How to be a blogger that people bother to read

About five years ago I read an article about our increasing inability to read great chunks of text and the fact that we were mostly scan reading.  Little did I know at the time that this was relevant to me positioning myself as a blogger that people bother to read.

The article said that our neural transmitters were re-wiring due to the fact that we were more used to reading short bursts in the form of e-mails, texts and instant messaging. Now, I have no idea if that is medically correct but I do know that I scan read the article at the time…

So why is this relevant in terms of your blogging – and in fact your overall marketing? Well because, take it from me, your target market will simply not read great tracts of text.

 

Graphic designers have always known this and for that reason try to ring fence about 50% of white space on any piece of marketing literature. Copywriters also know it – they keep headlines succinct, paragraphs short, and break up several paragraphs with one short sentence.

Well who wants to be ignored?

So why have many bloggers failed to grasp the concept?  I’m continually reminded of this sad fact when I go to retweet something with a link.  Being a good tweeter I always check the link before I share it and - believe me - if it’s a post with reams of words you have no chance of me sharing it.  Why on earth would I inflict that on my followers?

You may also lose me if there is no photograph.

Or if the font is too small.

Or - if it goes on for too long – don’t forget you can make one long post into a series of two or three short ones.  In fact it’s clever marketing because it will make people return AND you have ticked the box for the next few posts!

So, as the old saying goes "less is more" – in this case less text means more chance of it being shared.