A HONIGMANMEDIA GUIDE

TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ii.

DETAILS DETAILS DETAILS 1-7

A SIMPLE LESSON IN CLEAR, CLEAN BLOG DESIGN 2-4

MAKE SHARING EASY AND DON’T ASK TOO MUCH 5

ANNOYING BLOG DETAILS YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO FORGET 6-7

NOT YOUR TEACHER’S GRAMMAR 8-12

CITING YOUR SOURCES. NO BIBLIOGRAPHY NECESSARY. 9

BREAK EVERY RULE YOU’VE LEARNED ABOUT PARAGRAPHS 10

AVOID CERTAIN WORDS TO AVOID SEEMING CLUELESS 11-12

GETTING NOTICED 13-19

CRAFT HEADLINES TO INSPIRE INTEREST & SIGNAL VALUE. 14-16

DON’T REPOST. INSTEAD RECOMMEND OR REPURPOSE. 17-18

NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR RANTS. 19

KEEP THEM READING 20-39

MAINTAIN A FACT-TO-OPINION RATIO OF 3:1 21-22

WRITE WITH AUTHORITY. 23-24

DO THE WORK SO I DON’T HAVE TO 25-27

EDUCATE, ENTERTAIN OR CONVINCE – NEVER BRAG. 27-29

ABOUT HONIGMAN MEDIA 30

i.

PREFACE First of all, thank you for taking the time to explore this guide! It was a labor of love and one that evolved into something quite more significant than what was originally intended.

When the concept for this work originally emerged, the scope was only meant to cover the more practical nuances of starting a blog.

However, the more words that were put down on the page, the clearer it became that the topic really worth paying attention to (the one far more important and far less discussed) was the new set of rules and considerations for writing in regards to content marketing.

There are general writing tips and content marketing tips here to be sure, but nearly all the advice herein pertains to where these two complicated and constantly evolving disciplines intersect.

This guide is explicitly meant to help you write more effectively in your capacity as a content marketer. A good proportion of written content marketing takes the form of blogging, but there are certainly other areas where strong writing can help complement your content efforts – a landing page, a case study etc.

Simply put, if you are planning on using the written word on any screen to: get leads, get noticed or just get it off your chest, this guide is going to help you immeasurably.

The major impetus behind creating this guide was a desire to share years of hard-learned experience and to play whatever little part possible to advance the craft of content writing.

The real utility of this guide is the fact that these learnings have been compiled, collated and condensed for easy reading and reference.

Whether you choose to skim and peruse, or read this through, I sincerely hope you enjoy the guide and find it useful.

If you do find it useful, please share it with your friends or around the office and help spread the good word.

Happy writing!

ii.

DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS

1. A SIMPLE LESSON IN CLEAR, CLEAN BLOG DESIGN

Great design can never make up for a lack of great content. All design can do is highlight and clarify the content you already have.

We’ll get to creating compelling content later on, but we begin with a design lesson because your site’s appearance will affect all the content you store within it.

Blogs are like water: the shape of the container determines the shape of its content.

1.1 SIMPLICITY

Great design is invisible. All of the choices a designer makes are intended to make the individual elements imperceptible and allow the content as a whole to shine through.

Remember, first and foremost, that design is all about clarity and presenting ideas in a way that best highlights the core message of what you aim to express.

As the design legend Milton Glaser famously said “The purpose of design is to inform and delight.”

The order of his definition is purposeful.

Unlike pure art for art’s sake, design is not meant to just be “pretty.”

Elements of your design must all contribute to its overall intelligibility, otherwise they are superfluous.

This is the first principle of good blog design. Remove every element that doesn’t contribute directly to your content’s clarity.

When all elements of your design are placed with a central purpose (i.e. to relay your content’s message), each individual choice becomes less recognizable because all the components and facets blend into a seamless whole.

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The famous illusion of “The Necker Cube” Illustrates the Power of the Gestalt.

This effect, of the transformation of the whole into something beyond its constituent parts, is referred to as gestalt and should be the aim of the design process.

One common trap many fall into is making design choices that are meant to call attention to themselves.

A showy typeface or blinding fluorescent color scheme are chosen with the intention of “pop,” and that is precisely why they are so destructive – because they are inherently distracting.

Distractions destroy the illusion of a seamless whole. They should be avoided at all costs.

1.2 HIERARCHY

Another impediment to a coherent design is overwhelming the viewer with too much information.

Always assume your audience will have a degree of impatience when it comes to your presentation.

Given the format of the screen as a canvas with theoretically limitless space, you have the liberty of giving your content more breathing room. Make the most of the resources you have.

Break your paragraphs into smaller pieces than you would on the printed page.

On a screen, scrolling is much easier than parsing large paragraphs. This is true of reading on any screen, but is doubly true on the smartphones beginning to constitute the majority of content consumption.

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In addition to generous paragraph breaks, make ample use of headlines.

The use of logically proportioned and placed headlines and subheads not only eases the burden on the reader, it also forces the author to be more methodical and deliberate with her arrangement and flow of ideas.

A strict visual hierarchy will merely mimic clarity if the content underneath does not share the same clear underlying structure. Sticking with an explicit graphical framework will force you to create content with a corresponding structural clarity.

1.3 RESTRAINT

This final consideration echoes many of the sentiments expressed in regards to simplicity; but varies in one subtle, yet substantial way.

I used the term simplicity in regards to a site’s visual design, whereas I will attempt to define restraint in terms of its function and purpose.

More often than not, blogs fail to be compelling because they try to do and be way too much.

In an environment where ease of use is the expectation, viewers have little tolerance for learning curves. They (rightfully) demand immediate clarity because they know they won’t have to venture far to get it elsewhere.

Your site does not have to do everything, the only thing it must do is work well.

In much the same way that your site’s visual form should do nothing but present your brand in the best possible light, your blog’s core function should be nothing but displaying and organizing your content in the most intelligible and meaningful way.

To borrow the words of French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.”

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2. MAKE SHARING EASY AND DON’T ASK TOO MUCH

If you’ve ever tried to start a campfire, you know that how you handle the spark in the first few moments is absolutely critical.

Providing an adequate base for the fire to catch, carefully fostering the initial flame and making sure to ease it along without smothering the fire are all crucial parts of the process.

Additionally, you know that once a fire gets going it becomes much easier to start the next fire.

In much the same way that too much air will smother a spark that is just beginning to smolder, being too aggressive with calls to action the moment someone is first discovering your site will turn them off before you can ever hope to win them over.

On HelpScout’s blog the share buttons are only apparent if you look for them (which is exactly the point).

Interstitial windows asking for an email address the second someone arrives, or loud, in-your-face social buttons screaming for attention set an awful tone for the rest of the relationship.

Even if they do stick around, readers will have a bad taste in their mouth and will be exceedingly unlikely to give you great word of mouth.

Fostering that spark of interest and not putting it out will be absolutely essential if you want that fire to spread. Great content is a prerequisite for success, but getting that content to grow organically is the real aim.

Allow your reader’s interest a chance to build via slow burn and then ever-so-subtly hand them a candle and ask them to share the love.

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3. ANNOYING BLOG DETAILS YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO FORGETBlogging is part art and part science. For many, the “artistic,” high-level considerations constitute the majority of the appeal. Bloggers, by and large, are creative types after all.

However, there is an equally important (albeit, less glamorous) side of the blogging equation. The kinds of things that you don’t care about, yet can’t forget. The devil lies therein. I’m talking, of course, about the details.

In much the same way that carefully measured calls to action for social sharing are important primers for success, there are a whole slew of additional technical details that need attending to if you want your content to succeed online.

The following are a few of the most important considerations to commit to habit:

1. Keep your code simple: plug-and-play options abound when it comes to starting a blog. However, most of the time, the out-of-the-box templates might not offer the flexibility you need. When it comes to getting your design just right, and maintaining the ability to upload easily, a fair degree of customization is oftentimes in order. Invest in a quality platform like WordPress, shell out the upfront cost for a customizable premium design and have a web-designer come clean up the code. Not only will this ensure your blog looks nice, it will also make sure it works well. Fast load times make a good first impression and simple, hand-crafted code will make your blog zippy and the nerd gods happy.

2. Compress your images ruthlessly: keeping with our theme of speeding up your blog performance, make sure your images are squeezed to their utmost efficiency. Having plenty of images is necessary for engaging content, but having large ungainly files can make load-times unbearable. Use a free tool like compressor.io to reduce image size or, if you have the luxury of Photoshop, use the “Save for Web and Devices” option to fine-tune the settings for optimal image compression.

3. Tag your images properly: providing your images with proper ALT tags and descriptions is still simply good SEO practice that can edge your blog ever so slightly higher on the almighty search listings. In addition, getting creative with ALT tags can make sharing plugins provide better shareable content for your images. (PROTIP: Make the ALT tag in your blog header image to “

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*blog title* via*yourdomain.com* to allow social plugins to automatically generate share-friendly posts).

4. Make your URLs make sense: you probably don’t consciously pay attention to URLs, but if you’re in the business of creating content you probably should. A clever, simple URL can make sharing seamless and finding content easy, as well as positively impact your SEO efforts whereas a bad one will just get in the way. Contrast BuzzFeed which makes URLs so clever they add to the content (e.g. 28 Snapchats From Harry Potter –> http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/snapechat), with Entrepreneur, whose mechanical numerical entries muddle meaning and don’t add a lick of value. If your URL isn’t going to be clever, at least make sure it is simple and concise.

5. Catalog and tag your posts: this might not seem like a big concern from the outset, but as your blog begins to amass content, the really relevant content will become hard to find unless you have been properly tagging your posts throughout. Proper tagging and cataloguing will be easy if you take the time in the beginning to clearly define the different types of content that will encompass the scope of your blog. Having clearly defined buckets for all of your content will not only aid in findability and SEO, they will also lead to a more coherent and unified body of work.

6. Customize your title tag and meta descriptions: these two technical components are automatically generated by most blogging platforms, but they need to be defined for each piece of content. These determine how your page will show up in search results and can make or break your content. Title tags are only 65 characters and should just be the headline (unless it can’t fit, in which case you should truncate it). Meta descriptions are 15o characters and these should be custom-written to provide a quick compelling reason to click through. While not directly aiding SEO like title tags, meta descriptions entice users to click and that increased usability might indirectly help your rankings. With that being said. don’t just preview the first paragraph, sell searchers on your piece here. It can make all the difference.

7. Link internally and externally: one big component of SEO rankings are inbound and outbound links. If you create a piece of content without any links within, that page lives on a desert island. Make sure your content has visibility by linking it to relevant external sources that add value and also (more importantly) linking to relevant internal pages on your own website. If you are choosing topics along a coherent theme, then finding spots to link to other content of yours should not be too hard, and this deep interconnectedness will help make your blog stickier (people might explore more) and also improve your SEO.

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NOT YOUR TEACHER’S GRAMMAR

4. CITING YOUR SOURCES. NO BIBLIOGRAPHY NECESSARY.

Academia has many powerful lessons to teach bloggers and content marketers. Curiosity, synthesis, integrity… all these academic principles to be emulated will be highlighted later in this guide.

However, for now the task at hand is to learn which academic conventions to ignore, and lying dead in the center of the crosshairs are the stodgy specifics revolving around citations.

When it comes to content creation it is highly encouraged that you bring in a wide variety of outside sources. Not only will these ranging opinions provide depth and breadth to your work, but they will also invite your readers to engage with your ideas by exploring them further.

What you should certainly not do is stifle this exploration by using academic citation, or (even worse) by not citing your sources at all. MLA or APA formats were created for a decidedly analog world, and these standards do not leverage the interconnectedness and plasticity of the digital medium.

Whether it is a book, article, social post or photograph; link generously, directly and often to your source material. Don’t feel the need to only pick from references of the highest pedigree. Wikipedia is fair game and so are podcasts, tweets and blog posts.

What is inexcusable is not calling attention to your inspirations or doing so in a way that does not allow others to easily trace your intellectual footsteps.

You did the hard work of exploring and sourcing ideas from your multifaceted experiences, it would be an absolute shame if you didn’t give credit (and show off at the same time).

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5. BREAK EVERY RULE YOU’VE LEARNED ABOUT PARAGRAPHS

A common misconception about design is that the field is concerned with primarily aesthetic matters.

Designers are problem solvers, and most well designed things are simply artful solutions to pragmatic challenges.

In fact, beginning with the question “what are my limitations/resources?” often yields useful insight when it comes to design decision-making.

Within the context of a blog or online publication, the key limitation is user attention.

However, this limitation is countered by a valuable asset –  unlike the printed page, screens have virtually limitless space.

The convergence of these two opposing forces points us towards a unique design solution.

Trash everything you know about paragraphs and keep them short and punchy.

Bad English teachers around the country have hammered home the (erroneous) notion that paragraphs must contain three to five sentences.

This has never been a real rule, but then again, paragraphs are not technically a real rule themselves.

Paragraph breaks were only introduced to give reader’s eyes a break, they are not explicitly required by a single grammatical authority.

It only makes sense that in a medium where attention is limited, space is plentiful and reading is more exhausting on the eyes, that paragraphs become more frequent and more generous in their spacing – stick to 1-3 sentences per paragraph online.

Taken as a combined whole these aesthetic considerations will produce body copy that is pleasing to read on the screen and visually fits our expectation of a paragraph, while furnishing a more optimal experience for the given medium.

Not sure if you noticed, but throughout this entire section my paragraphs were limited to just one sentence each. Case in point.

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6. AVOID CERTAIN WORDS TO AVOID SEEMING CLUELESS

One of blogging’s greatest advantages is also one of its greatest pitfalls. Anyone can blog.

When any person can become a blogger, then establishing authority becomes a very necessary and oftentimes tricky endeavor.

Certainly there are many valid and telling signals that are outside and apart from the content your present to the world. Your professional credentials, your social media following (which might merit an entire guide to itself) and even the design of your blog can all signal expertise.

However, when it comes to establishing real lasting credibility and becoming an accepted voice within your field, the most important element is the content. Just as important as the ideas behind the content is the language you choose to articulate said concepts.

Or in the case of this section, the most important thing might be what words you choose to avoid.

My shortlist for words to steer clear of applies to content marketers and can be broken into two categories: words that will signal loud and clear that you “don’t get it” and words that have become overused within the trade ad nauseum.

Without further ado, here they are:

THE 20 WORDS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS

NAIVE/CLUELESS

1. Internet 2. Web 3. Social Networking 4. 4. Digital + Anything 5. 5. Online + Anything 6. Information Age 7. Anything 2.0 (or 3.0 for that matter) 8. Viral Anything

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9. Millennial 10. The “Conversation

ANNOYING JARGON

1. Omni-Channel 2. Big Data 3. Stickiness 4. Gamification 5. Snackable Content 6. Curation 7. Native Content 8. Growth Hacking 9. (Calling Yourself a) Thought Leader 10. Newsjacking

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GETTING NOTICED

7. CRAFT HEADLINES TO INSPIRE INTEREST & SIGNAL

VALUE. Understanding why a great headline is so important first requires the author to realize what she is (implicitly) asking of her reader.

Every time one of your headlines jockeys for someone’s attention while they are checking their email, flipping through Facebook or binging on Reddit you are playing the part of the uninvited guest. You are asking them to stop what they are doing and to pay attention to what you have to say instead.

That’s a tall order.

Furthermore, people often like to claim that headlines can be incrementally better; but the way I see it, a headline either works or it doesn’t.

Better headlines will work on more people, but this doesn’t change the fact that in each case the headline’s effectiveness is binary. For each person that saw the headline, they either clicked or they ignored you.

So how do you improve your headline to the point where it begins to work?

There are just two basic elements to this answer. A great headline must 1) grab attention and 2) signal value.

1. GRAB ATTENTION

This bit of advice has become a cliché. Of course you need to grab attention, but how?

When embarking on this task, it’s best to remember that most people operate on auto-pilot most of the time. Sure we are fully capable of being thoughtful, gracious human beings, especially when we interact with others. However, when it comes to our private, mindless, everyday goings on we simply operate on instinct.

And most, if not all of our instincts are guided by one burning, guiding, all-encompassing question.

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Remember these four words, because they are the bedrock of writing a great headline. Your copy must immediately answer the question:

“WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”

It doesn’t matter if your headline is one word, or thirty words. If it satisfactorily answers this question in your audience’s mind they will read. Hell, they’ll ask for more.

There’s a famous story from Victor O. Schwab’s classic book How to Write a Good Advertisement.

“Max Hart and his advertising manager, the late and great George L. Dyer were arguing about long copy. To clinch the argument, Mr. Dyer said, “I’ll bet you $10 I can write a newspaper page of solid type and you’d read every word of it.”

Mr. Hart scoffed at the idea. “I don’t have to write a line of it to prove my point,” Mr. Dyer responded. “I’ll only tell you the headline. That would be “This page is all about Max Hart!”

While you can’t be that specific, you can try to get close.

This requires that you know your audience a bit more intimately than you might already. What do they really want, and why do they want it from you?

These are questions you must know the answers to, otherwise any success you have will be completely by accident and you’ll have no luck in replicating it reliably.

Grab attention by answering the question “What’s in it for me?”

2. SIGNAL VALUE

Closely tied to the idea of grabbing attention is to signal real value.

Given that people initially pay attention to your headline because they think it might answer the question of what is in it for them, they will only proceed further if they are confident what lies on the other side will actually satisfy their needs.

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Headlines are short. How do you ensure that within those 60-100 characters (yes, that is my official recommendation for blog headlines) you let them know that your piece is worth their click?

Well, first they’ll need to make sure the value signalled is meant for them. If you don’t immediately let the reader know that they are part of the group you are tailoring your content towards, you’re sunk.

Take an example from Victor Schwab’s book. (Keep in mind this was published half a century ago and this headline would still work.)

“TO PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WRITE – BUT CAN’T GET STARTED”

Sure, this is not a blog headline, but the lessons it can teach still apply. This ad instantly identifies the audience and makes sure to cast a wide, yet specific net.

Make your headlines scream value and immediately allow one to identify themselves as the target audience. Don’t promise something you can’t deliver, but don’t sell yourself short either.

Value is relative, and people are fickle and hate barking up the wrong tree. Unless they know you’re offering something good and that it is good for them specifically, they will see right through you.

Armed with these two simple directives, you will notice a marked improvement in your ability to pull in readers. I guarantee it.

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8. DON’T REPOST. INSTEAD RECOMMEND OR REPURPOSE.

Your blog is the home base for your content, but it is certainly not the only place it should be.

Once you begin creating things worth paying attention to, the true purpose of social media comes into focus.

The reason so many people “just don’t get Twitter” because they “don’t have anything to post” are simply failing on the platform because success requires that they actually create something worth sharing.

The same goes for any other social network. The way to get your name out there is to make a name for yourself.

However, there is a certain level of activity that you need to maintain to keep people’s interest, and unless you are of superhuman focus you probably can not create enough absolutely original stuff to (as Peg Fitzpatrick and Guy Kawasaki put it) feed the content monster.

Accepted dictum is to supplement your original material with curation and commentary on other’s great work.

This is sound advice at it’s heart, but it’s easy to misread the fine line between valuable content and derivative work.

In order to have something worth posting you either need to have substantially added to the work via commentary or critique, transformed the work from one medium into another or call attention to a resource that no one else has found yet.

This principle applies to the work of others, but it also applies to your own work.

If you want to push your blog article out to another social channel, or rehash an old idea, you cannot simply copy paste.

You need to either revise, transform or otherwise repurpose your piece.

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Once you get good at doing this, you’ll find that a single piece of content (let’s say a blog post) can get a lot more mileage. Summarize it in a YouTube video, transcribe it into a Slideshare or make an infographic to share on Pinterest.

You can run your own content through the repurposing filter and you can run someone else’s work through it as well (so long as you give credit, obviously).

Anything goes so long as it’s not a straight repost. The busy populace has no patience for you making noise just to call attention to yourself.

To quote Proverbs 17:28 “Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent.”

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9. NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR RANTS

In blogging’s early days, people weren’t quite sure what to make of it.

The idea might be commonplace now, but the thought that anyone could publish their thoughts and ideas seemed pretty disconcerting in a world accustomed to gatekeepers deciding who had authority.

The skeptics kvetched, “Why, if anyone can publish, then we’ll be up to our necks in the rantings and ravings of any lunatic with a laptop.”

Given the rich, fruitful content ecosystem that has sprouted around the self-publishing movement, I think that concern has been sufficiently put to rest. However, there are still a few people who are under the completely erroneous impression that a blog somehow entails the right to rant and rave.

I’d like to set the record straight here: Nobody wants to read your rants.

You see, there might not be anyone formally deciding what gets published and what doesn’t anymore, but there are still standards.

In fact, the standards are even higher than they used to be.

Instead of just one “editor” (or maybe, if you were particularly unlucky, a “committee of editors”) deciding on what ideas get out there, the combined preferences of the entire digital citizenry determine what is good and what isn’t.

They don’t formally vote on what gets through, instead they endorse great writing with their attention, commendation and recommendations. They don’t reject your writing per se. Rather, if it is not collectively deemed worth their time it fades into eternal obscurity.

Sure anything can get published, but that just means it’s harder to get noticed than ever before.

Rant over.

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KEEP THEM READING

10. MAINTAIN A FACT-TO-OPINION RATIO OF 3:1

If you’ve gotten this far, I hope you are convinced of a few key things already.

First of all, nobody wants to read your rants and second, people respond to clear and present value.

These easily agreed upon realities have lead to one strongly held belief of mine. For every opinion you assert, have (at least) three facts* to back it up.

*Sidenote: In this context, “facts” don’t only mean statistics. In fact, statistics often offer only hollow foundations for your beliefs.

Just because someone claims something and slaps a percentage sign on it, that does not make it true.

Be choosy with your sources for statistics, and don’t be guilty of Andrew Lang’s famous epithet: “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.”

Carefully construct your arguments from first principles and/or examples, then build logically on top of that foundation in successive steps of reasoning.

Typically, a coherent opinion will be founded on a synthesis of knowledge and experience. Conviction is meaningless if it can’t be justified and defended.

For example, if I claim that content marketing works and end there, that is sheer opinion. Even though I don’t state that this is opinion, it lacks authority because I offer no justification for my belief.

However, I can vastly bolster my assertion by introducing facts to back it up.

1. Traditional advertising has been shown to be effective. A multi-billion-dollar industry has been built around this fact, and nearly every successful company in the last century has relied on this strategy.

2. The successful enterprise of traditional advertising relies, by and large, on paying media creators/distributors for the right to some of the attention their content has earned.

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3. The real value is not created by the advertisers, rather the value lies in the attention earned by the content. Advertisers simply pay for the right to skim some of that attention.

4. Companies can better create and capture valuable attention by developing and distributing their own content.

While far from perfect, this argument functions much better than my initial unsubstantiated opinion. The constituent components of my argument are easy enough to agree to on their own, and they arranged in such a way that when taken in sum they help lend ammunition to a more controversial assertion.

When you are creating content that deals with abstractions of any kind, be very mindful of this lesson. Always build towards contentious points instead of just dropping them on the reader and hoping she accepts them.

But hey, that’s just my opinion.

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11. WRITE WITH AUTHORITY “There are so many blogs out there, why should I read yours?”

Resistance like this is a key bottleneck in acquiring and retaining an audience, and there are two ways of clearing up these sort of concerns.

The first, which was already discussed, is to ensure the content you create aligns with your target audience and delivers value. Consistently producing content like this is not easy (to say the least), and honing your craft will be the focus of the rest of this book.

However, there is another important consideration to address that will color all of the work you do. When it comes to blogging, what you say is heavily influenced by how you say it.

As was already mentioned, there are no formal gatekeepers in publishing anymore; and when anyone can publish, people get very good at becoming their own gatekeepers.

While the question of quality and relevance is very important, the tone in which this content is presented can highly color that perception.

All the bravado in the world can’t save sub-par content, but failing to write with authority can seriously clip the wings of great content that would otherwise soar.

Especially when authors are first starting out, they often appear to apologize for their views.

Do not do this.

The bullshit radar of the average internet reader is off the charts nowadays and they can smell uncertainty on you from a mile away.

Because there is no one doing the vetting for them, modern readers have to be their own ruthless editorial staff, constantly deciding what material is worthy of their very limited time.

Do not give them a reason to dismiss your work out of hand, because if you do they will move on to the next tab without thinking twice.

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As of today remove phrases like “I think” and “it seems” or, “it is my opinion” from your copy.

This type of writing can take a million different semantic forms, but any way you phrase it one thing is for sure – it’s a cop out and it has no place in your work.

If you feel compelled to say “I think,” do the extra research until you can safely say “you know.”

Paradoxically, opinions are fine until you start referring to them as opinions.

The second you call attention to your own uncertainty, it never fully goes away. While you thought you were just signalling your hesitation regarding that one idea, in the mind of your reader that ambivalence will now carry throughout the piece.

Great writers can voice uncertainty, but they never let it end there. The facts may be unclear, but if a good author presents them, she only does so because it will then be her mission to sort them out on behalf of the reader.

Don't leave loose ends, and don't let me question your ability to tackle the subject you've set out to investigate.

If you do you will have provided me no good answer to that question we began with.

“There are so many blogs out there, why should I read yours?”

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12. DO THE WORK SO I DON’T HAVE TO

As I already mentioned in Chapter 7, your potential readership is constantly evaluating every piece of content they encounter based on one core criteria: “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”

For the sake of convenience, let’s call this the WIIFM Principle for the duration of our discussion.

In essence, this principle states that the more quickly, thoroughly and convincingly you can answer the question “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?,” the more likely people are to respond favorably to the things you create.

So how do you combat this resistance and overcome the daunting challenge of WIIFM?

One surefire way to address this concern and signal real value is to do work for your audience so they don’t have to. Solve a common problem in a simple way and you will have an audience right away.

For example, Refinery29 has created an article series that answers the simple question “What’s leaving Netflix (this month)?”

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What makes this post so successful is that it provides easy access to digestible information that would otherwise be difficult to come by.

Refinery29 does the work so their audience doesn’t have to.

In this case, choosing the right problem to tackle was key. They had to be sure this was a problem a sizable amount of their audience would identify with. In addition, it had to be a problem that fit the criteria of a) requiring considerable effort to solve while b) still yielding clear, distilled value once sufficient work was applied.

“One Weird Trick...” or “10 Reasons Why...” headlines work so well (when used sparingly) precisely because they signal this type of refined, concentrated value.

They invite your audience to take advantage of your hard work (this is good news, believe it or not).

Even really great, longform content accomplishes readability and clarity by taking an immensely complicated issue and crafting it into a narrative that articulates a multi-faceted, nuanced position in an inherently consumable way.

There is oftentimes an attempt to imitate successful genres of content (The Listicle,” The “Authoritative Guide,” The “Oral History,” etc…) without replicating the core WIIFM appeal they signal.

For example, so many companies selfishly author blog posts that read along the lines of “Ten Reasons Why You Should Hire a (What Our Company Does) Company.”

Sure, the list format article might regularly perform well because it tends to indicate that the author has done the hard work of solving a problem for you. However, the second your audience senses the (very readily apparent) fact that you haven’t actually gone about solving a problem – that instead you’ve just written a whole bunch of words that justify a conclusion you had already arrived at before you sat down to right the piece – well, understandably your audience won’t just ignore that one piece. They’ll ignore everything you say from now on.

Talking about how great you are doesn’t require much effort (more on this idea later), which is why people so often fall into the trap of wasting everybody’s time penning selfish, pointless, self-important blog posts.

What’s really difficult is identifying problems your audience has that they are either unwilling or unable to sort through themselves. Knowing your audience

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well makes identifying these problems relatively easy (in fact, your business likely exists to solve some of these problems).

Once you identify several such problems, work hard on authoring content that presents the solution in a clear, concise, easy-to-understand way.

There’s no guarantee of success right away, but taking this approach consistently will all but ensure you start to get noticed. After all, if you make enough people’s lives easier by doing the hard work for them, you’re bound to fall into their good graces and develop a rapport.

Think of this sustained, benevolent approach almost like “content karma.” The more goodwill you put out, the more likely that goodwill will be returned.

As Thomas Jefferson famously quipped “I'm a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

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13. EDUCATE, ENTERTAIN OR CONVINCE – NEVER BRAG.

In a now famous short segment on John Oliver’s show Last Week: Tonight, he addressed the topic of social media. Specifically, how certain brands came off as absolutely inept and tone-deaf on Twitter.

The analogy he gave was that social media was like a cocktail party, and that most brands acted like the slightly-too-tipsy jerk who barged into conversations and only talked about himself.

While the bit was clearly meant in jest, Oliver really nailed the biggest problem most people face when they begin authoring content (especially in a marketing capacity).

Taking our previous lessons as one unified whole (nobody wants to read your rants, WIIFM?, etc…), they pretty much boil down to the dictum “Be the person at the party that people want to talk to.”

Think back to the last soireé you attended and try to remember the guy or gal you enjoyed talking too most. Even better if this was the first time you met him/her.

What was she like? Where did she lead the conversation? How much did she speak vs. invite you to contribute? How did she get you to respond and stay engaged?

Closing your eyes and imagining this charismatic individual will probably be the best way to further distill the advice contained within this guide.

A compelling conversational partner will likely be well-read to better teach you things you didn’t know, passionate about fields of interest with a clear yet level-headed point-of-view. Achieving all of this while being light-hearted, witty and humorous to boot.

What this person will not do is: brag about their accomplishments, be so long-winded as to take over the dialogue nor try and sell you something before having gotten to know you well.

Just think about a great conversation you’ve had next time you sit down to write and wonder if you’d be able to get your main points across if you had to walk up and tell them to a stranger (as is) during the next party you attend.

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If this experiment comes up negative, try and remove any bragging and inject the piece with more education, entertainment or rhetorical zeal.

Inform, delight and/or persuade, otherwise your audience will leave you alone in a crowded room and force you to awkwardly sip your drink while pretending to check your phone.

This is as apt of an analogy for blogging as you’ll ever get, and avoiding this situation is just about the strongest motivation I can think of for constantly improving your writing.

Hopefully this guide has educated, entertained and convinced you. Not to brag, but my feeling is that is has.

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ABOUT HONIGMAN MEDIA Honigman Media is a content marketing consultancy based in Brooklyn, NY that helps brands, entrepreneurs and marketers with consulting, training, speaking and coaching services on content marketing and social media strategy.

To date, Honigman Media has helped growing startups like Amerisleep, Percolate and Sumall, as well as leading organizations like NATO, People Magazine and the Weather Company become better social storytellers.

This piece was co-authored by Brian Honigman, CEO of Honigman Media and Joseph Gelman, Content Marketing Manager at Honigman Media.

Looking for help with your approach to content marketing and social media marketing? Contact us today to chat.

WWW.HONIGMANMEDIA.COM | BRIAN@HONIGMANMEDIA.COM | @BRIANHONIGMAN