How to Grab and Hold the Attention of Your Audience
Write with zest and purpose to build an engaged group of followers
As new writers on Medium, we have a few primary goals in mind. Essentially, we are looking to:
- Gain readership and followers,
- Attract like-minded individuals to interact with us, and
- Create valuable conversations.
Of course, the way that we do this is, primarily, through the content that we create and, secondarily, through the community-driven networking on the platform. We want to create content that draws people to us; content that they are hungry to read, and content that grips them, holds their attention and enables them to come away feeling fully satiated and looking forward to the next time we publish.
Therefore, we need to be very intentional with our content, our subject matter, and how it is presented.
Getting it right matters
There’s a lot involved in ‘getting it right’ on Medium, but it’s not difficult to master. There’s plenty of advice out there in the Medium-sphere on how to rustle up followers and engagement, so I am not going to go there with this article.
Instead, I want to focus on making your writing as reader-centric as possible, for this will really fast-track you towards being seen as a valuable community member, and as an authority in your niche.
Make every word count
Our main objective with our writing is to not waste a single word. We need to get our story or our points across as economically as possible because any attention that goes into pointless detail is attention lost.
Medium is a place where we have free reign as writers. However, I want you to consider your purpose in writing here. It may fall into one or more of the following categories:
- Personal journal-entry style pieces
- Creative prose/poetry/fiction
- Personal life stories
- Informative pieces in a particular niche
- Sharing your journey in an area of entrepreneurship, investing, or a career, and advice for others who are following a similar journey.
These categories define the purpose of your writing, what message you want to get across, and the experience that your reader has as a result.
This awareness can help you to:
- Stay focused on the main purpose of each piece of writing
- Ensure that every word is relevant to the purpose
- Decide the best place to publish each piece
- Ensure that the reader experience is top-notch
Categorising your stories is important
Putting stories into the categories specified above, and therefore defining the purpose, can help you to write a piece that is clear and concise with a relevant headline, that gives the reader what they expect or desire from clicking on it.
Whether or not you start with a good headline is not so important. As long as you have the purpose of the article nailed, you can write the message that you want to get across. The headline can be added or tweaked after the article has been written.
Using these guidelines will help you to avoid writing stories that are unfocused and unclear in what they are really trying to say.
For example, if your story’s headline implies that you are giving advice on ways in which to be more productive as a writer, but the content is more of you talking about how you are failing to be productive than valuable advice for others, it is not fulfilling the reader’s expectation or enjoyment, and doesn’t give them the value promised by the headline.
However, you could turn that into two separate pieces — one written more as a journal-entry style piece, with a more value-driven article and self-accountability piece inspired by ‘journal entry’.
For example, you might feel that you are failing to be productive so you are announcing to the world that you are implementing specific changes to help you get more productive. You could research advice from successful people about becoming more productive and quote them with links to the sources. This would be both informative and advisory, while also creating a declaration by yourself to be accountable for implementing these changes.
This way, you can be clear in your headline about what the article is delivering, and then deliver just that. The reader knows what to expect and is given it.
To keep it on point:
- Keep re-reading what you have written to ensure that it is taking the reader through a progressive journey to the final message or conclusion, without taking them off on unnecessary detours. If that happens, they will quickly lose interest, give up reading, and not necessarily wish to read more of your work.
- Be harsh in your editing and get rid of unnecessary drivel.
The last step is to choose where you publish, for this also helps to define the overall message of your work, and what the reader will be led to expect from reading it.
Publications are valuable for targeting a specific audience
Although not a necessity, choosing a publication for your article can help to get the right readers in front of your content.
You can choose to write in a wide variety of niches or stick with one. Publishing articles in publications can give the reader an idea of what to expect.
New Writers Welcome isn’t one that specifies niches since Robert Ralph created it as a place to welcome all new writers. However, it has grown as a place where readers can engage with a variety of content as well as find great advice targeted at new writers, and writers can be recognised in the early stages of their journey. This is what its readership has come to expect.
There are other publications that are more niche, such as Start It Up, for entrepreneurial and side hustle-related posts. Or Pets and Animals, which is self-explanatory. Requesting to be added to publications that are specific to niches you like to write about is highly worth it, as you may well get a good audience with it.
Is self-publishing worth it?
I have also self-published some work, and even had a lot of views on some of those articles. However, this is not at all guaranteed.
As a new writer on Medium, my policy has been to mostly publish in existing publications, and therefore leverage the audiences of those publications to help get seen by more eyeballs. However, I have enjoyed the autonomy of hitting the ‘Publish’ button myself, especially when my work feels more personal. This includes publishing in my personal publication, and simply being open to what the Medium-verse returns.
Putting the reader at the centre of your writing purpose
The most important part of this is making it about the reader, not about you.
By defining which category you are writing in, it enables you to create both a clear message for your reader and ensure that they understand what to expect before they even click on the ‘Read more’ link.
They will see a clear headline and subtitle. The publication, if published in one, can also help to define what the content is likely to deliver.
When they read, they will stay engaged throughout, because no words have been wasted. They will find your work both interesting and informative and, with added value, will want to follow you to keep seeing your journey unfold, and all of the tips and advice that you share along the way.
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