Let’s face it — your online business is floating in a sea of competition. The content you publish is the only way you get to “talk” to your target audience. Unfortunately, though, your audience is being swarmed with articles, blog posts, videos, ebooks, newsletters, etc. On WordPress alone, more than 42 million blog posts are published every single month.
So, if you actually want to make a dent in the world wide web, you’ve got to make people fall in love with your content.
But how do you actually DO that?
1. Share your expertise with style
Just because you can rattle off a bunch of statistics off the top of your head doesn’t meant that your content is going to be interesting. In fact, this approach pretty much guarantees that it won’t! (Only Ben Stein is capable of making a name for himself by being completely boring.)
Of course, you need to make sure you’ve included important facts and figures, but if you want people to truly fall in love with your content, you’ve got to make it fun to read. Until you learn how to incorporate the “hard stuff” with a voice that compels people to read all the way to the end, you’re never going to have a loyal group of readers that loves everything you write — and shares it with all of their friends.
2. Make sure that you actually give a damn
I used to work with a reporter who just wanted to put in his eight hours every day without too much effort. As a result, he did “easy” stories — things that didn’t require a whole lot of digging and things that weren’t really hot-button issues. But when you watched the news at night, it was obvious that he just didn’t care about what he was talking about. He sounded completely bored!
Whether you’re talking on the news at night or writing a blog post for your business’ website, you have to care about what you’re talking about. After all, if YOU can’t even get excited about it, why should your readers? Why should they bother to read all the way through? Why should they bother to sign up for your email list? Why should they bother to check out your products and services?
Passion is impossible to fake. If you’re not genuinely interested in your niche, your readers WILL be able to tell. There will be a drastic difference between the content you publish and the content your competitors publish!
3. Don’t be afraid to be funny
Lots of people assume that their content has to be straight-laced serious all of the time. After all, web searchers are looking for answers to their questions and solutions to their problems, so you can’t take that lightly, right?
Well, there’s a big difference between taking your readers’ needs lightly and making them laugh!
Your articles, blog posts, and email newsletters don’t have to be a non-stop comedy routine, but they should include a little bit of humor when it’s appropriate. After all, being a little witty every now and then shows that there’s a REAL person behind your content — instead of a nameless, faceless corporate entity.
Why is that so important?
People like to do business with other people! Before they spend a dime of their hard-earned money, they want to know that there’s a person on the other end who actually cares about them and is going to make their lives easier.
As an added benefit, people love to share funny stuff with their friends. (Don’t believe me? Just look at the wild success that Buzzfeed has!) Sharing some of your sparkling wit can go a long way towards making you the viral sensation that you’ve always dreamed of.
