You know how important it is to develop your social presence as a leader. You’ve watched how thought leaders demonstrate their expertise and become well known within their field and you wish you could be noticed in the same way – attracting exciting leadership opportunities to you in the process.
Perhaps you want to publish your first article, but don’t know how to get started?
Maybe you have written a few posts, but want to create more compelling, more readable content?
We are regularly asked questions about writing and publishing articles and getting noticed, so I have put together a few key tips you can reference.
Here are my top 5 tips to get started (or get better!) at writing compelling articles:
Tip #1: Title – Capture Their Attention
The title is arguably the most important element of a blog post. Why? Because this is where you hook someone into opening and reading your post. A good title should make a compelling promise, entice the reader, speak to what your audience is looking for, highlight what they will get out of the post, draw a reader in to find the answer to your question. Some key points include:
– Say it simply
– State the benefit
– Announce news
– Appeal to the “how-to”
– Pose an interesting question
– Make a strong statement
– Offer useful information
Tip #2: Concise – Get to the Point
With blog writing, it’s important to get to the point, keep it simple, keep it short. Break up your blog post into pieces or sections, use short paragraphs and use simple sentences. Good length overall is generally 400-700 words. The right embedded picture tells a thousand words. Use a short story to explain a concept. Use an analogy of something your audience can relate with to explain a key concept. Use hyperlinks to supplemental and supporting information, where people can go to learn more about a specific key point.
Tip #3: Scannable, Skimmable, Scrollable – Make it Consumable
People are pressed for time. More people will read through your content if you make it easy to consume. Make it scannable – use section titles that break down your post into sections. Make it skimmable – again, use short sentences and paragraphs that people can quickly scan. Make it scrollable – using bullet lists and enumerated lists will entice people to scroll down to read what’s included in your lists.
Tip #4: Call to Action – What should the Reader do?
Like with any business communication, it’s important to end with a clear call to action. What is it you want the reader to do next? Guide your reader to next steps, where to get more info, how to get help. You want to progress a reader to the next step.
Tip #5: Make it Findable – Share It
It’s important to make your content findable by readers. Use tags that highlight what you cover in the key content. Use keywords in your title and in your content. Share you blog post with your network through your Connections profile status update – be sure to include a #tag of the keyword for you post.
How to get started:
(1) Setup or identify the blog to reach your audience
(2) Outline your content and then draft your title
(3) Write the content that will fulfill the promise you made in your title
(4) Proof, prep to post (tags, links, embed photo/video), publish
(5) Promote it
Practice, practice, practice. The most content you create and publish, the better you will get.
Everyone has great insights, perspectives, knowledge. Share it.
What are you going to blog about?
Where should you blog?
(1) In your internal business collaboration platform – This is a great way to share your knowledge and expertise with your team and your organization.
(2) On your organization’s external website or blog – This is a great way to engage your customers, partners, influencers.
(3) Your own personal blog – This is a great way to build your long-term career personal brand and share your own voice, your point of view, your insights to your community. What I recommend to leaders and sales professionals, is to extend their internal blogging with a personal blog.
This is a fantastic way to lead in digital, to really build your credibility and influence, to build your brand. If you don’t yet have a blog and want to get started, we have had so many requests for this that we created a step-by-step guide to help you get started.
You can get set up in 30 minutes or less. My view is that this is 30 minutes incredibly well invested. Trust me, as you progress your career, a day will come where you wish you had started a blog… and it will be too late.
Start today and build. Remember, it’s a journey, you don’t have to have it all perfect on day one, just keep growing and adding and tweaking. The key thing – is that it’s yours and it’s your voice.
If you’re seeking a new leadership position and you would like to explore developing your social presence, perhaps a conversation with one of our career coaches would be useful? Contact us today at [email protected] or call +44 (0) 203 384 4188.
This article was first shared at www.executivesocialacademy.com
