Jazmine Thompson is a devoted advocate for
human rights who has a strong draw to provide aid to women of color. She has
written many opinionated posts on the perspective of women and
African-Americans in society. In March 2016, Jazmine presented her rhetorical
findings on the connotation of the “N” word at Weber State University’s
Undergraduate Research Symposium. Her academic research has been recognized by
Weber State University through Jazmine being awarded “Most Outstanding Student”
in the department of Communications Civic Advocacy. Jazmine is currently doing
research for Planned Parenthood to provide advocacy and findings from a
communicative approach to positively shift the worldview of the organization.
Jazmine currently serves her calling for advocacy as a Legal Assistant to a
South Ogden law firm. With an intent to go to law school, Jazmine hopes to
contribute her passion and learned skill sets to non-profit organizations.
All Shall
Listen: How to Write a Blog Post for Any Audience
Blogging used to be a way for people to
express their feelings and opinions by chance that someone would read it and
feel the same way. Maybe they would even have differing opinions, but hey, at
least someone was reading it, right? Now, blogging has provided an extremely
complex dynamic to the opportunities the internet can offer.
From expressing your radical political views,
posting “30-minute meals”, marketing yourself or a small business, or
documenting the latest fashion trends, blogging has paved the way to exploit
endless amounts of information. Posting this information provides you with the
opportunity to reach an infinite amount of people.
Blogging has the ability to fuel you
personally, promote a business, or broadcast information. Blogging simply gets
the world talking! The benefits of this writing style are so captivating they
can seem pretty surreal; however, it is important for you to see how truly
impactful blogging continues to be in our society. Let’s take a look at a
couple of statistics as of 2016:
- · 94% of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others.
- · Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information.
- · 76% of marketers plan to produce more content through blogging.
- · Websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages.
- · 6.7 million People blog on blogging sites, while 12 million people blog via social media networks.
- · Small businesses with blogs have a 126% in leads generation.
- · The majority of bloggers are women.
- · Blogger, the nation’s leading blogging site, has over 46 million visitors per month.
Looking at the above statistics, we can see
that blogging has a huge impact and involvement in many different fields, involving
many different people. You are considered a part of the “cool kids” if you’re
using blogging to introduce information. The types of audiences you are able to
reach through blogging is incredibly diverse. As there are so many different
types of people blogging for different reasons, the population of people
reading and seeking information is just as diverse.
Well, what happens when your audience isn’t
necessarily mainstream or typical? What happens when you are soliciting your
desired information to an audience of children? Does your perspective of
blogging then change? Does everything we know about blogging go completely out
of the window? Do kids even read blogs? I thought it was for moms, right?
I had all of the same pestering questions
when I was searching for a way to reach children and deliver information about
a certain matter that I am extremely passionate about.
If you are anyone opposite of a SpongeBob
character, Patrick Star-- who lives under a rock, you should be somewhat
conscious of the issue that many young black girls are facing. Young black
girls are lacking confidence in themselves due to the color of their skin by
what they are culturally and societally subjected to. Because I am
African-American, I am highly aware of this matter; which is probably why I
feel so passionately. I find importance in helping young black girls see that
their color is beautiful and doesn’t define them, but provides them with depth.
Little girls can come to understand this through being exposed to black culture
and history, and by finding beauty and intellect in role models that resemble
them.
My long-term goal is to open a non-profit
that specializes in hosting seminars for little girls to attend and be
enlightened by their natural beauty. However, I would like to use my writing
abilities to start making a difference now. Credited by the previously
referenced statistics, what better way than to start by blogging?
I consider the audience I am attempting to
reach very special. Because of that, I wanted to know if there were certain
tactics I should use, that differ than the normal tactics online regarding how
to write a generic blog post, which would help me execute relaying information
to my desired audience.
8 Tips for
Writing Blog Posts for Your Desired Audience
1.
Understand
your Audience
I recently applied to be the Graduate Student
Senator for the university I attend. I made the final three and was asked to
introduce myself to the head of the senate and a few others. I assumed that
introducing myself was to be very informal and casual. When I arrived at the
meeting, the entire university senate was there and I was expected to have a
speech prepared explaining why I am best for the position. All I had intended
on doing was shaking a few hands and continuously repeating, “Hello, I am
Jazmine. Thanks for having me!” Long story short, I was unprepared for my
audience and expectations, which resulted in me being utterly mortified. The
bottom line is that knowing who your audience is and being clear on your
purpose and expectations is highly important. IT’S NUMBER 1!
Before you start writing, it is vital that
you have a clear understanding of who your audience will be. But seriously, if
you don’t know who the intended readers of your blog are, can you even begin to
write? Once you are aware of the demographic of your audience, ask yourself
questions that will help you understand how to best adhere to them. What do
they want to know about? What will resonate with them? What do they already
know versus what don’t they know? What tactics will keep their attention? Think
about the audience as that one egotistical friend everyone has—it is all about
them all of the time. Well it is all about the audience! They are your reason
for writing. Answering these questions will help you build content that will
relate and interest them.
For example, I am interested in basing my
writing content to appeal to young kids. In this case, I feel vocabulary would
be very important to consider. I am not going to approach my post with
scholarly intellect and challenging words, but instead, I would try to connect
pertinent and recognizable artifacts to their age group. I could possibly try
writing my blogpost with resemblance to a fairytale or a storybook. I could
also use pictures, gifs, and playful writing to help appeal to my audience.
2.
Start with a
topic
Knowing your audience should be able to help
you narrow in on a topic. Once you know who your readers will be, you are then
able to start brainstorming on what would be relevant to them. When
brainstorming a topic, start by keeping topic ideas very general. Relating to
my audience and purpose of empowering young black girls, I might think of some topics
such as role models, or books, or maybe even hair.
After selecting a general topic, ask yourself,
“what about that topic will benefit my readers?” Hubpost refers to this step as
brainstorming working titles, or “iterations or different ways of approaching
that topic to help you focus your writing.” Start brainstorming by listing
different “titles” that relate to one of your general topics. Say I chose the
general topic of books. I could play with working titles such as “Books every
little girl should read,” or “Books that highlight African American culture.”
Now that you have brainstormed a few ways to
spin your topic, it is time to pick one! Hubpost would refer to this as
committing to a final title. When referring to the term “title,” it does not
necessarily mean that whatever you have chosen will be the title of your paper.
Your “title” ensures your topic keeps a clear and specific purpose. When a
topic is too broad, it is hard for a reader to get a general sense of what the
main idea is, and they are therefore less likely to benefit from your post.
It is not uncommon to find trouble in coming
up with a topic. I personally believe it is one of the hardest stages in
writing, which is why brainstorming usually takes me three times as long as writing
my actual piece. To steer you away from discouragement, Ginny Soskey has
written a blog post that helps readers turn one generic topic into many narrow
topics or “working titles.”
Soskey believes that the key to brainstorming
multiple topics is “to not start from scratch each time you need a topic—but to
iterate off old topics to come up with unique and compelling new topics.”
Soskey provides these 5 guidelines to ensure you are successful:
- · Changing the topic scope
- · Adjusting the time frame
- · Choosing a new audience
- · Taking a positive/negative approach
- · Introducing a new format
For
my general topic of “books,” I took Soskey’s advice by applying the tactic of
choosing a new audience to help come up with more topic ideas. I know that
sounds contradictory, considering my reason for writing is to reach out to
children, but when I brainstormed with the audience of parents, I was able to
come up with more topics that I had not thought of before, and then altered
them to be kid-friendly— that way my topics still relate to my audience.
3. Write an
Intro
The phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover,”
holds volume when understanding how important writing an introduction for your
blog post is to its writing process. How many times have you read the back of a
book in hopes to be persuaded that by reading the whole book will magically
give you some life-changing experience? And if it doesn’t capture your
attention, we’re guilty of tossing it down like old news and not ever thinking
of wasting our brain capacity on it again.
Beside your title, the introduction to your
blog is your chance to hook readers into engaging in your entire blog post. You
don’t have a cover to judge. It is simply your content that must grab a
reader’s attention to want to stick around for dessert. You can keep readers
around for the truly sweet details with a few tactics: tell a story or joke, be
empathetic, or grip the reader with an interesting statistic or fact. What will relate or capture the attention of your
audience most?
Once you feel you have caught the reader’s
attention, deliver the purpose of your post or the information you feel is most
important. It is important to reveal this information while you have their
attention in hopes that it will lead to a longer duration of their attention,
and if it doesn’t at least they are walking away with the main point! Take that
audience.
Here is a blog introduction that I felt did a
great job in captivating the attention of its audience:
“Apocalypse
is The Only Path to Equality, Says the New prophet of Doom”
Posted
to “The Concourse” and “Jezebel” written Hamilton Nolan
"Perhaps you imagine that enlightened lawmaking will bring our
nation’s rampant inequality problem under control. History tells us the
prognosis may be much, much more grim. We spoke to the author of one of the
scariest books we have ever read."
Not only did the picture
help catch my eye, but the title and opening statement were extremely
captivating. The author used a correlation that one would hardly ever think to
connect. I instantly wanted to know what he was talking about and how he was
going to make sense of it.
4.
Organize
your content
You have chosen to write a blog because there
is something that you feel is worth sharing. When we have passion toward
something, we often feel knowledgeable, and it is easy for us to want to share
everything we possibly know. This is not a bad thing. However, readers can
become lost in a pool of information if it has no structure. We want to make
sure that the information we are passionately sharing is clear and evident to
the reader.
Outlining your blog post is a great way to
stay organized and on topic. My coach once told me that that the key to success
is its process. You cannot expect to produce great things just by jumping in
and going for it. Great things take preparation and a thought-out process. When
organizing the content of my blog post, I start by making sure I have a clear
understanding of what the topic of my post will be, therefore, I must draw back
to my working title. I then ask myself, what do I want my readers to get out of
this? I then thematically code the takeaways I have written down to see if they
can be categorized into broader sections. I then look at my broadened sections
and see if there are any takeaways I can further provide. The next step would
be to edit my outline by adding and removing information to keep the points
relevant to my topic.
Hubpost follows an outline like the one that
works for me. They have provided an example of the outline they did for a blog
post regarding “How to use Images to Generate Leads on Twitter.” Look to see
how they have structured their outline to ensure a successful and pertinent
blog entry. This outline illustrates each step, including the revision edits in
bold.
1.
Intro
o Images work
really well on Twitter (find study)
2.
Crafting a Twitter Image Lead Gen Strategy
o How to
generate a lead on Twitter
o How often
they should tweet images
3.
How to Create the Perfect Lead Gen Tweet
o How long
their tweet should be with the image in it
o How to
actually upload an image to Twitter (This is a pretty basic step that someone
would already know if they're reading this post.)
o What sizes
they need to make images
o How they can
create images on their own
o Where they
can find images to use legally
o What sets a
good image apart from a bad one on Twitter
o Should you
tag people in images
o Should you
use photo collages
o What colors
you should use to stand out (Don't believe there's hard data on this, just
speculation. Let's cut it.)
4.
Measuring Your Strategy's Success
o What results
they should expect to get (The study in the first part should cover this bullet
point.)
o Which
metrics to look at
o How to find
them in your analytics
o How to
adjust the above to get better results
5.
Writing Your
Blog Post
Drum roll please! It is finally time to start
writing your blog post. You get to unleash what you have been dying to share
with the world. Since you previously constructed an outline, writing should be
as simple as filling in the blanks. Your blog post is your words. Confidently
tell your readers what you already know, but do not be afraid to do research to
include additional information.
To begin writing, set an environment that is
comfortable for you. I personally must be isolated with complete silence, but
many like to listen to music or be in a busy environment with a lot of
background noise. Let your writing environment become your happy place. Your
writing environment should be prepped with everything you need to write your
blog entry. My ultimate necessity when writing is my dictionary, I feel
crutched if I must write without it. It is the best reference to having the
most versatile vocabulary.
Think about your audience when writing. It is
important to make sure the content of your writing is audience appropriate. The
appropriateness of your writing can relate to the vocabulary used, style of
writing, examples used, how your writing is displayed, and much more. Compare
the words used in the inserts of these two blog post examples:
“Goodbye zits: quick, easy tips to rid
pimples” by Lauryn Evarts
Yeah, yeah we know what to do when the sun
mustache comes around but what about a zit?
Well I GOT A HUGE RED ZIT TWO DAYS BEFORE OUR
WEDDING.
Luckily I brought everything I needed in my
luggage. JUST 3 tiny tools.
And actually, to be quite honest, the three
products I brought are just…EASY. I’ve been using all three of them for years
& they ACTUALLY TREAT A ZIT.
“20 Creative Ways to Use Social Media for
Storytelling” by Alfred Lua
Storytelling has always
played a part in successful marketing.
Stories enable us to build
personality and create a connection with consumers. But can we actually
tell a story on social media? Is it possible to narrate a story with social
media posts that are supposed to be short and sweet?
It turns out there are many ways
to use social media for storytelling!
In this post, I’d love to
share 20 actionable ways to use social media for storytelling.
Ready to dive in?
It is clear for me to see that these two posts have missions in
attracting completely different audiences by the tone, vocabulary, and style of
their writing. What are the differences that you noticed?
6.
Edit and
Proofread
I cannot stress how important editing and
proofreading is when getting ready to finalize and post your blog. Error-free
posts are essential to the credibility of your public blog. Think about if you
were using a personal blog to market yourself to obtain a career. How would
many mistakes on a public post look to an employer?
There are ways to ensure your blog post is
error-free. My most recommended is having a professional, or several
professionals review. The more the merrier, right? You can also rely on your
dictionary or the AP Stylebook to check grammar and spelling that you may be
unfamiliar with. Great grammar is an attractive when writing a blog post. I’d
ask you on a second date for sure.
Hubpost offers a list of sites that
specialize in helping to make sure your post lacks errors. Check out this list:
·
The Marketer's Pocket Guide to Writing Well
- · How to Write Compelling Copy: 7 Tips for Writing Content That Converts
- · How to Write With Clarity: 9 Tips for Simplifying Your Message
- · Your Blog Posts Are Boring: 9 Tips for Making Your Writing More Interesting
- · Your Blog Posts Are Boring: 9 Tips for Making Your Writing More Interesting
Relating
back to my audience, with writing for young children, grammar is important
because I am setting an example. If my blog contained incorrect grammar and
misspelling, it would be less likely for children to be conditioned to proper
grammar.
7.
Visual
Appearance
Have
you ever heard the phrase, “muffins are ugly cupcakes”? When writing a blog
post, it doesn’t hurt to jazz it up a little bit. There are many tactics that
can help a blog entry become attractive to the eye. You can avoid your blog
from looking like a muffin by the font and color of font used, implanting
images and gifs, and layouts.
When
deciding on how to approach the visual appearance of your blog, it is important
to remember your audience and the importance of portraying credibility. Visual
appearance can harm you just as much as it can help you. You want to pick a
font that is easy for the reader to read. A sans serif font is always
recommended for public posts.
The
type of pictures used should not only be relevant to your topic, but should
also be appropriate to your audience. There are certain images that would be
compelling to adults, and certain images that would keep the attention of a
younger audience.
Compare these blog site layouts:
To this blog site
layout:
What
differences do you notice? Which tactics would benefit the visual appearance of
your blog?
8.
Pick a
Catchy Title
Finally,
it is time to finally put the icing on the cake. Picking a title can be
complicated because its importance lies in the fact that it is the first thing
a reader reads. It must catch your reader’s attention before your introduction
even has the chance to.
Though
the title should be captivating, it is important to make sure it is clear and
concise. You want your readers to have a sense of what your post will be about
from the information revealed in your title. It is best to go back to the
working title you came up with when you were picking a topic. Now apply the
makeup. Use strong language and literary tactics to make your title seem
interesting. If it is possible, optimize for SEO with keywords if they flow and
are relevant. Now of course, edit your title. See if it makes sense, and see if
it is concise. Double check to make sure your topic is relevant to your post.
Referring
to my example of writing a blog post on “Books Every Little Girl Should Read,”
if I were to make a finalized title for this post, I would want to think about
what would catch the eye of little girls. The title must entail that there is
something in it for them. I would play around with a few of the following:
- “Must Read: Books that are All About You”
- · “Reading These Will Make You Smarter”
- · “A List of Books for a Princess"
Hubpost
gives the following examples for the working title of “raising healthy kids”:
- · "How the Right Nutrition Can Strengthen Your Kids' Bones"
- · "A Parent's Guide to Promoting Your Child's Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Well-Being"
- · "X Recipes for Quick & Healthy Dinners Your Teenagers Will Gobble Up"
Interview
with an Expert
Kenzie Huff is a blogging expert and recent
Weber State University alumni with a degree in English with Creative Writing
Emphasis. She has published technical writing documents for Weber State
University and manages the blog site for the current organizations she works
for. Huff also does a mass amount of personal blogging, managing two blogs that
allow her to promote herself and her creative writing pieces.
Huff stated that writing has been
her passion ever since she was little, because it was the way she was most
comfortable expressing herself. Weber State has given her the opportunity to
master that passion. Huff stated “Content matters,” when asked what the most
important thing about blogging was. “Having a clear idea of who your audience
is, gearing your content towards that audience is key to being a successful
blogger.”
Huff also values portraying
credibility through her writing. “Writing is strict in the way that you must be
grammatically correct to gain any respect or credibility, but writing is loose
in the way that it allows you to own your personality.” Huff explained that
writing is a chance to market yourself professional, and no one will take you
seriously if you do not take your own writing seriously.
Huff’s favorite thing about writing
is being able to explore her loved creativeness with anyone interested. Huff
shared, “It is the most amazing feeling to know that people are listening. I
write to express and I write to be listened to. Listening promotes talking, an
talking makes an impact.”
Conclusion
Blogging is powerful. It is altering the way
we share information. It’s ability to appeal to so many writing styles and
reach so many people truly paves the way for something impactful. The world is
at your fingertips when you can share your thoughts with any desired audience.
As the opportunities for blogging increase, so do the opportunities for you.
Get out there and start writing about whatever it is you want to share and use
the tactics in this bio to let the world hear your voice.
Sources to
help become a better blogger:
The
Associated Press Stylebook
Content
Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More)
That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley, C.C. Chapman and
David Meerman Scott
Write
Your Way to More Clients Online: How to craft captivating content for
newsletters, blogs and social media by Linda Dessau
Sources Used for this Blog:
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