Information wants to be free, but when we come across information online, we often don’t read it. That is just how we behave in our modern tech-driven society. You yourself have been to countless blogs and websites, but you don’t stay on them very long. On average viewers spend about 1.5 minutes on a blog. That’s it.
Now that you are managing a custom social network you might consider blogging to engage your users. Here are three ways to make sure visitors are actually reading your content.
1. Keep your sentences short.
Less is not just more, it is everything. The point is to be concise. People online have short attention spans. Make your content easy to digest. If you can use fewer words, do it. If you need to flesh out a larger idea with longer sentences go right ahead, but make sure you use only a few per paragraph. Keep the others short. They are easier to write, and easier for your audience to understand.
2. Break up paragraphs with bullets.
Did we mention less is more? Much like short sentences, bullets will support concise messaging, however they also make your content scannable. Bullets are helpful for a number of reasons:
- Bullets grab attention
- They add whitespace to your post
- People like lists
- By nature they are brief and concise
You want your readers to understand your main points at a quick glance. That’s what bullets do. Use them!
3. That headline though.
The first thing your visitors ever read is the headline. It’s also true that most people don’t even read past the headline. With social sharing and retweeting being the norm, you will want to make your headline catchy. It should command attention and accurately describe the post’s content.
The above 3 recommendations are a great starting point. Concise and scannable content, armed with a catchy headline will connect with your audience. Start your blog this way, and you will start overcoming all our short attention spans.
Thanks for reading! If all this talk of community building has you excited, we’d encourage you to check out SocialEngine. The best way to build your own social network.
