Ever wondered how writers consistently publish engaging contents? You might even have wondered how they come up with the ideas?
Well, whether you’re writing for children, students or expert readers, an engaging article must endeavour to make reading an amazing experience.
Creative and engaging content can be likened to the Maori dance, Haka. Haka is a traditional Maori posture dance by the indigenous people of New Zealand.
It is performed by a group, with energetic movements and stamping of the feet accompanied by rhythmically shouted Maori chants. For centuries, the Maoris have used the Haka dance to welcome prominent guests or to acknowledge great achievements, events or funerals.
The Haka is considered a dance that celebrates life, and this is precisely what writing represents. Writing an engaging content must have the elements of life: time, family, society, life experiences, surprise, environment and so on.
Writing reflects life, and an engaging content must not only have a tight structure with original thinking, or have balanced arguments, it must also be interesting, spark the curiosity of the reader, make them want to continue reading and keep them absorbed.
The problem is that many assume there is no formula for writing. This assumption makes it difficult to publish consistently exciting and engaging content. On the contrary, like every other skill, writing generally has many methods, or if you like, it has many formulas.
The good news is that there are plenty of methods you can use to make your writing more engaging and exciting. So, let’s look at what they are.
1. Tell a story
The Maoris tell stories through the Haka dance. The stories are symbolic, and it helps to deliver the message.
Storytelling is by far the most powerful way to engage your audience. People often don’t remember facts; they remember stories, the way you make them feel with your words.
We tell stories every day to our family, friends, and colleagues. Storytelling appeals to emotion and allows the writer to relate to the audience.
Set yourself apart, and make your journal, blog or site updates more memorable using the storytelling approach.
You don’t have to make up stories. Simply telling your experience or the experiences of people around can help you to connect with your audience.
2. Use Visual Content
We take photos to remember moments long after it has passed: graduation or wedding ceremony, the birth of a baby, a reunion, and so on. Using images is one way to engage your audience and ensure that the message will be remembered for a long time.
Writing about your experience or your company’s new innovative product is great. Including pictures or illustrations of it is even better.
Inserting images to texts relieves your readers from an endless row of words, it acts like a breath of fresh air and helps to prevent the feeling of being overwhelmed by the length of the content.
3. Make your articles easy to read
The number of Tweets each minute since 2013 has increased to 58 per cent. That is more than 455,000 Tweets per minute in 2017 on Twitter.
Instagram users upload over 45 million posts every minute.
On Facebook, there are over 3 million posts per minute recorded in 2016. With more than 500,000 comments posted, and over 130,000 photos uploaded each minute.
Contents are created every second, an incredible amount of information uploaded to the web each minute competing for limited attention.
Long paragraphs that require more focus and extra effort stand no chance in this competition. Also, chances are, if your contents are hard to read, then it will be difficult to engage your audience. People need materials that are written in plain language and are easy to digest. Here are some pointers:
- Avoid technical jargon and terms.
- Keep your sentences short
- Use checklists where necessary
- Pose questions to make the reader stop and think.
Apart from the fact that the competition for attention is high online, many readers have a short attention span. So, it is advisable to always write in more concise and enjoyable to read ways.
4. Offer solutions
Time is of great essence and value. With so many distractions around and so many tasks to accomplish before the day runs out, the last thing your readers want is to waste their time reading a content that teaches absolutely nothing.
The Haka dance is often performed as a reminder to the Maoris of their heritage. A reminder of a small tribe that has survived for centuries by people helping each other through high and low times.
Writing an engaging content requires an element of help. Providing solutions to your audience is essential in creating a community of loyal readers.
Last, but not least, offering solutions without a Call to Action may as well be incomplete. If you manage to get your readers to take action, then you have successfully engaged them, and by doing that, you have also provided them value, which has become a rare thing these days.
A quick checklist
- Tell a story. Connect with your audience with storytelling.
- Use Visual Content. Include pictures or videos to appeal to all senses
- Make your articles easy to read. Keep your sentences short, don’t bore your readers with jargons
- Offer solutions. Show your readers you care and have faced similar difficulties.
Nopea.Media offers you a one-stop web solution that helps deliver engaging content to your audience.