Lately I’ve been reading much about the “keys” to successful content development and management. To feed the fundamental marcom approaches that predominate today, I would hardly be among the first to suggest: “content is everything.” It is — especially as we optimize approaches allowing us to engage audiences for ever more customized experiences. And within content development, blogging is central.
But as I am absorbing the reams of advice about how to best blog, suggested lengths of posts
and other directives, I am struck that this abundant advice may be missing the mark on what matters most about this important technique.
In our professional world, the blog is common. When anything becomes common, it rapidly acquires two easily recognized features: 1) naturally, it’s found everywhere; and 2) it becomes easy to recognize varying levels of quality. That’s what allows many of us to intuitively understand that not all blogs are equal. Some are great, many are half-baked or half-witted, and others fall somewhere between. But the whole reason any of us commit to creating content, and specifically blogs, is that we wish to provide compelling, memorable communication for an audience. This ambition seems paramount to any formulaic instruction about frequency, length and other characteristics recommended for blog posts. Simply put: make your blog compelling! To that end, consider the following strategies to achieve this:
1. Have something provocative to say to your audience.
Regardless of how narrow or broad your audience may be, have an idea that you think might provoke thought among your readers. Now, ensure it is a “real“ and heartfelt thought of your own, but assuming that, use it as a jumping off point for your post. For instance, for the audience to whom this blog is destined, the following three “provocative” thoughts immediately come to mind:
A. “In the b-2-b marcom world Search Engine Optimization is a lower priority than compelling content.”
B. “The more we measure the impact of marketing efforts, the less consensus we acquire about what works.”
C. “The truncated forms of many social media are insufficient to aid in the telling of a good story narrative.”
It took but ten seconds to ask myself what I think/believe about a topic relevant to my audience. These are examples of heartfelt concepts that I am ready to explain and perhaps even defend. If you can do that, there is no reason the same point can’t be hammered into an effective blog.
2. If you are going to write anything, you have to read — and what you’re reading has to include a heavy dose of thinking on the topic.
Few effective blogs can be built from sufficiently sturdy ideas acquired as you’re browsing a comment string. For all the wizardry of social media applications in our industry, they too often fall short in educating us about many topics. Augmenting this with the reading of leading thinkers on the topic is essential. If you don’t read with regularity some well-constructed thought leader content, it is unlikely you’ll write such content.
3. Create an interruption-free environment for blog creation.
Shakespeare may have opined “digital media bringeth and digital media taketh away” — especially the quality chunks of time we might use to flesh out an idea in written form. The effective blogger must strive to create a writing environment devoid of endless e-mail, text, phone and other communication interruptions of the common business day. This is essential to allow an idea to “flow” from your brain to keyboard and to ensure any blog posting meet the minimum prerequisite of having a beginning, middle and end.
Content development and the many challenges it presents for those of who blog are here to stay. But content that doesn’t strive to distinguish itself or at least be memorable to its audience runs the risk of becoming just being another contribution to the endless heap of digital “noise.” This benefits no one and especially the audiences for whom we are writing.
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John Durante is marketing services director for WordWrite Communications.
