Writing for the Social Media Everyman

Writing for the Social Media Everyman

Reader Comments (46)

  1. Yes, having the names of celebrities or anyone in the top 10 searches at technorati in any given day will definitely bring in traffic to your blog.

    You can see most skillful marketers and even some spammers using this strategy to hook readers in. The most important element is still quality content, because getting them in isn’t that hard. Retaining them is… now that takes some creativity and good writing.

  2. “Personal Development for the Book Smart” I think you are missing the value of this great post. Muhammad Saleem is not saying to just throw in the name of a celebrity into a title, but explains how to knit the perfect post which will have overall success on social media sites.

  3. Well this post has some truths in it, but it does not tell most of them. To succeed on the anti-social mob sites like Digg you need to write like a nazi propaganda minister.

    Especially if you refer to Digg and Reddit.

    If you write for Digg: Most importantly choose one of these topics:
    Apple (not the fruit)
    Ipod
    Iphone
    Linux
    WII
    Playstation
    Xbox

    If you want attract Reddit users:
    [Pic]

    For both of them include some hate, and/or take something spectalular:

    SEOs? Hang ’em High!
    Flash sucks!
    Bush Plans To Nuke Iran

    Make sure to mention some well known brand names or names. Celebrity names with “naked” combinations work best.

    “[Pics]Paris Hilton Cought Naked With Britney Spears” would work best on both Digg and Reddit.

    “Woman Runs Over Own Legs at McDonald’s Drive-thru” is also great. Btw. I’m not that crazy to make it up, it’s really the 2nd most popular post on Digg today…

    Well, I could go on for a while like that. Probably I will write a post on that topic, hehe.

  4. Leveraging the knowledge and reputation of a renowned thinker or writer is a great way to get some social media exposure.

    George Orwell helped my site make Digg. Just make sure you have good content to back it up.

  5. Muhammad nailed this one! While Tad Chef offers some good comments above, Muhammad provides a nice template that can prove successful for ‘any’ market.

    Add a ‘tickler file’ technique to know what’s upcoming, and use Muhammad Saleem’s article as a guide, and you are on the path to greater traffic.

  6. It’s much, much more difficult than I thought to gain traffic, you need good design, good writing a bit of gossiping, unless you want to focus on a very specific niche. And I find even more difficult to attract a women audience (at least in Italy). Internet audience is represented by men, that’s why techno and naked women work so well in the blogoshere.

  7. Great points here. You need to find common ground to connect reader to author. Celebrities or well-known/established professionals can be the bridge you use in this case.

  8. Isn’t there are trick con artists use that’s similar to this?

    Introduce a series of givens and then drop in the implausible.

    But seriously, I’d also add that keeping articles short (within 700 words) usually does the trick, too…

  9. Wayne, I think there needs to be a logical connection between the hook and the point.

    For example, in the Cameron Diaz piece mentioned above, the point is not to treat your fans (blog readers) like crap the way Ms. Diaz does when she’s asked for an autograph. The goal of this method is to find a transferable lesson that you can tie in with the pop culture news.

  10. You’re right, it is basic marketing.

    If you’re trying to attract the Joe Blow surfer, you have to writing about what they are looking for to get found.

    Then you have to present the information in a way that they “get it.”

    I think bloggers who live on the web forget that many, many internet users don’t go much beyond Google.

    If your target is in the 30+ age range, don’t assume that they know how to use all the web gadgets that you do.

  11. Crazy does seem to work. Question, what do you think about making “above average” starts with selected text from good reference sources? Too high brow?

  12. ugh, we’re already sick of hearing enough about these celebrities, they already get too much coverage if you ask me. So now, in order to entice people to view your blog or articles you need to give these celebrities MORE exposure??!! I guess anything “Hollywood” sells these days…

    But on a more serious note, the study raises an interesting point. I think content online, to a certain extent, must be “dumbed down.” NOt because of the nature of the readers, but the nature of reading online. People tend to skim and read quickly rather than take their time which is why the headlines need to be catchy and the content needs to be simplified (ie lists and bullets).

  13. Social media is giving the users a different kind of intelligence, and it’s the new trend of the online marketing, only the people that understand this are going to have a successful business in the future.

  14. Nice post. The easy three step process to write for the social market…two additional tips:

    1) Visit http://www.google.com/trends to find out what “familiar” topics are most popular.

    2) Keywords in those topics should be in your title post. Then, connect the two (familiar and unfamiliar) as stated in this post.

    Joseph Ratliff
    Author of The Profitable Business Edge 2

  15. I’ve been wary of social bookmarking and social media websites but of late I’ve observed lots of quality stuff there, and some of the headlines don’t even indulge in baiting sort of titles. I think it all depends on what sort of people are promoting your stuff by voting for it.

  16. So I guess the audience that frequents social media sites tend to be the same audience that read the tabloids. They may even be the far left fanatics that are causing all of the trouble in this country.

    When deciding to promote your business in the social media, it comes down to knowing your target audience. If your customers are consertive, chances are they may not be frequenting the social media sites. On the other hand, if your customers are more liberal than the general population, they will be monopilizing sites such as MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Yelp, etc.

  17. Great post. I am glad I read it. One important point in social media content writing is to participate in the conversations already happening till you gain a certain level of respect and then start new discussions that will add more credibility.

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