Denver Digital Marketing Firm Tells You How to Make Sure Your Online Content Has Personality
October 12, 2020
Online content has gained more and more importance in recent years, and with billions of pages of content available today, yours needs to stand out. With a Denver digital marketing firm on your side, it’s easy to ensure your content has plenty of personality. If you are doing your own digital marketing, however, here are some tips that we use to ensure content is informative as well as compelling.
#1: Tell a Compelling Story
Everyone loves a good story, and stories have been around since prehistoric times. If you are writing a blog or an article that seems a bit drab, this is the perfect time to insert a relevant anecdote. Come up with a story that is entertaining, but that also adds an additional dimension to the topic at hand. Your anecdote should go along with the mission of your content. Do this, and you are likely going to keep your reader engaged just a little bit longer. Adding a bit of suspense to your story will also improve the way readers engage with your content.
#2: Write the Way You Speak
Online content doesn’t need to be formal; in fact, it’s likely to be more engaging if it is informal. So don’t be afraid to write enthusiastically about your subject matter much as you would do if you were talking to somebody about it. Of course, keep it appropriate for the subject. If you are writing legal content, for example, you wouldn’t want to start out with “Hey, y’all.” Above all else, however, be true to yourself. People appreciate authenticity more than anything else, and they can usually sniff it out if you are being fake.
#3: Ask a Rhetorical Question
Asking rhetorical questions get readers thinking about what you are writing. This can be very useful unless you go overboard. You don’t want to make readers feel frustrated by what they are reading. Online content (unless it’s a social media post) is a very one-sided conversation. So it’s best to keep these questions to one or two per 500 words.
#4: Pay Attention to How Your Content Looks
It’s difficult to make sense of content when you don’t use short paragraphs, images, bulleted lists, and the like to break up your text. Other elements, such as headers and subheaders and boldface or italic type can also give your content more appeal.
#5: Be a Reader to Be a Better Writer
Reading entertaining content yourself can improve your writing skills—and make your writing more interesting. Magazines and books—fiction or nonfiction—can provide inspiration. Listening to audiobooks can help you as well, ensuring you pick up the nuances of language. When you feel inspired by what you’ve read or heard, make note of it for use in your own writing.
#6: Be Interested in Your Topic
Chances are, if you are writing about something that doesn’t interest you, this is going to be evident by lackluster content. Try to find something you can appreciate about your topic to fire up your enthusiasm. Remember—enthusiasm is contagious. Don’t be dull.
#7: Add Some Fascinating Facts
Entertain people while you teach them something by including interesting factoids in your work. Do some research to find some fascinating information to pepper throughout your work. You’ll draw more of an audience by providing amazing stuff that also educates people.
#8: Seek an Emotional Response
Experts tell us that news items that elicit an emotional response—whether good or bad—tend to get shared by people many more times than when the item doesn’t play on the emotions somehow. Make sure you tell stories in your writing that cause people to feel something. They’ll be more likely to share it with others.
#9: Use a Variety of Vocabulary
Don’t let your writing get into the rut of using the same words all the time. (This is another way that reading a lot can help you improve your writing; see tip #5.) You don’t have to read a dictionary to learn new words; you can use one of the many available online thesauruses to switch out your typical words to add a new dimension to your writing—and perhaps a new word to your readers’ vocabulary. But again, don’t overdo it. You still want to write at the appropriate reader level of your audience.
#10: Know Your Audience
Build rapport with your audience by speaking the way they speak. Know the kinds of words and phrases they use. This can help build engagement and pack personality into your content. Readers will believe you are on the same level. Take some time to reach out to members of your audience and pay close attention to the language they use. Then incorporate that language into your own writing.
#11: Have Something New to Say
You can’t really inject much personality into your writing if all you are doing is rehashing what other people have already said. You are a unique person with unique gifts; bring your uniqueness to your writing by saying something new or different. Otherwise, what is the point of writing something if it’s not bringing a new slant to the topic? Your content should also be 100 percent unique. You can make sure you haven’t inadvertently plagiarized anyone else’s content by running your copy through a plagiarism detector.
Do you want to set your business apart from your competitors by creating a quality content strategy? Give us a call! The experts at Denver Website Designs are here and ready to help with your digital marketing campaign whenever you are ready. With this team of experts working alongside your team, they can help your Denver business—and businesses anywhere—increase your client list with a solid content marketing strategy. They can help your business create a marketing strategy that will increase exposure. Find out more about how your new digital marketing strategy might work by giving them a call at 303-498-9000 to schedule an appointment!
Go Back #1: Tell a Compelling Story
Everyone loves a good story, and stories have been around since prehistoric times. If you are writing a blog or an article that seems a bit drab, this is the perfect time to insert a relevant anecdote. Come up with a story that is entertaining, but that also adds an additional dimension to the topic at hand. Your anecdote should go along with the mission of your content. Do this, and you are likely going to keep your reader engaged just a little bit longer. Adding a bit of suspense to your story will also improve the way readers engage with your content.
#2: Write the Way You Speak
Online content doesn’t need to be formal; in fact, it’s likely to be more engaging if it is informal. So don’t be afraid to write enthusiastically about your subject matter much as you would do if you were talking to somebody about it. Of course, keep it appropriate for the subject. If you are writing legal content, for example, you wouldn’t want to start out with “Hey, y’all.” Above all else, however, be true to yourself. People appreciate authenticity more than anything else, and they can usually sniff it out if you are being fake.
#3: Ask a Rhetorical Question
Asking rhetorical questions get readers thinking about what you are writing. This can be very useful unless you go overboard. You don’t want to make readers feel frustrated by what they are reading. Online content (unless it’s a social media post) is a very one-sided conversation. So it’s best to keep these questions to one or two per 500 words.
#4: Pay Attention to How Your Content Looks
It’s difficult to make sense of content when you don’t use short paragraphs, images, bulleted lists, and the like to break up your text. Other elements, such as headers and subheaders and boldface or italic type can also give your content more appeal.
#5: Be a Reader to Be a Better Writer
Reading entertaining content yourself can improve your writing skills—and make your writing more interesting. Magazines and books—fiction or nonfiction—can provide inspiration. Listening to audiobooks can help you as well, ensuring you pick up the nuances of language. When you feel inspired by what you’ve read or heard, make note of it for use in your own writing.
#6: Be Interested in Your Topic
Chances are, if you are writing about something that doesn’t interest you, this is going to be evident by lackluster content. Try to find something you can appreciate about your topic to fire up your enthusiasm. Remember—enthusiasm is contagious. Don’t be dull.
#7: Add Some Fascinating Facts
Entertain people while you teach them something by including interesting factoids in your work. Do some research to find some fascinating information to pepper throughout your work. You’ll draw more of an audience by providing amazing stuff that also educates people.
#8: Seek an Emotional Response
Experts tell us that news items that elicit an emotional response—whether good or bad—tend to get shared by people many more times than when the item doesn’t play on the emotions somehow. Make sure you tell stories in your writing that cause people to feel something. They’ll be more likely to share it with others.
#9: Use a Variety of Vocabulary
Don’t let your writing get into the rut of using the same words all the time. (This is another way that reading a lot can help you improve your writing; see tip #5.) You don’t have to read a dictionary to learn new words; you can use one of the many available online thesauruses to switch out your typical words to add a new dimension to your writing—and perhaps a new word to your readers’ vocabulary. But again, don’t overdo it. You still want to write at the appropriate reader level of your audience.
#10: Know Your Audience
Build rapport with your audience by speaking the way they speak. Know the kinds of words and phrases they use. This can help build engagement and pack personality into your content. Readers will believe you are on the same level. Take some time to reach out to members of your audience and pay close attention to the language they use. Then incorporate that language into your own writing.
#11: Have Something New to Say
You can’t really inject much personality into your writing if all you are doing is rehashing what other people have already said. You are a unique person with unique gifts; bring your uniqueness to your writing by saying something new or different. Otherwise, what is the point of writing something if it’s not bringing a new slant to the topic? Your content should also be 100 percent unique. You can make sure you haven’t inadvertently plagiarized anyone else’s content by running your copy through a plagiarism detector.
Do you want to set your business apart from your competitors by creating a quality content strategy? Give us a call! The experts at Denver Website Designs are here and ready to help with your digital marketing campaign whenever you are ready. With this team of experts working alongside your team, they can help your Denver business—and businesses anywhere—increase your client list with a solid content marketing strategy. They can help your business create a marketing strategy that will increase exposure. Find out more about how your new digital marketing strategy might work by giving them a call at 303-498-9000 to schedule an appointment!