How often do we see the same news headline blogged to death? If you hesitated, click one of the popular search tags on Technorati and see the thousands of blog entries featuring the same story simply summarized with a few obvious observations thrown in. Boring.
Perhaps risking readership with milk toast posts is no concern for some. Others may not realize they're droning. Some struggle with knowing your post is a drop in the blogosphere bucket of a bijillion other posts on the same story, but don't know what to do about it. It's those bloggers I'm writing to.
This Blog Drone mini series features a few articles on writing strategies to make your posts stand out from the crowd. The foundation of my posting strategies are style and content: titles that grab your readers by the throat and pull them over, a small measure of attitude, some proof of authority, attention to detail and a fresh perspective that bonks people on the head, but in a delightful way. Let's start with the head bonking first.
It's all about the angle. Want to write about the latest news headlines? Fine. Want to engage your readers in that post? Find a different angle to explore that's related to the story. Take the big Barbara Walters reveal last week. Instead of repeating the story all the big wires have already reported, how about unraveling a smaller thread of the bigger tapestry? For example, are there other famous people who tried to keep an inter-racial affair a secret? Or what about the opposite - notable couples who have openly celebrated their union? Let's take the journalist angle. Narrow it down to female journalists or even aging journalists. How many others have written a 'tell all' book in the twilight of their careers? These angles would make interesting list posts, such as "Ten Last Hurrahs From Aging Journalists", or whatever.
Now let's think about the money. Everyone likes to read about other people's money. Research what Walters plans to do with the proceeds of her book. Anything interesting?
Some pundits scorned Walters' book as a distasteful publicity stunt. Can you examine other angles of her behavior under that same lens? How about researching her interview subjects from past to present? Seems to me she made history with breaking interviews of political icons and humanitarians. Now she engages in silly conversations with Paris Hilton and Tom Cruise. I'd read a post about that comparison.
Working subtle angles of headline stories also uses popular key words for SEO, but delivers a fresh story to your readers. What's not to love?
Next in this series: tricks to boost your authority on any subject. Subscribe now and get my shiny full feed.
