6 Tips To Create More Engaging Content

Creating pages after pages of words or limp videos and content with unrelated images won’t help your inbound marketing efforts much in the long run. The ideas shared through the words matter, the word count or quantity of content created does not. The reason is simple: too much content is being created and shared on digital media these days. And while your audience gets to pick and choose, you need to feel for them too. They often have to literally sift through piles of data and content to find something that they can enjoy and retain.

That is why you need to practice the art of creating engaging, engrossing content that pierces the heart! It needs to excite the audience and take them through a range of emotions.

Strategies That Will Help You Create Engaging Content

1. Have powerful headings and subheadings

It is a well-known fact that headings and subheadings can attract attention. At least 80% of your target audience reads the heading of your post but only 20% among them actually read the post itself. So, the challenge is to maximize the number of people who get hooked onto the post by reading the heading and the subheading, inevitably making them move towards the body. It’s a challenging task, no doubt, but it's not impossible.

2. Focus on the intro

Like the heading, the introduction needs to be powerful. You could start off with an interesting statistic, throw an engaging question in their direction that would make them introspect, start with an intriguing story or give them a reason to read your post further. Don’t worry what your detractors might think. Try to be funny and witty. At times, you may even try to shock the reader. Say for example, you are challenging a widely accepted fact or theory.

3. Provide answers

Creation of content only becomes meaningful if it quenches the knowledge or informational thirst of the audience. Your content should provide answers to specific problems and discuss them in great details. You will also need to invite comments and opinions so that you can build up a two-way communication. You can find out whether your article or video has satisfied your audience or if they feel that it has helped them. Encouraging comments will motivate you to work harder on your next assignment.

4. Add videos and images

It is said that people learn better through visuals. So, if you want to reinforce an idea or a point in contention, don’t hesitate to use a video or a related image to give further explanations. That is why infographics are in such great demand because they combine text, stats, graphs, maps and images in the right proportion. Images and videos can emote better than texts most often. Canva is an amazing, free, tool to use to create original images to use with your posts. So much so, we frequently use it at our own office! 

5. Use the storytelling technique

People will not always remember the actual stats and situations but people can easily capture the essence of a good story. That is why it is important for you to use storytelling in your content marketing efforts because it connects easily with the audience. Ideas can be retained and assimilated easily.

6. Use shorter sentences and be more specific

It is important not be too verbose. People have very short attention spans these days and often mobile audiences don't read a full post but rather scan it; shorter sentences are easier to read and understand. They can encapsulate an idea more precisely. Also, use words that everyone can understand.

If you follow some of these basic tips, you can easily create more engaging content. However, a lot depends on the context. Before you start writing, think about your target audience, have a rough idea about the keywords, do thorough research, use different measurable techniques to understand the reach of the content and you will know which of the tips to apply. But, you will definitely need to have a strategy, however mundane it may sound.

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