Write like you’re (not your) selling newspaper subscriptions
I recently ran across an interview of a USA Today columnist on television. During the interview a caller asked how much of her writing style was attributed to the “money factor”. The journalist, Which her name evades me, replied that during her 20 years at the newspaper she has loved writing her own style of writing but always has to be aware of how she will engage her readers and continue to sell News Papers in an industry that is in a bit of trouble these days. An example that she gave was her coverage of the Presidential Primaries in the United States. She added an element of humor to her coverage and it turned out to be hugely successful and got tons of great feedback.
This same idea can work for your blog. People read your blog for your writing style and personality along with their interest in what you’re (correction pointed out by Ara) writing about. By modifying your style you can engage your readers and increase subscribers. To determine the style that works best on your blog you need to see what articles were the most successful. Measure success by number of good comments you received, number of new RSS subscribers and any other analytical data that you think might help. Once you determine the style your readers like the best, just rinse and repeat the process.
So how do you use writing style to engage with your readers? Leave a comment we would love to hear your ideas.
Some examples of writing ith different styles are humorous, controversial and conciseness. Here are a couple good resources I found on Wikipedia about Writing Style and Style Guides.
I hope this helps put a little style in your writing to engage your readers.
Ara | October 11th, 2007 at 10:24 am #
It’s “you’re” not “your.”
P.S. I wouldn’t buy a newspaper subscription from someone who made that error. But that’s just me.
Feel free to delete this comment.
Michael Martine | October 11th, 2007 at 10:32 am #
Heh… not to make this “pick on Jason time” but instead of writing that someone’s name escapes you, don’t you think it’s worth it to do a search and find out the person’s name?
Other than that, I think the idea that you’re pushing subscriptions is worth remembering when writing for your blog. Great idea!
jblanton (Post Author) | October 11th, 2007 at 11:05 am #
Picking on Jason is fine.
It highlights the point about the feedback you get from your readers. Your readers will certainly let you know if they like or dislike the style of writing you’re using. That includes bad grammar.
Will | October 11th, 2007 at 12:03 pm #
I saw your blog post title on Sarah’s blog, spotted the typo and felt the need to come on over and see who would do such a thing to the English language!
Anyway, you got me here to read so I did and now I may as well chime in my £0.02 worth.
Writing styles… They certainly have an effect on me as some make me want to read more and some just make me want to click away.
It’s important to connect to your audience, but would modifying your writing style make things better or worse? Does style have more influence than content? If your content and style are changing, how would you know which is having an effect on readership?
As you say, it’s worth testing especially if you feel you don’t have enough of a readership already. After all, there’s not much to lose!
Anyway, “you’re” = “you are”. “Your” = belonging to you. Now don’t do it again.
Hopeful Spirit | October 11th, 2007 at 5:59 pm #
I think the best thing you could do to improve your writing style is to hire a proofreader since you made one of the most common errors that I see among bloggers and you did it in the headline.