What makes a blog influential?
Influence is often attributed to traffic and readership levels. But in reality, those are actually benefits that are symptomatic of something that precedes them.
How do we get people to pay attention to what we say in the first place?
Ultimately, a blog catches on just like any other idea spreads—it must somehow speak to people in a way that they want to hear. Your posts must fill a human need, and that will most often be at an emotional level, no matter how practical we think our subject matter is.
The following are five components that I think are essential for a blog to gain traction and influence with its intended audience. These elements were inspired by the forthcoming social-science research findings of brothers Chip and Dan Heath, a psychologist and an educator who are trying to assign qualitative measures to Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of “sticky” ideas as set forth in The Tipping Point
1. Simple
Ultimately, the idea behind your blog must be easy for your target audience to immediately grasp. Your readers must be able to quickly communicate what you and your blog are all about in order for your ideas to spread.
2. Unexpected
Something about what you have to offer must be out of the ordinary. Providing valuable information that seems to be against your own self-interest, like a Realtor blog that details how to sell your own house, may provide that spark that gets people talking (or linking). Or maybe it’s just a completely new perspective on a topic, or a combination of two seemingly unrelated concepts into something fresh.
3. Concrete
The information an influential blog provides must be specifically useful to your intended audience. There’s a reason “how to” posts are so popular, even as we outsource more and more to others rather than performing tasks outside of our own expertise. Actionable information is desirable and alters how others perceive you for the better.
4. Credible
Credibility is crucial to any successful blog, and it’s easier to lose it than it is to earn it. People must not only feel that you know what you’re talking about; they also want to know they can trust you.
5. Story
Here’s how all of the above is communicated and the emotive element that connects with the reader gets added to the mix. The story of your blog must be simple, have an unexpected hook, reflect concrete benefits and inherently state the credibility of the blog owner, all while triggering an emotional response.
How you say it is important.
But what you say is critical.
If your blog is not performing at the level you desire, or even if you’re simply trying to maintain the success you have and perhaps take it to the next level, keep these five elements in mind. The story of any successful blog is told one post at a time, and you can start tweaking your story today.
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Take the 1st letter of the 5 points above and they spell SUCCS! Looks like a nice license plate idea for successful people.
Regards
Buck
The Heath brothers actually break out “emotion” from “story,” which leaves them with 6 elements that spell “succes.”
Too contrived and cheesy for me, so I changed it.
Hi Brian;
I think most bloggers miss #1.
Keep it simple.
Great observations. Where do you come up with this stuff??
Mike
I read your post and thought — that is why I like this gal from Canada who runs Nuthatch
http://nuthatch.typepad.com/ba/
She hits all five of your points routinely.
The 7th point? She is smart —
pass the cheeze.
TSC
> Take the 1st letter of the 5 points above and they spell SUCCS
Well, I guess it’s a good thing #4 isn’t “Knowledge.”
Ha! I might change it just to make it so…
Hi Brian. Thanks for the great advice! I am just learning to blog for our small business and we can use all the advice we can get. We will be sure to keep reading!
Can Entertaining get in the mix?
Your list is right on target Brian. I’ve been trying to take my blog to the next level and it has been a challenge to get all the pieces right. I’ve been experimenting with many things and it has been very surprising what works and what doesn’t.
Your blog has been very helpful in helping me see things from a little different perspective. Thanks for helping me develop my own unique story!
John
The Copyblogger strikes again!
As always, thanks for the valuable info.
Hi Brian.
I totally agree that unless your blog doesn’t hit a chord with your readers it cannot succeed. Traffic and all is fine, and there are many ways to get traffic even without great content but your blog is only successful people your words extend a hand towards the readers and touch them where they really need it.
Well, I don’t know how I wrote that :-). It actually should have been: …your blog is only successful when your words extend a hand towards…
If I could only remember to keep it simple… I’d do that more often if I only had the time.
the probem i find is focusing for any lenght of time… there i go again shifting the topic out of focus.
if it was a top 10 list maybe FOCUS will get in there.
I think a lot of blogger find item #1 and #5 in direct opposite to one another.
After reading many personal stories posted on blogs, the last thing I would classify them as is “simple”.
Good post!
This post reminds me of one of Seth Godin’s about how to blog or something to that effect.
Seth discussed that you have succeeded on blogging if your reader’s mind has been boggled by what you have blogged about or something like your blog post has changed the way your reader thinks.
And I can just totally agree with that if being an influential blogger is one’s goal.
Alfa, my definition of an influential blog is one that achieves the goals of its owner.
I hope that’s everyone’s goal.
I’d say this is absolutely spot on!
If only everyone followed these basic rules…..
K
This post caught my eye because I think Malcolm Gladwell is a genius. I’ve been trying to hit on the certain something that gets my blog to the tipping point, and I just haven’t found it. I value good content, which absolutely includes well-written content; but I think I might lack a defined niche or greater benefits to readers. Great post!
I’ve been running a busy website for a while but am new to blogging. Good post for the beginning blogger.
I love it!… SUCCS!…. It’s so memorable, and easy to follow. To add to our credibility as bloggers, I have another acronym to expand on point #4 - Credibility. We all know that, in a court of law, our credibility, supported by our evidence DEFEATS doubt. Well, to help all of you savvy bloggers remember the types of evidence that you can use to support your credibility, remember:
D= Demonstrations
E= Examples
F = Facts
E = Evidence/Results
A = Analogy
T = Testimonials
S = Statistics
For example, when I tell you that 1 in 120 children today are diagnosed with autism, you are far more likely to be interested in learning about autism than if I said, “I know many people are impacted by autism.” The evidence gives us something concrete into which we can sink our teeth!
And, our audience sees that we are no longer just spouting off our opinions. Rather, we are educating, and moving ideas forward with the support that makes people believe and want to learn more.
I meant to recap:
Using the right Evidence
DEFEATS
Doubt!
Another excellent post which guides me in my quest for excellence. I think I have the Unexpected and Story aspects (so I’m good on “US”, I guess), but I’m not so sure I’m hitting the Simple, Concrete and Credible (so maybe I “SCC”?). Good advice, and thanks for it. - Joseph
this is a very informative post. thanks for sharing the 5 essential elements of an influential blog. i am coming up with my list of such blogs and this post of yours is a helpful one. cheers!
Another great post Brian. Again im very new to blogging, but your posts, along with Darrens and all the other authors posts on this site are helping me a great deal, in how i should be running my blog, and generally what blogging is all about.
Thanks and keep up the great work.
Good article. But, I don’t think any of that is unique to a blog. Same rules apply with anything you put on a website — blog or not — seems to me.
Great article!
I found it very interesting since im new to blogging.