7 Tips to Create Highly Engaging Content (On Any Channel!)

Content is king. And yet, it’s not enough to create content and hope for the best. You need engaging content that gets your audience’s attention, keeps them engaged, and inspires action.

But how do you go about doing that? And what are some strategies that can help you create highly engaging content?

In this post, we’re going to cover seven tips on creating highly engaging content.

Read also: Determining the Fair Cost: How Much to Pay a Writer for an Article

1. Write as you speak

This is one of the most essential tips. You want your content to sound like a conversation, not an instruction manual. You should write in a way that feels natural and easy to understand.

Writing in complex terms is a mistake many of us make when we write, whether it’s for our blogs or social media. And it can be a big problem when we try to create content for other channels, like email newsletters or corporate blogs.

The problem is that the way people write on the web has changed dramatically over the past decade — and it’s still changing. You may have noticed this if you spend a lot of time reading blogs, but you might not have realized how much it affects what people want from their content today.

I don’t want to get into jargon here, but there are some very specific things you can do to make sure your writing is engaging no matter what channel you publish on:

• Write as you speak
• Avoid jargon and buzzwords (especially if they sound like buzzwords)
• Don’t use passive language; use active verbs instead
• Keep sentences short (around 20 words or fewer)

2. Focus on your target audience

The starting point in defining the target market is to understand what problems your products or services are solving.

Understand the problem/s you solve

You need to know who your customers are, what they want, and how they buy. 

You can do this through various marketing research methods such as surveys, focus groups, customer interviews, and competitive analysis.

Find out Customer pain points

Once you know what you are selling, the next step is discovering what frustrates your customers about their experience with your product or service. Maybe it’s too expensive, too difficult to use, or doesn’t do what they need it to do. 

Once you know these pain points, you can tailor content around them by providing solutions that will help alleviate those problems for your audience members.

Create buyer personas (Personas)

Buyer personas are fictional characters representing segments of your target audience based on their demographics and psychographics (attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors) so that you can create content that speaks directly to them rather than at them (general information versus personalization).

Study your competition

You must do some competitive research before creating any content.

You need to know what your competitors are doing, how they’re doing it, and why their content is successful (or not).  This will help you create better content that is more likely to resonate with your audience.

3. Get straight to the point

You have limited time to grab your audience’s attention, so ensure you get straight to the point. Use action verbs and active voice to keep sentences short and concise. Avoid using passive voice (the subject receives an action) because it makes the sentence longer and more complicated.

Don’t bury the lead

A headline promises what’s to come, so make sure it delivers on that promise. The purpose of a headline is to draw people in and create curiosity, but it should also be clear and concise. 

Don’t over-promise — use action verbs like “Discover how to…” or “Find out how to…” instead of “Try this new…” or “Learn about this new…”

Mention your purpose often

In as many ways as possible, show readers why they should keep reading. Hint at your main point, then return to the main point later in the article (where you can expand on that idea). In other words, don’t let them forget why they came here in the first place!

Skim your work once before you publish it

Make sure everything is easy for readers to find and read: Use headers/ subheaders (h1s/ h2s) and bold/ italic text for emphasis; use bulleted lists

4. Incorporate emotional content

Emotional content is the most potent type of writing you can use in your content marketing. It’s what gets people to click on an article or share it with their friends. It makes readers feel something — whether that feeling is happiness, sadness, laughter, or anger.

Here’s how to do it 👇

Use your content to tell a story

Your audience is busy. 

They have a lot on their plates and don’t have time to read long-winded content that doesn’t add value or entertain them. A great way to keep your audience engaged is by telling a story — whether it be through video, audio, or text.

Make your audience feel special or powerful

People love feeling special, and there are many ways you can do this on social media. For example, one way you can make your audience feel special is by inviting them into an exclusive club (or group of people). You could do this by offering exclusive discounts or promotions only available to club members.

Create a feeling of belonging

There’s something special about belonging to an exclusive club — especially if it makes you feel like you have more control over your life than others who aren’t members! You can create this feeling by offering exclusive benefits for those who join certain groups or follow certain accounts (e.g., free shipping on orders above $100).

5. Use color and imagery to enhance text

Color and imagery are powerful tools that can help you make your text more engaging. The right colors can draw attention to certain parts of your content, while imagery helps create a more vivid picture in the minds of your readers. 

Use them together to get even better results!

6. Make your content easy to read and follow

Making your content easy to read is key to engaging the reader. Use a simple, clean layout, and don’t overload your content with too much text, graphics, or other elements. 

Make sure that your paragraphs are short but also that you break up long text sections with subheadings and bullet points where appropriate.

Embrace the line break

There are not many easier ways to make your content more readable than by breaking up paragraphs with line breaks. 

You want your readers to be able to scan your content quickly and easily so that they can find what they’re looking for quickly and easily.

Break up your content with compelling subheads

When you use subheadings in your content, you allow your readers to stop reading and digest what they’ve just read before continuing on. 

This helps them remember what they’ve read and keeps them engaged with the piece of content at hand, which is great news for both you and them!

Create bulleted lists

Lists help break up text and make it easier for readers to digest—they can just click through each item in the list without reading through a paragraph or two of text first! 

It also makes it really easy for them to skim through your entire piece of writing if they don’t have time to read it all right now—but might come back later when they do!

7. Add a call-to-action (CTA)

A call-to-action is an instruction to the reader that encourages them to take some kind of action. 

You can use a CTA in your blog posts to encourage readers to learn more about a topic, sign up for your newsletter or product offerings, share their thoughts on the post with others (via comments), or do something else entirely! 

Just remember that CTAs should be relevant and valuable for your audience—don’t just throw one in for the sake of having one!

Here are some actionable tips for creating powerful CTAs 👇

Use words that provoke emotion or enthusiasm

It’s easier to get people to take action if they feel something. If your audience is excited, angry or enthusiastic about what you’re writing, they’ll want to read more and act on it—even if what you’re asking them to do seems scary.

Give your audience a reason why they should take the desired action

No one wants to take action just for the sake of taking action—so give them a reason why it matters! 

Tell them how much money they’ll save by buying this product immediately. Tell them how much time is wasted on that task every day. Tell them how much better life will be once they’ve made this change in their lives.

Take advantage of FOMO (Fear of missing out)

People are more likely to buy products that are already sold out than products that aren’t sold out. 

This is because they don’t want to miss out on something good! So if your product has inventory left, make sure people know about it before it runs out!

Takeaway: You can create highly engaging content by following these tips

I hope this article has given you some ideas for creating highly engaging content.

The key to creating highly engaging content is focusing on your audience and ensuring you’re giving them what they want.

If you’re looking for a way to make your website stand out, look no further! We can provide a set of engaging blogs that will make your readers want to stay on your site and explore everything it has to offer.

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