Sharing experience from the media: How to get a lot of PV and fans

From media

Hunting Cloud Note: Since the media age, how to quickly capture the user's favor and emerge from it also puzzles many authors. Ali Mese, a freelance writer, has gained 6.2 million PV and 150,000 fans since September 12, 2014, and how he did it, to see what he shared with his dry-goods experience. Content starting in its own medium blog, by Tencent Science and technology translation as follows:

Because there's so much to share, I'll make it short. Since September 12, 2014, something strange is happening. On that day, 1009964 people looked at a story about my life. This is my second article to get a lot of traffic, and then my life becomes more tense between freelance writing, entrepreneurship and blogging.

In this article, I would like to share with everyone the following:

I'll introduce some of the skills that can attract huge amounts of traffic and many readers and turn them into subscribers or followers. My findings come from online marketing, the management of social media, the development of friends and clients ' business, and my own work. But most of what I've learned comes from content marketing and writing, especially 21 articles I've written for my clients over the last few months, and 5 personal articles written on the medium blog.

Below is my medium blog article statistics, including this article.

First of all, I must admit that not all articles can cause a sensation. Of the 26 articles, only 6 had achieved six-digit page views, while the other two had reached 81,000 and 54,000 respectively, while the others averaged 8,300 times. However, since the average number of posts on other well-known blogs is only 1000 to 10,000 per page, this is a good enough performance.

I also tried different writing styles for different articles in different industries.

If you are looking for professional writing skills, this article is not for you. I am not a professional writer and can not write a shocking literary work in English. The techniques presented in this article apply to people like me: the lack of the best writing skills and budget to get user clicks, but the need for an organic story to attract readers attention.

This article shares some of the experiences I have learned. The point to note is that the amount of page views and the number of people you focus on doesn't mean your content is successful or good. This article hopes to help you to attract readers ' reading in a world of complexity and turn these readers into long-term fans.

My proposal includes the following 4 sections:

The first part: before writing. To attract readers to prepare and set a good attraction "engine".

Part II: Writing. The writing style and essential elements that are capable of acquiring huge volumes of traffic.

Part III: Preparing for release. When you are ready to click on the release button, all you have to do.

Part IV: Post-Release management. How to get into a large media channel, how to improve the flow of articles by forwarding, and other channels that no one noticed.

Details of these 4 sections are as follows:

Part one-Preparing for attention

For any article, writing is just one part of it. The work done before the article is published is as important as the writing itself. Here are some reasons:

1. "Second Chance" effect: Why page views don't make much sense

The reader will give you the opportunity to read your article in the Open Browser tab. But such traffic will easily disappear, and by the next morning no one will remember your name. By setting the appropriate engine, you will get a second chance. With this "second chance", you will be able to reconnect with the visitors and remind them who is the author of the article.

Here are some key "engines":

1.1. Whether to provide e-mail subscriptions

For a long time, I overlooked a piece of advice from my favorite marketing guru, Noya Kagen (Noah kgan). It wasn't until I lost half of the traffic that I decided to offer my email subscriptions on my website. I was too slow to get 32,000 email subscriptions.

After these emails were promoted, I have to admit that, so far, email is still the most effective marketing tool for me and all my customers. The users who have been attracted by email have brought the first 100 shares and made my work more interesting, so that I can spread it further.

Therefore, please provide an email subscription service at the outset.

1.2. Other powerful "engines" that bring "second chances"

Please find the right "engine" according to your goal. What do you want them to do when they read your article, or after they read the article? Watching you on the Instagram? Create an account number? Read another article? Watch a video? Fill out a form? Recommend to friends, share and comment?

Assuming your goal is to get a "second chance" on Twitter, do you provide a Twitter account in the author column? And if you are a fashion type of electrical goods card, then whether to provide your link at the end of the article, to inform readers of the current best-selling products?

You can turn readers into subscribers by email. Similarly, with other "engines," you can turn them into social media followers, customers, video viewers, or members.

Not every article I write is brilliant, but I will try to strengthen the "second chance" engine in every article to attract more subscribers, more followers, or more customers.

2. Business Brand vs Personal Brand

This may be the most important thing to decide before releasing an article. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, then there was no doubt that I would prefer a commercial brand to a personal brand.

If it is a personal brand, then whenever you need to share something, you will use the singular first person "I" to begin to express. And if you have a commercial brand, you can use the plural first person "we". If you continue to use the singular first person, then you will feel like an arrogant fool, or too prominent your voice.

I don't think owning a personal brand is a bad thing, but you need to make sure it's right for you. Make sure that the brand you choose is consistent with your personality and goals, and that combining the two is also a good choice.

3. Inspection of technical infrastructure

Any content can get huge traffic at any time. Sometimes it takes only a minute. But the first thing to make sure is: Have you noticed that the host service you use can accommodate a large amount of viral traffic? Have you ever tested that your email subscription service works? What is your blog's responsiveness at the mobile end?

Part Two-start writing

After we have done everything ready, we can start writing.

A. Writing style

1. The wording is as simple as possible

Whenever I want to attract readers, I try to write complex sentences, trying to pretend to be real writers. However, editors always ask, "What does this mean?" "Obviously, after the sentence is getting longer, no one knows what I want to say.

Here are two tips to keep it simple:

1.1. Each sentence is no longer than 25 words

We need to make sure that the message is as clear as possible. 25 words is a ballpark figure, and every time I check the sentences in the article. If the sentence is too long, I shorten the sentence or break it into two sentences. Hemingway applications can also implement similar functions.

1.2. No more than 3 sentences per paragraph

I've been doing this all along, but I'm not going to give anyone that advice because I don't think it's the right way to write.

As our attention continues to shorten, your article needs to compete with the reader's attention on the articles in the tabs of other browsers, and on the various notices on the smartphone. In the current world, readers won't even read 140-character Twitter messages, so I need to make paragraphs as simple and concise as possible.

2. Use your article as a start-up company

Each article has a unique readership, and every reader has its own problem. When you start a business, you have to solve the user's problem and use the same logic for the article.

For any industry or customer, I will first analyze the problems facing the audience. But that doesn't mean you need to share personal insights that people can refer to.

If you're writing an article about personal publishing, before you write, ask yourself, what are the problems these musicians are facing? You can also write in a personal tone, just as you would a one-on-one conversation with a reader.

3. "Perfect Trio": longer content, talking with data, and information useful to readers

For most of my clients, I use 3 "killer" tips learned in buffer and crew. Writing a long text of 1000 to 1500 words can always help; sharing the information can increase the share rate by 45%, and if supported by data and scientific theory, it would be better.

B. Essential elements of a blog post

1. Perfect combination: The title that causes curiosity and the article with eye catching

You can try it on your own. Try to get rid of the article map over time, and you'll notice that the statistics of the article change immediately.

The use of the words "how" and "why" in the title always works, and the mention of "list" in the title is not disappointing. (Of course, there are other factors that need to be considered.) You can learn some interesting headlines over the last few months by the medium Top 100 list.

Choose the wonderful title is helpful, choose a good article map is the same. And when you do both, it's perfect.

2. Introductory remarks

For me, Introduction is the most important part of the article. You only have a few seconds to convince the reader that you can cash in on what you promised in the title. In just a few seconds, the reader will decide whether he wants to open the tag to read an article.

You need to get readers to read the story step-by-step. You need to change his mind so that he forgets to open an article. You can start with amazing scientific results, wonderful details, or personalized stories.

3. Text

For the text, I am particularly concerned about two aspects:

3.1. Give the reader a breather

Keep in mind that you have passed the test of the lead to attract readers to read the text. However, the reader is still only in the process of reading, he is likely to feel tired, and is about to open another browser tag. So you can insert some visual content and give the reader a breather.

3.2. Do not use a link that distracts readers ' attention

There is a big difference between proving the credibility of the source of information and inserting a large number of links in the article to try to prove the quality of the article. You need to ask, is this source relevant? Does your reader care about these links?

4. The end of the bright eye

You're going to play your last cards. Readers may already be tired and navigate back and forth between multiple open tabs and mobile notifications.

Please take it easy and slow down. Write some simpler sentences. Keep the paragraph concise and the message on the nail. Review all your points and prove that you have fulfilled your commitments.

Part three-when you're ready to release

After you finish writing the article, the real game is just beginning.

1. Art that attracts people to recommend or share

At the end of the article, I often do this: appeal to the reader to recommend or share this article. However, not many people will do so. For some of my articles, this simple requirement increases the share count by 32%.

In fact, even if people don't share, it doesn't mean they don't appreciate your article. This is often just because the reader does not share the habit. But if you ask them to do so, they will be very friendly to share your article.

2. Send email subscriptions during peak periods

The best time to send e-mail subscriptions depends on your audience, time zone, and industry. In general, GMT Sunday 0 o'clock is the ideal time to publish to a global audience. At this point, with the advent of the new week, many people will want to read some new content.

However, I strongly recommend that you test the time for different content to be sent. Many e-mail companies, such as MALICHIMP, offer specialized tools to help you test the sending of the same email to two different audiences in different ways.

For example, I've been testing a client to send the same content at different times. Distribution at night 8:30 and evening 9:45 will have a completely different receiver opening rate. But in fact these two mail receivers have no time difference.

3. Release all bombs at once

If you've found that the best time to send to your readers is Sunday night 6:45, then after your email subscriptions reach the user's Inbox, please share them with your social media account as soon as possible.

The first time in all channels to promote your content, rather than at different times to gradually spread content to different channels.

In addition, you can share the same content on social media accounts several times over the next few days to cover different time zones.

4. Repeated presentation of the same content in different forms on different channels

This can result in a lot of extra traffic. Once you find that an article is successful, you can convert it to a new form in a new channel. For example, you can convert an article to a slide and upload it to slideshare, convert it to a picture and upload it to Instagram and Facebook, convert it to a Pinterest, or upload a video to YouTube.

The best form conversion is to turn it into a Web site, a software, or a tool. For example, when an article has been topped thousands of times on product hunt, I convert it to a Web site.

Part IV-Forwarding

The amount of traffic you get on the medium is just a fraction of all traffic. Forwarding the article to a large distributor, the content of the flow can be significantly improved.

It is interesting to note that people are exaggerating the big media, thinking they can't get in touch with the big media, or that only famous people can publish articles in big media. In fact, the editors of the big media are actually very kind, they are not your enemies, and they don't deliberately ignore you. However, they usually have a lot of work to do, and they have only one goal: to present the best content on the site.

Here are a few points about how to provide them with the content they need, and get a huge amount of traffic and exposure:

1. List your goals

Go to the Contact information page of the target site to obtain an edited e-mail address. If you do not provide an e-mail address, you can search on Twitter. Be sure to get the contact form for all the target Web site editors.

2. If not attractive, will not be forwarded

Keep in mind that the editors need to be attractive, or a proven article. If you don't see any traffic through Google Analytics, you can't convince these editors to forward on the site.

Please wait a few days for profiling data. Once you see good analytical data (this can be not only traffic data, but also some celebrity forwarding data), then the screenshot can be used as proof.

3. Send email or Twitter message to editor with eye-catching title

Please do not introduce yourself in a resume-style statement. Please go straight to the topic and give the result. Here's a typical email I sent, and I usually get a response:

Title: My article has 42% share rate, screenshot as shown in the attachment, whether can forward?

Text: Hello, my article has very good performance, please look at the appendix of the analysis data. I'd like to forward it on your website. If you are interested, look forward to your reply. “

4. What? You have a 42% share rate? Then you can wait for the editor to come to you.

If your article has a lot of traffic, or you see the analysis data performance is very good, then you can not use the above method, because the big media editor will take the initiative to find you. Many large media have dedicated employees looking for topics for forwarding.

About a few of my viral-spread content, the editors of 4 large tech blogs contacted me within the first 7 hours of content release.

5. Attention to exclusive agreement

Some media require you to sign an exclusive agreement to prevent your article from being forwarded to other websites. Exclusive agreement is not bad, you just need to understand, for an article, which channel has the most suitable audience.

I have forwarded viral-spread articles in multiple channels, such as Business Insider, Lifehacker, and tech in Asia. For other articles, I authorize it exclusively to the Next Web.

6. Decide when to forward on the media

If the reading data for the content is very strong, you can allow it to stay on the main channel for a while. This can be your own blog or medium. This time period is usually a few days, otherwise the large media will eat up most of the traffic, while dispersing your "bomb" effect.

But things are different. For example, some of my articles will have more traffic on the Next web than medium.

Other channels

1. The right channel

Sometimes it takes time for your content to find the right channel. For example, one of my content took two weeks to find the right channel, when someone posted the article on Reddit and StumbleUpon. And it's starting with these two channels, and this article just started spreading viral on Facebook.

An article by Jeff Goin even began a year after the release of Jeff Gees, when a student leader in Singapore uploaded the article to Facebook.

Therefore, whether the article can realize the virus-type transmission is not a time problem, but has the right channel. Instead of waiting for someone else's help, you can find the right channel and publish your link yourself.

2. Multilingual Channels

If your article is really attractive and can cover global audiences, then medium can help you translate it for free, which will give you continued attention and flow to other countries. I've tried that.

If you're not writing on medium, consider hiring a freelance translator (I suggest trying Spanish) and inviting a popular Spanish tech blog to forward it.

3. Invalid forwarding

Unfortunately, some people do not send your name when forwarding. On LinkedIn, some people may even pretend to be the author when forwarding. I tried to report copyright infringement to LinkedIn, but LinkedIn didn't reply to any of my emails.

If plagiarism is not a lot of control, then see what you can do about it.

– Summary

I have often seen people say "content is king", but I never really understood the meaning of this statement. As a millennial generation in the age of information explosion, I find it increasingly difficult to attract attention. I feel that I need to be able to tell stories better. This is not just about the article. I even found it hard to attract the attention of my 3-year-old nephew, and my brother's attention in long-distance calls.

In the 2015, I think we need to be better storytellers and improve our skills when we communicate with others. We need to be more concise and make our voices compete with the distractions of their phones.

Content is really king, a simple article can attract millions of of people's attention. Please do not underestimate yourself, nor any excuses, for example, you do not have a marketing budget.

Starting from the small table in your small room, you can attract more traffic than a large company that employs the author's army. Content is king, and you are the one who holds the content.