is to get them to buy into your post by appealing to their self interest, or using a common association to their identity. For example, every blogger one day wants to make money and have thousands of subscribers, right?!
- Stories: Stories are one of the best ways to package ideas. You can make the narrative compelling enough so people are sucked in immediately. Some of the best stories involve a hero triumphing over evil, or explaining how to solve a problem in a unique way.
Conclusion
Every great blog post starts with a pearl of wisdom. You think of a clever lesson, unique story or interesting insight, and you have to share it with the world. It’s what people need to hear.
The problem is, it’s not always what they want to hear. So you need to make it easy to understand and digest. That way, it will stick with a larger audience. You need to find the sweet spot between content that’s too light, and too complex.
When you do, your blog will appeal to a mainstream audience, and be original enough to stick around for the future.
Brad Smith is a digital marketing consultant who focuses on lead gen for businesses by getting more traffic, leads and sales online.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Build a Successful Blog by Creating a Content Musical
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