So, you want to create quality content. However, if you’re like 90% of steemit users, you probably don’t have a clue. That’s why you start every post with “Hello steemians . . .”
Here’s a free tip, the first few words that you write on your posts become the ‘blurb’. It’s what appears in the feed. That’s why it must be interesting enough to entice readers to click and read more. Please don’t waste it with “Hello steemians”.
Anyways, today’s lesson is about coming up with content ideas. Now that steem is climbing up consistently the past few days, it’s the best time to write high quality posts that your readers can’t get enough of.
We’ll talk about what makes for interesting posts.
Clue: your mom’s birthday is perhaps very interesting to you but NOT to me. Unless, of course, your mom is Angelina Jolie. Which she isn’t.
If you’re just having fun and trying to earn a few cents here and there, then please continue with posting the way you’re used to. Stop right here. This post is not for you.
But if you want to up you game and make your posts actually worth reading, read on.
We’re going to borrow ideas from journalism. We'll find out what makes news newsworthy. Understanding this alone will improve your posts a hundred-fold guaranteed.
Ready to improve your writing? Let’s go.
FRESHNESS
The news is called ‘news’ because it’s fresh. We want to learn about things as they unfold. That’s why people love to watch live. News quickly becomes stale and must be served super fresh. Otherwise it’ll be called history.
To apply this on your next post, try to tie it up with a significant event that happened recently. Did you notice how I sneaked in the state of Steem price? Timeliness baby.
This is especially important in the steemit platform too as you will only earn rewards on your posts for seven days.
PROXIMITY
You are interested in things that are happening around you more than you are interested in things happening on the other side of the world. This is why events that you attended are more important to you than similar events that you’re not in.
If your target audience are steemians in the #Philippines, make sure you use #Philippines as a tag in your posts. You’ll be attracting the right audience by simply adding that tag.
SIGNIFICANCE
Getting back to the birthday example, I don’t care if your mom’s birthday is happening near me. It’s not significant. It doesn’t affect me. How many people are going to be affected by the event that you’re reporting?
Steem doubling in price in a month is going to be significant to holders of the currency.
Your posts must answer the question: “What’s in it for me?” Why should I bother reading it? You’re probably reading this because you’re trying to come up with new ideas for next steemit post. My topic is significant to you.
Think of ways your post could help your readers.
NOVELTY
Ever seen a real, live, five-headed snake? I haven’t. But if I found out that there’s one that really exists, I would surely want to know more about it.
You can use novelty in your own posts. What’s ordinary for you may be rare or novel for other people living in a different country.
I once wrote a post that received around a hundred thousand views within 24 hours. I posted about fruits commonly found here in the Philippines. The title of my post was “The 20 Most Exotic Fruits in the World”.
Novelty activates your curiosity itch. And what’s common for you may be rare for other people.
CONFLICT
Conflict is interesting. We all want to know who wins in the end. We root for the underdog.
Conflict isn’t always about people against other people. It can also be:
• Man versus God.
• Man versus nature.
• Man versus himself.
It can be a personal story about how you triumphed over adversity. Maybe you can write about how a community got back to its feet after being hit by a natural disaster.
Movies, short stories, novels are all interesting because of conflict.
FAMOUS PEOPLE
This is why when the Kardashians fart, it makes the news. I’ve seen posts here about people meeting some whale and it’s interesting for their readers. Maybe their readers are following those famous steemians.
You can even use famous names as click-bait in your headline.
HUMAN INTEREST
This one kinda goes against the grain. It seems like the opposite of newsworthy. But amazingly enough, people are interested in individual accounts. It’s called slice of life. It’s popular because we are all nosy and we want to know what other people really are doing/thinking when no one’s watching.
Any one of these is not enough to make your post interesting enough. Your post must contain at least two or three. The more the better.
TOO LAZY?
Okay. If you really read what I wrote above, you should have a fairly good idea of what makes an interesting post. You should be swimming with ideas right now. There must so many of them, you don’t know what to do with them.
Now, if you still can’t come up with any ideas at all, here’s a tool that might help.
https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
You simply type in a word or phrase and it comes up with post titles for you. You’ll have to fix them a little but they often come up with interesting results.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
The next step after finding an appropriately interesting topic is to write the post.
I write the headline first. It guides me as to how to craft the meat of the article. It establishes your position and how to frame your message. More importantly, done right, headlines can attract the attention of potential readers.
I wrote a guide on how to write headlines but nobody noticed because I wasn’t using upvote bots back then. But if you’re interested, here’s the link: