Module 3 Feedback: Employing Brian C. Clark's Advice

99% of students completed the assignment (shocking statistic)





The Assignment: Post an introductory blog post about you and your field of study, and what role communication play in your work. Practise what you read in Brian Clark's article, and employ some of his ideas.

Our Feedback:

Brian Clark suggests five ways to hook readers in:

1. Ask a question

1. Share an anecdote or quote

1. Invoke the mind's eye

1. Employ an analogy, simile or metaphor

1. Cite a shocking statistic

Now, many of you did just this!

Titles like: How important is communication in a work place? A school? What if it’s both…? or How Twitter Saved My Business make the reader ask for more. How important is communication really and how on earth could Twitter save a business. Both of these headlines ask us to wonder about the implications. As Clark notes, asking your readers to think is a way of promoting active engagement and engaged readers do just that, they read and follow through and sign up for newsletters and keep waiting for more from you.

Imagine now, as you keep reading the post, the ending just doesn't satisfy you. You don't learn about the outcome of those statistics on how Twitter might really work for you. What happened to that 1% that we implied in our title? Concluding your post, as you would conclude an essay for coursework, is about pulling the ideas together for the reader and letting them have key take-aways. Maybe you'll hint at what's coming next week or invite them to think about your post and share their comment or simply share your post. How might you induce reader engagement and participation; keys to successful social media use.

This example of an ending, encapsulates the post as well as invokes a shared pop culture reference (humour is almost always welcome):

"That day, should you decide to come to the 'dark side', will either be the day your alma mater will be proud of you or you really, really earn that bonus!"

15 Blog Content Ideas With Examples And Tips

Looking towards Module 3 and our blogging; have a read of these great ideas from Heidi Cohen. You can read all 15 ideas on her post here.

1. Audit your existing content for ideas

Ideally, every business should regularly audit their content to ensure that it’s up-to-date and relevant. From a blogging perspective, a content audit provides many blog post opportunities. 

Actionable Blogging Tips:

• Fill holes in your content offering with new blog posts.
• Transform product manuals and other customer related information into easy-to-follow blog posts. Simplify the information and sound human to help your audience.
• Update and transform older information into blog posts. Add images and other media to make them more appealing and easy-to-consume.

Download The Ultimate Blogging Checklist

2. Create core resources

Copyblogger’s Brian Clark calls this cornerstone content since it’s fundamental to the overarching content strategy of your blog. 

Neil Patel has published a number of Advanced Guides. They’re over 40,000 words in length and provide useful information that keeps generating visits and links.

Lists are another form of core resources. While lists are high on every blogger’s post idea generation catalog because they attract attention, to remain a key resource, you must organize them by topic and continually update them. (This later point is key for any evergreen content.)