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Don't Fall Victim to an Online Charity Scam!

Sunday, June 12, 2016 saw the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, resulting in the deaths of 49 people and the wounding of another 53. As we collectively struggle to make sense of this horrific event, there are those who would take advantage of this tragedy for their own monetary gain. While people across the world are reaching out to support the Orlando LGBTQIA community through…

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Improve Your Klout: Being a Social Influencer Online

Improve Your Klout: Being a Social Influencer Online

Klout scores help you track how you’re rocking the engagement and influence game in the social media world. You’ve probably heard of Klout, a tool that ranks its users according to their online influence through a “Klout Score.” If you have a high Klout score (based on a scale of 1 to 100), you’re considered extremely influential online. The average Klout score is 40, but if you have a score of…

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Forget the Big 4: Leverage These Lesser-Used Social Media Platforms

Forget the Big 4: Leverage These Lesser-Used Social Media Platforms

  When beginning a social media campaign for a product or business, the first social media platforms that likely come to mind are the big four: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. But what about those other, lesser-used and lesser-known social media platforms? They deserve some love, too! Here are a few platforms that, when used properly, can be a treasure trove of engagement and valuable…

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YouTube Channel Tips & Tricks

YouTube Channel Tips & Tricks

There’s no doubt that more and more companies are investing in video marketing today. Using YouTube for a business can be a cost-effective way to grow your audience, if consistently used as part of your marketing strategy. Brands that want to stand out from the endless stream of videos have to make sure their channels can be easily discovered to capture people’s attention and interest. Social…

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Meet Justin H!

Hi! My name is Justin Hammond, and I am a junior analyst and account executive at Agile Impact. One day I hope to change the “Junior” to “Magnificent,” but these things take time. I find things like logistics and analytics very interesting and have firsthand experience managing social media for my gaming channel on YouTube. I enjoy gaming and video editing in my spare time. It is worth mentioning…

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Girls in ICT Day 2016

Girls in ICT Day 2016

April 28th was International Girls in ICT Day 2016, which, to date, has been celebrated in over 150 countries. On the fourth Thursday of April, ICT (Information Communication Technology) stakeholders and organizations are encouraged to host events “to empower and encourage girls and young women to consider studies and careers in the…

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All Eyes on You: How Companies Collect Your Personal Info Online

All Eyes on You: How Companies Collect Your Personal Info Online

Companies are collecting your personal info online without your consent. But what are they doing with it?Image: Shutterstock For all the wonders the Internet gives us, it’s also fraught with danger: in particular, the way personal information is so easily collected and used…without your consent. We can save the debate about whether or not privacy even exists anymore for another time. But the…

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Ransomware: More than Just Fashion for Kidnappers

Ransomware: More than Just Fashion for Kidnappers

The word “ransom” is a little sordid. It brings up images of kidnapping, of blackmail and old movies, of suitcases filled with money and traced phone calls. Unfortunately, it also is something that your computer can demand of you through malicious programs known as “ransomware.” What is ransomware? These programs are a type of malware that restricts user access to the computer that it is a part…

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Looking for Mr. Right: Researching Topics for Quality Content

Looking for Mr. Right: Researching Topics for Quality Content

It can be easy to believe the things you find on the internet, especially when you’re writing about a topic outside of your expertise. Unfortunately, to seem trustworthy and knowledgeable to an audience, it matters which sources you pull material from. If you’re citing sites that seem spammy and inaccurate or people who have very little relation to the material, your content won’t be as good as…

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A Dream Deferred - Homebuying Scams

A Dream Deferred – Homebuying Scams

We’re barely one quarter in to 2016, and already it seems like we’re inundated with new phishing scams and cyber security attacks. I’ve written before about email and phone scams, as well as online attacks, but the newest set of phishing scams is particularly abhorrent to me. See, as a Millennial, buying a house seems like a nigh-impossible task, but one that I’m busily socking away all my spare…

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Tips for Growing Your Audience on Social Media

Tips for Growing Your Audience on Social Media

Finding social media marketing success can be tough for small businesses, as it’s becoming progressively difficult to stand out from the crowd. No matter what stage your business is in, you’ll want to start or continue to grow your audience on social media. The more people you can reach on social media organically (and through advertising), the better your launch and on-going sales will be. Here…

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We’ve Got Your Back: Backing Up Your HTML or WordPress Website

We’ve Got Your Back: Backing Up Your HTML or WordPress Website

What would you do if you woke up in the morning and your website was 100% broken? It’s happened to many people many times, and sometimes the only cure is to start back over from scratch. That is, unless you backed up your website files! Why back up your website? Having a backup on hand will make it possible to restore your website after an unforeseen event, like a malware attack, other malicious…

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Create a Killer Twitter Ad Campaign With These 3 Tips

Create a Killer Twitter Ad Campaign With These 3 Tips

Image: Shutterstock   Mastering social media advertising can be the key to bringing in new leads at low costs for your business. Facebook is currently the world’s largest social network with more than 1 billion active users; however, Twitter is the platform a business can use to really reach out to a global audience as part of their marketing strategy. Twitter is the place where people go when…

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How to Kick Boring Content to the Curb and Engage Readers, Pt. 2

How to Kick Boring Content to the Curb and Engage Readers, Pt. 2

What sets “great” content apart from the ocean of mediocre or even – gasp – crappy content out there? There are quite a few differences I could point to, but instead I invite you to ask yourself these questions before embarking on your next content creation journey: What makes you want to start reading? What makes you want to skip reading? What makes you want to continue reading? What makes you…

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There are many things about the Internet that I love: connecting with people near and far with just a few keystrokes, having a plethora of information always at my fingertips, and accessing entertainment from anywhere at anytime – to name a few. But there are also a few things about the Internet that I…. don’t love so much. One of those things is the ever-increasing volume of crappy content online.

People have become obsessed with the idea of high volumes of cheap content because content in itself is essential to a strong web presence. There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve your online presence with content, but the sad truth is that many individuals and companies are just adding static to the noise that already exists. They’re not adding anything unique, anything distinguishable, anything of value. And in the end, all that “cheap” content they created doesn’t really do them any good.

So, I’ve put together a two-part series that I hope will help shed some light on how to write your content in a way that will better resonate with your audience, provide unique value, and ultimately do everyone more good. Today I’ll cover the first three focus areas: headlines, value of the content, and understanding audience. Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Headlines

Did you know that 80% of readers never make it past the headline? And A/B testing conducted by Upworthy has shown that traffic to a blog post varies by up to 500% based solely on the article’s headline.

Those statistics alone make the headline your most important tool for drawing people in. In other words, if you have a crappy headline, you’ll most likely have crappy click-through rates.

Writing for the web is different than writing a school essay in many ways; for one, readers aren’t obligated to read what you’ve written…and something more interesting is usually just a glance away.

When writing for the web, Copyblogger’s guide, How to Write Magnetic Headlines, suggests writing your headline first. Why? So you can make a promise to readers. This promise will guide your writing process, ensuring that you both deliver on the promise and keep your writing crisp and to-the-point.

Try some of these known methods for writing great headlines:

Study successful headlines for your topic area and use them as inspiration.

Focus on the benefit to the reader – how are you making their lives better?

Provide a promise with a quantifiable return (list posts).

Demonstrate your business’s niche expertise and help people avoid potential problems by providing a solution.

Commiserate – and perhaps offer a solution to a common problem.

Focus on self-identity and self-actualization.

Use “How” and “How To” headlines.

Consider a headline like, “Free [thing that will make your life better]!”

Value of the Content

After the headline, the first thing I evaluate as a reader, writer, or editor is the value of the content. I usually do this by asking myself a series of questions:

Does it entertain readers in some way?

Does it resonate with readers on a personal level?

Does it provide unique value compared to other content out there? Or is it just a re-hash of the “same old, same old”?

By entertainment, I’m generally looking for some sort of emotional response. Will it make people laugh, cry, chuckle, feel sympathy/empathy, say “awww”? Don’t underestimate the power of a genuine emotional response – it’s frequently the reason why content gets shared.

How can you make your content resonate with readers? Touch on topics like how to improve relationships (business or personal), self-identity and self-fulfillment, social movements, or pain points your customers may experience (paired with a solution, of course!).

And on the topic of making your content unique, covering a specific niche is key. For example, instead of writing a piece about restaurants in Seattle, we could write about the best food trucks in the Pioneer Square neighborhood. Not only would this resonate particularly well with local readers and business owners (who we would, of course, reach out to when we featured them in our article), but its uniqueness would also give our content better visibility in the overwhelming sea of content about Seattle restaurants.

Understanding Audience

So. You’ve come up with a great headline and you’ve made sure your content is unique and valuable. What next? Well, you should probably make sure you’ve defined your audience. Here are some questions you should ask – and be able to answer:

What is the age range of intended readers?

Where do they live?

What is their gender?

What is their socioeconomic status?

What are they interested in?

When are they online?

Where are they online (AKA which social platforms do they frequent)?

Remember, you’ve got two audiences to keep in mind: intended audience and actual audience. Intended audience is the audience you think you should be reaching, while actual audience is the audience you currently have. If you’re lucky, these may be one and the same, but frequently we find that this discrepancy is one of the reasons companies don’t get a great response from readers.

For example, Company A writes content to their intended audience: single males aged 25-35 years old making $30,000 per year. They focus on Twitter, making sure they talk about how cheap their products are and how they are perfect for bachelor pads, because those are things that are likely to interest said audience.

However, their actual audience is 75% married females aged 30-45 making a combined family income of $90,000 per year and primarily using Facebook. Chances are that all that talk of bachelor pads on Twitter won’t quite resonate or even really be seen – a slight adjustment might just be in order to make sure that Company A can reach both its actual audience and its intended audience.

Regularly check native social media analytics to get a realistic idea of who and where your audience is. Facebook and Twitter both provide rich audience data that’s just begging not to be ignored.

  Facebook Insights provides detailed audience information – like when your fans are online.

You can also see audience demographics using Facebook Insights – including gender, age, and location.

So, start cooking up some great new headlines. What promise will you make – and keep – for readers? Once you have your headline figured out, move on to the content itself, providing value to readers and ensuring that your content will stand apart from the crowd. Finally, look at the analytics and find out who your audience really is. Don’t make the mistake of creating fantastic content that no one interacts with because it spoke to the wrong audience in the wrong place!

Don’t miss my follow-up post on Friday, April 8th, where I’ll be covering topic trendiness, takeaways and freebies, visual media, and challenges / CTAs.

7 Ways to Kick Boring Content to the Curb and Engage Readers, Pt. 1 There are many things about the Internet that I love: connecting with people near and far with just a few keystrokes, having a plethora of information always at my fingertips, and accessing entertainment from anywhere at anytime – to name a few.

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5 Content Marketing Tips That Are Proven To Boost Shares

5 Content Marketing Tips That Are Proven To Boost Shares

Generate content that grabs your audience’s attention is an integral step in growing your marketing strategy and increasing likes, shares, and audience. Photo: Rawpixel.com | Shutterstock. Your content looks good: It generates comments, likes, and shares. However, when you study your analytics, you realize that your content isn’t working hard enough. You’re worried about marketing and your social…

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Create a Killer Facebook Ad Campaign With These 5 Tips

Create a Killer Facebook Ad Campaign With These 5 Tips

Image: Shutterstock If you’re serious about growing your business and investing in advanced marketing and advertising techniques, you won’t want to ignore Facebook advertising. Did you know that there are over 1.49 billion monthly Facebook users worldwide? It’s a growing number with a 13 percent increase year over year! Facebook represents a huge potential market for your social media efforts;…

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