5 Top Tips for Writing Engaging Content
I know how difficult it is to create content regularly and then you have the added pressure that it needs to be appear fresh and ideally you want to write engaging content every time! So, I thought I would try to fill your heads with happy and inspiring thoughts to help you come up with engaging content that will lead to more comments, more reactions and more sales!
Here goes – your very own list of ways to help you write engaging content.
Top tips for writing engaging content for small business owners
1) Offer something new
Good content has to be interesting and, therefore, it has to offer something that people will want to engage in. The best way to do this is to offer something new. I am all for ‘COPE’ (create once; promote everywhere) but you can’t rely on using the same few blogs, same image or same style social media posts too many times and too regularly.
Tell your clients, customers and followers something they don’t know. You need to educate them or inform them. This can be vary from tips and advice or simply letting your customers know about a new product or service…even better if you can tell them about something different that you don’t usually do…like some place new you have been or something you have just learnt yourself.
Engaging content idea: Create a ‘Did you know…?’ post.
2) Encourage reaction and interaction
If you don’t ask for engagement, you won’t get it.
I know that sounds harsh, but it is also simple logic. The easiest way is to ask a question. It is one of the best calls to action on social media.
We know people are short on time, so think of ways to make reacting, engaging or interacting as easy possible, for example, run a poll. On Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram Stories, you can set up polls.
You can also ask for a specific reaction to answer a question. It is so much better than simply asking for a ‘Like’.
If people start to comment you can get some really useful insights and your ideal audience members will also find your content really interesting – both the post itself and the range of comments.
Make sure the questions are open and easy to answer, Ask people to let you know what they think and share their opinions. Ask people to give you feedback on an idea or concept.
You really want people to interact with you. It will boost the algorithms too.
Engaging content ideas: Create a poll and ask people to share their reasons for their choice in the comment.
3) Make your written content eye-catching and memorable (not just the imagery)
When it comes to writing engaging content – think about your headlines and titles.
Memorable doesn’t necessarily mean short and sweet. However, content needs a hook to get noticed amongst the huge amount of content that is produced and published every hour, so think carefully about that opening line to any captions.
There are lots of tools of rhetoric (or language tricks) that you can use. Things like acronyms or initialisation. ‘Top tips’ or ‘Quick Wins’ work well – everyone wants an ‘answer’. This format is familiar and is easy for people to retain too.
Use of tricolon works well too. This simply means the use of three words (or even three sets of something; sentences, phrases, etc.). For example:
Perfection. Performance. Persistence.
Using this as part of a blog heading or on a web page can be a powerful to summarise your content. At the start of a social media post, it is going to get noticed. It’s like a tag line.
Importantly, you are aiming for people to hit the ‘read more’ link to expand to see the full caption.
Engaging content idea: Use a tricolon in the opening line of your next post
4) Interesting adjectives and word choices
This tip is direct advice from my daughter! In her class, her teacher has banned the adjective ‘sad’; not because she wants the class to be happy all of the time (although I am sure she does) but because she wants them to choose more interesting adjectives, like ‘upset’, ‘disappointed’ or ‘dejected’ ! I am sure ‘nice’ will be next on the banned list!!!
It is easy to always revert back to the words we know well and come naturally, and I am all for plain English, but we can make our content instantly a little different if we play about with some adjectives, in particular. Find the word which truly captures what you are trying to convey, not always the most common.
In the corporate world, it is words like ‘interesting’ or even ‘passionate’ (take a look at a few LinkedIn profiles and you’ll see what I mean!) that are the most over-used. Which are the ones that really annoy you?
There are so many more words out there…better words:
…extraordinary; vital; enthralling; gripping; absorbing; captivating; refreshing; stimulating; appealing; intriguing; impressive…to name a few!
Across all digital content, people scan read nearly everything first, so in order to catch their eye the headings, the opening lines, a title needs to have words which will intoxicate and appeal!
Obviously, use words which are appropriate for the context and have the correct meaning (and even nuance) but there are so many more words out there to choose from than you might imagine and giving a little bit of thought to this can make a huge difference to turning good content to engaging content…even if you only do it once in a while.
Engaging content idea: For your next social media caption, change on ‘ordinary/common’ adjective to something a bit more “exotic” (!)
5) Educate and inform
It feels amazing when someone ‘shares’ a piece of my content – whether this a straight ‘share’ on social media; whether it is someone telling someone else about my blog post or whether is is someone tagging someone else in a comment…even better when it says something like, “I think you’ll be interested in this.”
The content from business accounts that gets people sharing is often content that informs the reader, that educates them. We know shares are powerful on social media.
Make sure your content is accurate and helpful – not misleading. Converting sales is often about trust. It’s about showing people not only what a good business you run, but that you know what you are talking about, that you have something to tell people.
Your customers can’t always buy from you every day of the week – although, we would love it if they would – so being able to educate and inform them in the meantime gives them a good reason to be a follower of your content output. Hopefully, they will be a loyal one at that because they find value in what they learn from you. In return, they will hopefully be the ones engaging, responding and reacting to your content and posts. It’s so nice when an account mixes the traditional sales posts about a products and services or the inward looking ‘all about me’ posts , with advice, information, support and help.
Engaging content idea: Share an easy to implement tip – one that really makes a difference to your audience
Love the content you produce
I know I have written about ‘loving content creation’ before, but I think it is so incredibly important that you find writing the content for your digital marketing fun and inspiring.
If you enjoy it and if it is created when you are full of enthusiasm and passion, then it will shine through when you are writing content and it will be more engaging.
The written word is not like video – you can’t smile and show how happy you are to be conversing with your clients by the tone of your voice. With written content, you have to work that bit harder to convey the same passion. So, take an extra moment to think about what you are writing and the impression it will give…and get out that thesaurus, once in a while! 😉
Let me know what you think and if you want any help with making your content more engaging – email kate@thecontentconsultancy.com . Book in a Content Coaching Power Hour and we can brainstorm a whole load of engaging ideas for your business.
This post was inspired by daughter. Tip 4 is actually her very own recommendation for you!