Priming Your Audience’s Anticipation

For your audience, your posts should be like a powerful reward. One sure way of becoming truly influential online is to train — er, prime — your audience to anticipate the reward of your next post. Make them happy. It’s human nature to love looking forward to something happy. Some experts even believe that the happy hormones released (chiefly dopamine) from anticipating something are often greater than actually receiving that something!

Armed with this awareness, do everything you can to build anticipation for your posts by sticking to a regular publishing schedule where readers can look forward to having you make and keep a promise that makes their lives better, easier, or more fun.

Solving stresses

Whenever you sit down to write, remember that people come to the Internet to find information that either will help them or will entertain them for a few minutes. As you become your own online reputation management expert, your job is to create content that meets their needs and even exceeds them with cool answers to questions they didn’t even think to ask.

People don’t search Google for aspirin; they search for headaches and how to fix them. The most popular posts you ever write will probably help people in one way or another.

Creating a series of posts

Creating a series of posts (a sequence of posts on a related topic that link to each other) is one of the most powerful things you can do in creating great messages online. Not only can it provide a reliable source of pain-solving posts on a particular topic for your readers, but it can later be repurposed into helpful free e-books, Facebook notes, and discussion topics for groups on LinkedIn, just to name a few ideas. The following are some more compelling reasons to consider writing a series of posts on a topic near and dear to your reader’s hearts and minds:

Terrific for boosting your search engine presence when you incorporate your SEO keywords

Useful for engagement: Great way to build a conversation around a topic that meets a shared need

Great method for going deeper into a topic

Builds momentum with your writing flow

If you’re interested in writing a series of posts, I suggest the following system:

1. Identify one area of your audience’s needs.

For example, if you’re writing about dentistry, people may want to learn a lot more about what happens when they open their mouths for a routine teeth-cleaning appointment. You can alleviate their fears by explaining exactly what happens in a step-by-step process.

2. Brainstorm your list.

How many procedures are done during a routine checkup? What is the experience typically like and how can you explain it simply?

Writing a series of posts is a fantastic way of creating a very share- worthy list post when you’re done.

3. Craft a catchy title.

“10 reasons your smile sparkles from teeth cleaning” is a good starting point. It tells people what you’re going to write about and why it’s valuable for them.

4. Announce your series.

Share with your friends online and ask them to share a link with their audiences. Reciprocate when they ask you to share a quality series of their own posts.

5. Follow through!

Here are some approaches to writing a series of posts. Always follow a predictable schedule so you follow up on your promise to deliver content people want and need

• Pre-write them and schedule them on your blogging platform.

• Pre-write drafts and mark your calendar for time to tweak them and then publish on a predictable schedule.

• Write and publish each post on the same schedule.

6. Link, link, link!

Did I mention that linking back to your own posts in a series is important? You never know when readers are going to discover your blog, and realize that your series of posts really addresses the problem they’re having and they can’t wait to read more. By linking to previous posts in a series, you give people a trail of breadcrumbs to follow that’s more reliable than search engines. Besides, it’s a very search engine–friendly thing for you to do in order to boost your SEO ranking.

7. Tie it all up with a bow.

Finish strong by creating one central post that summarizes what the series is, why you wrote it, and who it’s for, and includes all the links in a numbered list. People love to share something this informative and easy to understand.

Discovering your audience’s needs

Sometimes the best way to get a straight answer is to ask your audiences for one via asking a question on social networks or at the end of one of your blog posts. I’ve gotten everything from enthusiastic responses to proverbial cricket chirps, as do most bloggers. Unless you’ve heard from the masses and they’re passionate about their desire for certain content, it’s usually more effective to do your own research via Google keywords to discover what the online public is searching for.

Surveys and polls are still a great way to get your audience’s opinion. There are some pretty useful tools out there for the give and take of taking polls and giving surveys. There are

Poll plug-ins that are built right into your blog: PollDaddy is a popular WordPress plug-in, though I must admit that I haven’t seen it used in quite a while.

Web-based polls that you can link to from your site or any social network: It’s really fun to use them when they’re optimized for smartphones. This is just starting to happen, and I predict that polling will once again be cool when it can be done easily via mobile devices.

Repurposing other web content

Twitter and Facebook conversations get repurposed into useful and lively blog posts all the time. This may seem strange or redundant, but remember that the Internet is a huge space! Nobody is everywhere all the time. Fascinating conversations erupt all over different “corners” of the web. It’s perfectly legitimate to share them in the form of a blog post and add your own interpretation to them while asking people to share theirs.

Every season feels fresh and alive, yet you get the same four every year. Each one is fresh because it plays out differently every time. You anticipate the new sights, smells, and sounds, because you don’t exactly know when you are going to see them. It’s pure pleasure.

Keep your posts fresh by giving your own interpretation to current events. It’s easy to stand out when you’re an original.

Bringing in guest bloggers

There’s nothing sweeter to an aspiring blogger than to be invited to create a meaningful post for a prestigious blog. Don’t worry if your blog isn’t internationally famous yet! Fake it till you make it (as long as you research your topic and deliver value) with aspiring bloggers who think that your brand’s message is awesome and meaningful to them.

As they direct traffic to your blog and you share posts written by these other bloggers with your audiences, everybody wins, good search engine optimization and karma are achieved, and you get a day off from writing.

The following are effective sample guest posting guidelines for prospective posters. Please remember to give them a byline with a link back to their site, as well as to share their post with all your audiences.

Post length should be 250 to 500 words.

Include a suggested post title.

Include images to go with the post and add a photo credit as needed.

Include a numbered list or bullets where applicable.

Break content up under different subheadings.

Understand that some editing may be required in order to make the post more consistent with the body of work already on the site.

Don’t post this anywhere else, though you can link to it from anywhere.

When the post publishes, check back periodically throughout the next couple of days to respond to comments and questions.

Share this post with your audiences.

Create your guest posting policy now so that you can easily share it when it counts. You are welcome to use my list and add to it as needed.