Every company wants to have viral content and some may be willing to do whatever it takes. The question posed is whether or not “whatever it takes” is a good notion to have. Many viral video ads out there are hilarious and have converted into incredible sales for companies, but many question the ethics of some of these ads.
Let’s use the example of the Pepsi “Test Drive” ads and discuss if “whatever it takes” should be left to the professionals.
Pepsi Max: Test Drive
We have all seen this video at some point and it is pretty funny. Jeff Gordon dresses up as someone who is interested in buying a car and “kidnaps” the salesman, taking him on a wild ride. We all laughed at it and loved when Jeff Gordon revealed who he was, but some felt sorry for the poor salesman. Some even wondered what else could have happened to the salesman or other unsafe ways he might have reacted. These concerns led to one blogger saying the video was faked. He said the salesman was an actor and “in on it.” He also stated that Jeff Gordon didn’t really do the driving.
The Response
In response to this blogger, Ray Wert (a friend of the blogger) decided to get the ultimate revenge. He had his friend kidnapped by Jeff Gordon and they filmed “Test Drive 2” for Pepsi, proving that this wasn’t a hoax. It was, again, funny and especially entertaining watching revenge being enacted on someone. In this case, the blogger thought he was in the taxi of an ex-convict who decides to run from the police when they pull him over. They ended by driving the taxi to a garage filled with Pepsi logos and told the blogger he had been, well, had.
Should This Be Left to the Professionals?
In short, yes. Pepsi and other companies that have staged these types of pranks have strategies in place. They don’t make the kidnapping public and they do it in a confined area. Just look at how many people it took to pull off the “Test Drive 2” prank. When other companies go about kidnapping, it can cause a negative stir and hurt business. In April 2014, a group decided to film an educational video on child kidnapping and the response of witnesses, according to the Dailydot.com. This left parents enraged when they found out this “prank” had been pulled and it didn’t bode well for the group that performed it. In Australia, five men were arrested for a YouTube kidnapping prank because of an observer calling authorities. It took five months of investigation time to learn what exactly happened before the men were charged with creating a “false belief.” This shows that it takes more than a handful of people to adequately and safely pull off a prank like this; only then do many consider it funny.
Take a Lesson from Spock
Be logical about doing pranks as a form of advertisement. Leave the hilarious ads to the professionals and stay away from causing extreme negative side effects for your company. Just play it safe and find new ways to launch viral content and bring in customers and readers without possibly breaking laws and angering a lot of people.
Blog writing is just part of the equation. Keeping your readers on your blog long enough to engage, come back and share is the most difficult side of the equation. Ideally, you should be able to keep readers on your blog so they are encouraged to explore more, leave comments, share your content, subscribe and ultimately buy from you (if you’re selling). To do all of that, you need to keep your readers engaged.
Powerful Blog Writing Techniques That Will Lock In Your Readers
Keeping readers engaged involves more than just blog writing about what they want to read; it’s about going the extra mile for your readers and going a little outside of the box. There are plenty of blogs in your niche category, so you need to stand out among the rest. By looking for ways to step outside of the norm you can have the hippest blog on the block.
Adhere to the Three Principles
Those bloggers with naturally engaging topics have it easy — such as the guy who travels around the world or the woman who tests out products to see if they’re worth the hype. But, even if your material is inheritably interesting, you could find yourself in a mundane trap that turns readers off. To write a successful blog and keep readers engaged, you need to adhere to the three principles of blog writing:
Create a style and tone that is appropriate for your material.
Post often and be predictable.
Invite reader interaction.
Defining Your Style and Tone
Your content ultimately drives the style and tone in your blog writing. If you’re a health insurance agency with a blog and you’re targeting elderly individuals, you shouldn’t use slang or youthful language — they won’t appreciate it. If you’re blogging for techies, you need technological speak in your blog. If you’re blogging about food, you need a fun, upbeat tone that speaks to your fellow foodies.
It doesn’t matter how flashy your website is, if you don’t have a solid style and tone, your blog is going to suffer. Always remember that a blog is more like a conversation. Sure, it can be informative, but approach that information like you’re sharing it with a friend — not a robot. If you can, read your blog entry out loud and ask yourself if it sounds conversational-like.
Try writing your blogs with a friend or family member in mind. This technique might help you approach the conversational tone a little easier.
Your audience should be your number one concern. You’ve addressed your audience while developing your content strategy (or at least you should have) so you know your target audience. Use your target audience to select your tone and style, because this is ultimately the person that will read your blog.
Post, Post, Post
Be a frequent, predictable poster — not a random poster. Not only will this help with search engine rankings, but it will entice readers to come back for more. Try to post three times per week or up to once a day if you can. When readers know there is more to come, they will keep coming back for more.
Play with Your Audience — Not literally
But, you need to engage your audience as if you’re physically in front of them hanging out. It doesn’t matter how boring the topic, there are ways to get your readers to interact with your blog posts, which ultimately encourages them to come back for more.
So how do you get your readers to play along?
Ask Questions – You’ve shared your experience and case in your blog, so why not shoot it out to the readers and ask for their opinions. For example, you’ve posted about whether or not you should work from home. Now direct the question to your readers asking for their thoughts, experiences, etc. This encourages comments (always great for search rankings) and engages the audience instantly.
Be Visual – Readers could use a break from text. So add a picture or video for them to enjoy along with your post.
Insert a Poll – Readers love polls. They’re anonymous, fun, and it encourages the readers to come back later to see the results.
Open Up a Debate – Pick a topic and put your opinion in there. Then direct it to the readers for debate. Debates can get heated though, so make sure you’re there to moderate.
Remember Don’t Be A Dull Dud
Your content strategy should lay out what you’re blogging about and when. Avoid writing about the same topics over and over. If you notice you’ve written on a similar topic a few times in a single month, it’s time to revisit your content strategy and change it up.
Use catching headlines. Readers love lists, such as “10 Tips for Writing a Killer Blog.” Make sure you have something compelling in your headline that makes a reader want to click and continue on.
Make your content scannable. Break it up with subheaders, use short paragraphs and keep your sentences tight. A wall of text can discourage readers from reading further — even if you added a few photographs to break it up.
Engaging your readers isn’t hard as long as you keep it conversational, fun and interesting. Take some time before you write your posts and never write just to rank a keyword. Have a friend or family member read a post before it goes live for an objective opinion. The more natural your writing is, the more engaged your readers will become.
There are many things to consider in blog writing before you even open your Word document to begin. You need to consider SEO, meta tags, and keywords. Yet, keeping all these things in mind still isn’t enough; there is one more task to consider before starting your post: you need to think about how viewers are going to read it. It is a well-documented fact that you need to create outstanding online content in order to hold the attention of the reader for the entire article.
While it is true that most readers skim online articles, they actually read more content than most blog writers would believe. It is just that readers scanned the article a certain way in order to determine if the post is worth their time.
So, how do you create a post that ensures that the most important information will be scanned? Then, how do you entice the reader to go back and digest the entire article?
Formatting Articles for Blog Writing
In order to make sure that readers notice the important facets of your article, you need to format the article in a way that attracts the reader’s eye. Next, you have to live up to the reader’s expectations by creating fantastic content.
Two-Thirds of a Post is Read
According to a study completed by Chartbeat, readers will actually look at 60% of an online article or blog post. This means that more of your blog writing is actually read then you may believe. In addition, 65% of engagement by readers occurs in what is considered below the fold. You have a good chance of having someone read your entire article if you can capture their attention during this initial scanning.
Eye Tracking Study
Chartbeat and other specialists like Crazy Egg have found that online articles are read in an F pattern. This means that a person’s eyes will travel horizontally first and then vertically as they continue down through the rest of the post. If you keep this in mind during blog writing, you can format your article to take advantage of this pattern.
Be Bold
You need to be able to attract a person’s attention when they are reading your blog post. One way to do this is by using bold in your post. If you place titles, subtitles, and important phrases in bold or italics then you will draw a person’s eye to that section of the article. This will call their attention to the key factors you are reviewing in your post and it will help them to decide whether they will find the rest of the post informative.
Another important aspect of formatting during blog writing is to create multiple subtitles in the post. This helps to break up the content and also call specific subtopics of the document to the reader’s attention.
Be Visual
Guidelines for efficient online articles include at least one image. Blog writing calls for creativity, and your imagination should not be limited when it comes to discovering images for your post. Don’t just scan through the free images that are available online. You can apply to subscription service such as iStockphoto, or you can create your own images. Pictures are not the only type of images you can use here. Studies have shown that info graphics help to enhance the share ability and views of online content. Learning how to create info graphics doesn’t have to be complicated. There are some basic templates that you can use to create effective photogenic images that described your text for you.
Video is another great way to explain the information in your blog post and to hold a reader’s interest. Videos can be as simple as an animated slideshow. Basic software to create videos is often found in laptops and can be downloaded for free on the Internet.
Be Unique
It is also important with blog writing to make sure that you are taking a unique point of view on your topic. Nobody wants to read a rehash of the same information over and over again. Put a unique spin on an article to keep readers informed and to show them that you are a thought leader in your field. After all, anyone can rewrite content. It takes someone that has a thorough understanding of the subject matter to be able to put their own perspective on the topic.
Tell Readers What to Do
Do not assume that readers will know what you want them to do next. You need to include a call to action in all of your online content. In terms of blog writing, this often means asking them to do something as simple as leave a comment, share your post, or subscribe to your RSS feed. Statistics show that when writers ask people to do things the readers are more inclined to follow the directive.
While blog posts should not be advertisements for your business offerings, this does not mean that you cannot create calls to action for downloadable content. In order to establish your online reputation and brand, it is important to create case studies, white papers, and e-books. After this content has been created, you can craft a blog post about the topic of this content and create a call to action that will encourage readers to download the information to learn more about the subject.
Live Up to Expectations
Once you have caught the reader’s attention by using visual aids, subtitles, and bolding key phrases you need to live up to the expectations you have created in the reader’s mind. Too often, blog writers will craft a terrific summary but then the content fails to deliver. In the initial phases of your blog writing, make sure that you have outlined the topic of your post and that you have at least three main ideas and three subtopics to support those ideas for 500 pages of content.
This way you make sure that you thoroughly explain the subject matter to your reader and you are creating a document that is valuable to them. Otherwise, whether they read 60% of your posts or 40%, they will never read another blog post of yours again.
There are many different elements of blog writing the need to occur before the actual creation of the post begins. Because 60% of your blog is scanned by readers, you need to make sure that you are formatting your post to take advantage of the F pattern readers follow when reviewing your document. Make sure that you have plenty of subtitles, images and substance to encourage the readers to read the other 40% of your post. Then make sure you include a call to action to let readers know what you want them to do next. Using these strategies will help increase the readership and sharing of your blog.
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Bonding with your blog readers—is that really possible? Blog writing and forming a personal connection at the same time might seem like a daunting task. How do you connect to real people in the form of black-and-white text on a screen?
Creating a connection with your reader requires understanding their wants and needs. In order to truly bond with your blog readers, your content will need to answer questions, create inspiration, and build trust.
The following list will help you establish a personal connection with your readers, and keep them coming back to your blog time and time again.
1. Be Helpful With Your Blog Writing
Grow your audience by being helpful and giving them something they can take away. You should advertise this in your header. For example: let’s say you have a foodie blog on how to eat gluten-free. One way to appeal to your readers and bond personally in a blog is to feature an original recipe inside, offer something new and useful about gluten-free eating in a picture or a tip, maybe feature on a morning breakfast with home-made gluten-free pancakes. It doesn’t have to be 10,000 words: 100 words of something “new” that your specific blog readers find useful can endear you to them.
2. Inspire Your Readers
Don’t just give them a useful tip: turn it into inspiration to go do something. OK, now that you’ve read my blog, you can go do THIS! They’ll be grateful and feel you changed their life in some way. Even if it’s inspiration to go make those gluten-free pancakes you talked about. If your blog is selling something, this can even be a call to action.
3. Bond Over a Common Nuisance
Here’s an interesting way you can bond through blog writing: share a common nuisance or enemy. What irks you as a cuisine expert? Is it those people who toot their own horn but really know nothing about their choice of ingredients when it comes down to it? Share some frustration of yours and appeal to your readers by asking them directly if they feel the same. This is a common direction that viral blogs take. Everyone can relate; everyone feels sympathetic; they share it, their friends share it.
Note: The three tips above are the meat of the matter. Other directions for bonding personally with your reader can include making use of metaphors, personal experiences, inside advice and tips, writing well, keeping it informative, and all those other tidbits that make a blog good.
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