← the shelf
“The only way anyone could possibly be seen as a credible writer on the internet,” he said, “was if they had more than 10,000 readers on their blog.” The class laughed out loud—not because they thought he was wrong, but because they agreed with him. 10,000 daily readers seemed nearly impossible in 2008.
My first Quora answer received a whopping 37 views. Now, this is where most people would have given up. Notoriously, human beings spend an awful lot of time imagining the big achievement we want for ourselves at the end of the journey, but struggle tremendously getting through the beginning—where we suck. Gamers, on the other hand, know that you have to play Level 1 over and over again in order to reach Level 2. And then you have to play Level 2 over and over again before you can reach Level 3. And if you can just keep on keeping on your journey, learning and mastering each level, you will eventually climb all the way to the top of the ladder. That’s how you “beat the game.”
This was exactly the same lesson I’d learned as a teenage gaming blogger: when I wrote about niche topics, viewership was mediocre. But when I wrote about universal life lessons, my writing went viral.
I’d heard the term “ghostwriting” before, but it wasn’t until my own clients started calling me their “personal ghostwriter” that I started to realize the true value of my skill set. They weren’t just hiring some freelancer. They were hiring a dedicated specialist who could speak their language, translate their thoughts, and communicate the stories and insights they were trying to share in an organized, articulate way.
Hubspot, for example, is a company that sells CRM software. Their blog isn’t really much of a blog at all. It operates much closer to an industry publication for digital marketers, and their strategy is to publish so much high-quality content that if you are searching for anything marketing related on Google, you’ll end up on their website, discover their CRM tool, and become a customer. In order to do this effectively, Hubspot employs and curates work from hundreds upon hundreds of contributing writers, creating a content marketing machine. If you are a company with a product or service to sell, and you have the means to create a “digital media company” within your niche, HubSpot is a terrific use case for having an active blog on your website. Your blog should become an industry publication, where the purpose of that publication is to tap into search traffic around specific keywords and increase the likelihood of a reader becoming a customer looking to buy your product or service.
The reason I chose not to pivot from Quora and start writing on my personal website was because I wasn’t passionate about building an encyclopedia site for fitness readers. My near-term goal might have been to drive eBook sales for my “Skinny to Shredded” series, but my long-term goal wasn’t to build a revenue-generating website selling fitness eBooks, fitness programs, and online fitness courses. If that had been my goal, then like the Kindlepreneur example, I would have launched something like www.skinnytoshredded.com, writing hyper-focused content about fitness, specifically using keywords and phrases potential customers were searching for on Google. Again, the difference here comes down to what you want to get out of your writing. Do you want to build a company and brand, making money selling ads, products, and/or services? Then a website and “blog” makes sense. But if you enjoy writing and want to build a personal brand, position yourself as an authentic voice in your industry, and share your thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights at scale, then do not start a blog. The Online Writing approach was made for you.
The new way to think about being a writer in the digital age is to turn your writing into a data mining machine.
How The Online Writing Game Works: 7 Levels Of Success
Level 1: Conscious vs Unconscious
The game is simple. When you post a piece of content—whether it’s a picture of you and your family on Facebook, or a video of you jumping into a pool in a bikini on Instagram, or a link to a New York Times article on LinkedIn, etc.—you are sharing a part of yourself at scale. The more you share, the more people learn about you. The more people learn about you, the more conversations happen, the more opportunities present themselves, and the more a scalable digital version of your real-life self begins to crystalize on the internet.
You have to start opening your eyes to the way the game is played, who your competition is, and what they’re doing that is capturing (and keeping) people’s attention—so that you can do the same. I’m not asking you to compromise your authentic writing voice for clickbait trash. I’m telling you that by playing the game with intention, and paying attention to the data, you will discover and amplify your most authentic writing voice ten times faster.
Level 2: Choose A Category
The entire—and I mean this quite literally, the ENTIRE—art and science and “game” of online writing is rooted in understanding what category you’re actually competing within. Unless you can consciously name the category, you will never have a firm grasp as to whether your work is “Better” or “Worse” than the competition. It isn’t until you understand the category, and then “The Ladder” that exists within your category, that you can begin climbing your way to the top.
Categories are how we organize information in our minds. Know your category and you’ll know where readers “fit” you into their own minds.
The exact same mental process happens on the internet. In fact, every website and social media algorithm is organized by category. Go to any publication and you’ll find thousands upon thousands of articles organized by category: technology, lifestyle, food, sports, news, politics, business, and so on. On static websites and blogs, these categories are created manually by the owner of the site. And on social media sites, these categories are created intuitively—the more you scroll, the more your algorithm knows what “categories” you like, and so on. This is what makes writing online a strategy game. Think of every category as its own playing field with its own rules. What’s considered kosher in one category may seem completely unconventional in another. What one category calls “innovative,” another might see as boring. Your job is to take the time to read, observe, and study your chosen category to the point where you understand its native language. You should be able to hear the nuances in how people communicate, know which formats have become tried and true, and most importantly, name the dominant writers within the category you are aiming to surpass.
Level 3: Define Your “Style” (Where Do You Sit On The Writing Spectrum?)
All writing exists on a spectrum, and that spectrum looks something like this. Educating <<<>>> Entertaining
As you begin to play the game of online writing consciously, the next big question you have to ask yourself is which side of the fence are you going to play on?
Creating a unique, memorable, and “different” writing style is nothing more than a deliberate choice to sit somewhere unexpected on this Writing Spectrum. The more unexpected the style, in the context of your category, the more likely you are to stand out. On the other hand, the more expected the style, in the context of your category, the more likely you are to sound like everyone else—and blend into the noise.
The secret to creating a unique writing style is by doing what would be considered “unexpected” in your chosen category.
A clear sign you’ve executed this successfully is people within your chosen category (both readers and writers) will comment on the unexpectedness of your style. Some will support it, letting you know how refreshing this “new voice” is in the category. And others will feel threatened by it, pointing out how it “goes against the rules” that have been previously defined. As a result, you will experience both positive and negative engagement—again, forcing readers and other writers to make a clear choice: which side of the fence do they stand on? Do they support your style? Or are they against it.
Over time, data will reveal to you which parts of your writing voice are resonating (and which parts are falling flat), and as long as you keep paying attention to the feedback you’re receiving, your voice will continue to grow and evolve.
Level 4: Optimize Your Writing Style…
When people read online, they don’t actually “read.” What they do is skim. Browse. Scroll. They let their eyes gloss over the words, and if something compelling catches their eye in the first two, five, maybe ten seconds (a word, a subhead, a phrase), then they’ll stop skimming and start reading. But you…
I took that advice to heart when I started writing on Quora. Instead of taking the time to give all this backstory, or make the reader wait and wait for me to “get to the point,” I would just start with the main point instead. This became a defining characteristic of my writing style. I would give a few sentences of explanation or story, and…
My teachers in college called this, “The Rate of Revelation.” This is the rate at which you reveal new information to the reader—and new…
For example, a paragraph with a very slow Rate of Revelation would look something like this: I walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, which I needed before I could continue writing. I stood there for a while, staring inside the refrigerator. The kitchen floor was cold under my bare feet, and even though I’d just eaten dinner, I found myself eyeing the hummus on the second shelf, wondering if I should…
Now, here’s what a paragraph with an extremely high Rate of Revelation looks like. I walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As soon as I reached for the glass in the cabinet, it fell to the floor and shattered, glass flying into my foot. I screamed, blood squirting out of the tops of my toes. My neighbor, who could hear me through the walls, came rushing over, knocking furiously on my door. I yelled, “COME IN AND HELP ME!” But when the door flung open, I turned around and my neighbor…
Here’s what a really slow paragraph would look like in the writing world of advice and education. The one thing everyone should know about habits is they are difficult to build. In fact, habits can take years to develop. Why they take such a long time is because each one of us has a hard time with different aspects of our life, and so it can take months, even years, to pinpoint which of those aspects has the most “bad habits,” and what we can do to make those bad habits more productive. But pinpointing the bad habits…
Here’s what a really fast paragraph looks like. The one thing everyone should know about habits is they are difficult to build—for four reasons. First, finding the motivation to break bad habits is easier said than done (and are oftentimes used as coping mechanisms for deeper issues). Second, habits can take upwards of thirty days to form, and that’s a long time investment for most people. Third, positive habits don’t always show rewards right away, which make bad habits easier to fall back into.…
Level 5: Specificity Is The Secret
Big, vague, all-encompassing phrases lack any and all specificity. What people are trying to do when they speak in these overarching terms is try to “make something for everyone.” As a result, they end up creating “something for no one.”
The inverse rule of “Specificity is the Secret,” is “The Broader You Are, The More Confusing You Are.”
From a category perspective, there is a big difference between broad, overarching categories, and niche categories. It’s one thing to say, “I write about life,” and it’s another to say, “I write about lifestyle habits for people in their 20s struggling to find their passion.” A lot of aspiring writers shy away from naming their writing that specifically, because they fear putting themselves in a box. But especially when you’re first starting out online, a box is exactly what you want. You want people to know where to put you on the bookshelf in their mind.
So which niche category am I actually competing in? Which “Ladder” am I going to try to climb? Instead of trying to be “something for everyone” by writing broadly about all of these categories at once, I am better off “niching down” until I find one (or a few) categories I can dominate. For example: “Marketing” is broad. “Content Marketing” is more specific. “Content Marketing” is still too broad. “Content Marketing For High-Growth Businesses” is more specific. “Content Marketing For High-Growth Businesses” is still too broad. “Content Marketing For Founders And Executives Of High-Growth Businesses” is more specific. Notice, the more specific I get, the more I am forcing potential readers to make a choice. Either this is going to be exactly what they’re looking for, or they’re going to know right away I’m not the right writer for them. In addition, the more specific I am, the more I as a writer also gain clarity around what it is I’m actually writing about—which, in turn, makes the reader feel like they’ve found the exact writer they’ve been looking for.
As you continue to refine which specific category you’re writing in (and this is an ongoing process), you then have the opportunity to bring that same specificity into the writing itself. “Marketing is a great way to build exposure,” is a broad statement. “Content marketing is a great way to build exposure for your business” is more specific. “Content marketing is a great way to build exposure for your business,” is still a broad statement. “Content marketing is a great way to introduce new customers to your business and move them to the top of your sales funnel” is more specific. “Content marketing is a great way to introduce new customers to your business and move them to the top of your sales funnel,” is still a broad statement. “Content marketing, when published by your executive team opposed to your company’s blog, is a highly effective way to build organic exposure and trust with your target customers, moving them through your sales funnel without them feeling ‘sold to,’” is more specific. It’s this level of attention to detail that makes one writer “Better” than another. This is what I mean when I…
Luckily, how you build credibility on the internet is easy. In the simplest way, signals of credibility are nothing more than subtle (or not-so-subtle) signs that you know what you’re talking about and are “worth” listening to. There are three different layers to building credibility on the internet.
The first layer is Implied Credibility.
Implied Credibility is how much “Better” or “Worse” your content is than everyone else’s in your chosen category. If someone comes across your article or song or video and it’s so much “Better” than the vast majority of other creators in your category, they don’t need to read your bio or take a look at your accolades to know whether or not you’re someone credible. They’ve already made their judgement. Your content is so good, your credibility is implied.
Signals of Implied Credibility are: Profile picture: Right out the gate, if your profile picture is blurry and half-hearted, what you’re really telling readers is that you’re not “playing the game” seriously—so then why should they take you seriously? Bio: “I like cats, coffee, and watching Netflix,” is not an effective bio. Instead of trying to be clever, tell people who you are, what category your writing is in, and what makes you “credible.” Production quality: If you post pictures, graphic designs, or videos within your writing, then the quality of this content is going to speak for you. Low-quality images, for example, are going to tell readers you’re operating on a shoestring budget. High-quality images, on the other hand, lead readers to believe you have the means to hire a professional photographer (which means, “This person must be successful.”). It’s implied. Grammar: There is no faster way to lose credibility with a reader than to have writing littered with mistakes. (However, I too was once a 17-year-old blogger who didn’t know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘they’re.’) So while grammar mistakes can be an issue, don’t let fear keep you from making progress as a writer. Just keep getting better as you go along. Organization of thought: If your writing reads smoothly, a reader is going to assume “you know what you’re doing.” If it’s formatted well, they’re going to assume “you’ve been writing for a while.” These are subtle signals of credibility in the form of…
The second layer is Perceived Credibility.
Signals of Perceived Credibility are: What other credible people have to say about your writing: “Nicolas Cole is the single greatest writer of this generation.” – Abraham Lincoln Which major publications your writing has appeared in: “Featured in TIME, Forbes, Fortune, Business Insider, and many more.” How many followers you have on social media: 100,000 followers sends a signal you simply cannot send with 100 followers. High barrier to entry products: Writing a book, or launching a high-production video course, are signals of credibility simply because they typically either require a significant amount of expertise and/or money in order to execute. Badges and achievements: #1 best-selling author on Amazon, New York Times best-selling author, WSJ best-selling author, Top Writer on Quora, Top Writer on Medium, LinkedIn Influencer, Verified on Instagram or Twitter, etc. These are all examples of badges and achievements that can be leveraged for Perceived Credibility. How much money you’ve made from your craft: Mystery novelist James Patterson is “The world’s best-selling author. His total income over the past decade is estimated at $700 million.” That’s Perceived Credibility on a completely different level.
The third layer is Earned Credibility.
Whether we realize it or not, the reason we choose to pay attention to some people and choose not to pay attention to other people is not because of Perceived Credibility. It’s really not their fancy titles, badges of approval, or press logos that attract us into their vortex. It’s actually their Implied Credibility (quality of content) and Earned Credibility (proof they’re “playing and winning the game”). What hooks us is their consistency, their improvement over time, and most importantly, their ability to create something that resonates with us in that particular category. By “following” them, what we’re really saying is we believe what they create tomorrow will be “As Great” or “Better” than what they created today—and we want to be there to experience it.
Signals of Earned Credibility are: How long you’ve been creating content for: “Every day for 3 years” sends a very different signal than “I just started last week.” How often you create content: “I write something new every day” vs “I write something every few months, when I feel like it.” How much content you’ve created: “I have written more than 3,000 articles online” vs “I’ve written three blog posts.” How many people consume your content: “I have more than 1,000,000 views on my writing” vs “I have 300 views on my writing.” How well one of your pieces of content has performed: If one of your articles has thousands of Upvotes, Views, etc., that in itself is a badge of credibility—and clear proof what you have to say is valuable.
What makes a badge of credibility valuable isn’t really the badge itself. It’s how the writer chooses to wear it.
As soon as I became a Top Writer on Quora (Earned Credibility), I started wearing that badge everywhere. I put “Top Writer on Quora” in all my bios on social media. I added the credential to the About page on my personal website. I even included the badge in my Quora answers, writing about how I became a Top Writer on Quora in the first place. Since I was the one choosing to wear that badge of credibility proudly, other people started using that badge to describe “who I was” as a writer. When I spoke on podcasts, the host would introduce me as, “Nicolas Cole, a Top Writer on Quora.” When my Quora answers started getting syndicated to major publications, they would add a line at the end of the piece: “Nicolas Cole, Top Writer on Quora.” And remember, where they were getting that title from was from my website, and my social media bios. In 2015, most people didn’t even know what being a Top Writer on Quora actually meant. But because I was willing to wear my badge proudly, everyone else took it upon themselves to be proud of my badge too. This is one of the unspoken rules of building credibility on the internet.
Credibility is in the eye of the beholder—and it’s a ladder anyone can climb. The moment you have even one signal of Earned Credibility, you should start leveraging it. If one of your articles gets 10,000 views, you should have a link in your bio saying, “Read my most-popular article with more than 10,000 views.” If something you write gets Tweeted by a prominent person in your industry, use that to your advantage: “Mark Cuban loved this article of mine—I think you will too.” If you’ve been writing online for five years straight, why isn’t that in your bio? “Writing every single day online since 2015. Read my most-popular articles here.” There are an infinite number of credibility signals that exist on the internet. Unfortunately, most writers don’t use these signals to their advantage. They have them, or they very easily could have them, they just choose not to leverage them.
Level 7: Create Your Own Category
Mega-successful writers (in both big ways, like selling millions of copies of books, and small ways, in going viral on the internet), don’t compete within existing categories. What they do, intuitively, accidentally, or intentionally, is create a new category for themselves. For example: “Pop Science”: Before Malcolm Gladwell, most non-fiction writers either wrote about science-backed material in a very formal, “highfalutin” sort of way, or they avoided the science altogether and just wrote general life advice. Gladwell, instead of competing in either of these two categories, created his own—which the media has since referred to as “Pop Science.” His books are based on thorough research, but they’re written for a non-academic audience. “Wizardry For Kids”: J.K. Rowling came almost fifty years after J.R.R Tolkien, and yet instead of trying to write a “Better” version of The Lord Of The Rings, she created a completely different category of “fantasy and magic” by writing a story intentionally aimed at younger readers. “No-Bullshit Self-Help”: The Self-Help industry over the years has been niched a gazillion different ways, but it wasn’t until Jen Sincero published You Are A Badass, and Mark Manson published The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck, that a whole new niche emerged: telling people how to un-fuck their lives, plain and simple. All of a sudden, readers had to make a choice. Were they looking for a nice, calm, friendly self-help book (category), or were they looking for a…
As writers, we all start out imitating each other, wanting to “be like” the person who inspired us to write. But at a certain point, once the fundamentals have been learned and the lessons have started to crystalize, a fork in the road presents itself. “Do I want to keep trying to be a “Better” version of someone else? Or is it time I become a new and DIFFERENT version of myself?” And DIFFERENT always beats “Better.”
Categories are created at unlikely intersections, spotted by writers with an intimate understanding of one or multiple sub-categories.
Your job as a writer—once you’ve found your strengths, your high-performing topic areas (validated by data), and where you prefer to sit on the Writing Spectrum—is to match different audiences, genres, and writing styles to create a new and DIFFERENT category. AUDIENCE x GENRE: Let’s say you’re a history buff, and you love writing historical fiction. The only problem is, adult historical fiction has a ton of competition. That’s a massive category, and a tough one for you to compete in. So, leaving the genre the same, how can you adjust the AUDIENCE to make the genre something entirely new? An example of this would be: historical fiction for kids, or historical fiction for war veterans, or historical fiction for immigrants? These might sound like “small” categories, but remember, Specificity Is The Secret. By going all-in on a new and DIFFERENT category, you are forcing readers to make a choice. If you’re a war vet and you love historical fiction that doesn’t read like bubblegum but speaks in the lingo only a true war vet would understand, that genre is going to be your JAM. GENRE x GENRE: Take two genres that don’t typically go together and all of a sudden you might have an interesting new category on your hands. What would it look like to combine the sci-fi genre with the memoir genre? Or what about the How To genre with the fiction genre? The more unexpected the pairing, the more likely it is for you to stumble onto something radically DIFFERENT and uniquely interesting…
Once you’ve created a new and DIFFERENT category in your mind, you must then communicate the differences of that category to your audience. This is what’s called your “Point of View.” Your POV is the way you see the world, the unique vantage point that allows everyone else to…
This is where, again, Specificity Is The Secret. The more specific you can be about why your new category is exactly what your target readers are looking for, the more likely it is readers will see this category of yours as unique and SEPARATE from any and all competition. Notice: I am not talking about your “brand” as a writer, or the title of your book, eBook, article, etc. I’m talking about marketing the defining characteristics of the category itself—leading readers to ask the most important question of all. “If this is the category I’m interested in, then who should I be reading? Who is the #1 writer here?” And if you’re the one who created and educated them on this new category, who are they going to see as the expert? That’s right. You.
Where You Should Be Writing Online—And Where You Should Not
At the beginning of this book, I defined Online Writing as “…sharing thoughts, stories, opinions, and insights on a platform that already has an active audience.”
Another unfortunate stat is that the average amount of time a reader spends reading an article on a major publication is less than 60 seconds—with a 70-90% bounce rate (meaning once a reader starts reading an article on a major publication, less than 10% click to read a second). This is because the vast majority of major publications monetize through advertising. Their entire model is to shove as many ads down the reader’s throat before they have time to run away. The name of the game is to spend less on the cost of getting you to click than the profit generated on the ads shown to you within that sixty-second window. As a result, publications are not built for prolonged reading experiences. Instead, they’re optimized for SEO (articles that rank well in search results around industry specific keywords) or “clickbait” headlines that can grab people’s attention on social media—either organically or via paid media.
When major publications are looking for contributing writers or columnists, what they’re really looking for is volume within an under-resourced category.
The average column on a major publication receives less than 1,000 views.
The articles that “go viral” only fall into three categories: They mention an insanely successful company (Apple). They provide an unexpected perspective on a controversial and trending topic. They focus on personal development/life advice.
People read major publications for three reasons: opinions, news, or to learn how to do something. That’s it.
The fact that my top 10 highest-performing articles are predominantly about personal development should tell you something. These weren’t articles about me—these were articles about you, the reader. These were pieces to get you thinking, to make you more productive, to help your life in some way.
All of my most popular Quora answers followed a similar methodology. 800,000+ views: How to become more confident. 783,000+ views: How to stop being average. 507,000+ views: What it feels like to go from unattractive to attractive. 425,000+ views: A stranger I met once that changed my life forever. 412,000+ views: Why having everything you want won’t make you happy.
Here are the benefits that come with contributing content to a major publication:
SEO: Major publications have extremely high domain authority, meaning that if a page on Inc Magazine or Forbes links to another website, that weighs heavily in Google’s search algorithms. As an author, not only will your column and bio link to your own personal or company website (telling Google it is credible and thereby pushing it up the rankings), but you can also find creative ways to link to your website(s) within your articles, further boosting your own SEO. If you want to see what this looks like in action, search “Nicolas Cole” into Google and you’ll see I own the entire first 3+ pages of results. The reason is because I have hundreds of articles, across dozens of publications I’ve contributed to, all linking back to my personal website, my social platforms, etc.
The life cycle tends to look something like this:
Phase 1: New website or platform is invented—early audiences flock.
The con, however, is that you are banking on the platform’s success in order to remain relevant. The earlier a platform is in its life cycle, the riskier an investment it is (for investors, but also for content creators). You could invest a significant amount of time, energy, and resources in bringing your audience from one platform over to this new platform, only for the new platform to suddenly fail, go out of business, or get shut down. This is the argument 99% of people make around why you shouldn’t start writing on a social platform, and why you should start a blog instead. I want to clarify here I’m not advocating for going all-in on emerging, high-risk social platforms. I’m advocating for targeting slightly more established (or very established) social platforms, where a lot of things would need to go wrong for the company and website to fail.
Phase 2: Website or platform starts gaining traction—early users become “influencers.”
This has happened on every single social platform in history. YouTube gave rise to “YouTubers.” Instagram power-users became “Instagram influencers.” Whenever a platform starts growing exponentially and popular content creators begin to separate themselves from the pack, the “game” is unveiled to the general public. Suddenly, anyone new to the platform realizes there is a hierarchy, a ladder they can climb—and if they are willing to “play the game,” they can build an audience for themselves too.
By Phase 2, funding is likely closer to $30-50 million. For example, Instagram raised $50 million at a $500 million valuation in its Series B. Quora raised the exact same amount at a $400 million valuation. At this point, the likelihood of a platform “failing” becomes dramatically lower. Venture capitalists and seasoned investors don’t just watch a company valued at $500 million vanish into thin air, no matter how many worst-case scenario events have happened. This means, even if you invested a year or two into building your profile and content library on a platform, you would have plenty of time to move your audience and content elsewhere before the platform went under.
In hindsight, I joined Quora at the perfect time. I was early enough in the sense that the hierarchy had only recently been established, but late enough to have confidence that time invested on this platform wouldn’t be for nothing. Quora was clearly growing fast, and the platform would be alive for at least another five years—maybe even more than a decade. Seeing both of these qualities is what made me feel comfortable beginning to build myself there, and decide to make Quora my primary writing platform. Whenever I look for new platforms to leverage as a writer, this is the “window” I look for. Because this “window” provides maximum upside for its content creators. As soon as a platform reaches this stage, it needs to reach certain exposure and engagement metrics in order to warrant turning on its advertising machine. In 2014, when I started writing on Quora, ads on the site didn’t exist yet—and over the next few years, they only existed in beta form to a very small number of test clients. What these social platforms then do is begin prioritizing their high-volume and high-engagement content creators, giving them more and more exposure in user feeds—because they want to ensure engagement metrics are high.
Phase 4: Advertising model is launched and user reach starts falling.
When a platform monetizes with ads, what happens is they have to start picking and choosing which content to show users in their feeds. Without ads, you might have seen 20 potential pieces of content in the three minutes you spent scrolling. But with ads, you might only see 15 pieces of content, with 5 ads sprinkled in. Well, where did the other 5 pieces of content go? They’re still somewhere on the site, they’re just not being prioritized—which means those content creators are getting less views. This is what’s known as “throttling.” The platform begins to withhold the reach you receive as a content creator, forcing you to spend money in order to receive the same amount of exposure you used to receive organically. Facebook invented this model, and it’s the reason why less than 3% of all your Facebook fans see any of the content you post on the platform—unless you spend money to “Boost” it.
Phase 5: Business model is established, reach is throttled, and it’s time to find a new platform.
For example, the next writing platform I am paying close attention to these days is Substack. Substack is aiming to be the “social” writing platform for paid newsletters. The reason I say “social” is because, unlike true social platforms where the purpose is to browse and scroll, Substack actually operates much closer to a tool for writers rather than a social environment (in the sense that there isn’t an algorithmic feed where you can consume new content, follow writers, etc.). However, the fact that they allow users to loosely browse newsletter creators tells me the social component of their site will develop over time. Substack is still in Phase 1. In 2019, the platform raised $15.3 million from one of the most well-known venture capital firms in Silicon Valley—Andreesen Horowitz (a16z). This means some very smart people are betting on the growth of the category of “paid newsletters” for writers and media creators. If this category continues to grow, and Substack is the designer of this category, then you better believe this platform is going to grow exponentially over the next five plus years. For this reason, I’ve already moved my paid newsletter over to Substack.
How Writing On Social Platforms Works (And How To Not Give Up)
“The number of hours I spend consuming should never equal or exceed the number of hours I spend creating.”
One of the biggest mistakes aspiring writers make is they spend hours and hours scrolling through social platforms and websites, looking at other writers and asking themselves who they’re supposed to “be.” This habit eventually evolves into an obsession with trying to find “the answer” by consuming other writers—instead of investing that time into exploring themselves.
We are afraid of sharing who we are today—because we believe who we’ll be tomorrow will be “better.”
It’s impossible to know whether or not you have something meaningful to say, or if a platform is worth writing on, unless you give yourself six months to find out. When my co-founder and I started Digital Press, ghostwriting on behalf of busy founders and executives, we required them to sign six-month contracts for our service—not because we wanted to guarantee longer term revenue (although, that too), but because it would have been impossible to judge the value we were providing in thirty or sixty days. Truthfully, even six months is a hyper-condensed timeframe—but it’s usually enough time to get some sense as to what’s working and what isn’t.
In the first six months of writing anywhere social on the internet, you have three primary goals:
Goal #1: See whether or not you can be consistent. Nothing else matters unless you are writing on a regular basis.
The minimum amount you should be writing and publishing new material online is once per month. That is the absolute minimum. The people who can get away with this cadence are executives, speakers, authors, investors, and working professionals who have already made strides building themselves on the internet.
My true “recommended minimum” however is to publish something once every other week. In order to be taken seriously on the internet as an authority in your category and a leader in your industry, niche, or genre, You need to be writing and publishing new material 2x per month. Going back to what we talked about earlier in the book, the reason people choose to “follow” writers online in the first place is because they are looking for a credible source of information within a particular category.
Goal #2: Start gathering data about what your most popular categories are.
The way we would engineer this process for our clients at Digital Press is we would come up with three categories (“Content Buckets”) that represented who they were and what they wanted to write about. One category might be their industry (Biotech), the second might be related to their position within their company (Marketing), and the third might be a personal interest (Mountain Biking & Self-Discipline). We would then begin writing and publishing content in all three of these different categories, alternating back and forth until we started to see patterns emerge. We were running an experiment. And what we usually found was, the topics they thought people would want to hear about from them, weren’t actually the topics data told us were most engaging.
Once data enters the equation, this is where the “Who Do I Want To Be?” conversation gets interesting. Do you want to keep writing what you originally wanted to write about? Or do you want to write what people clearly want from you more?
My answer is: you should always do both. Data doesn’t lie. But data is also a reflection of the external crowd, and not necessarily your internal compass.
However, I believe (and have discovered for myself) there is a third option, and that’s to optimize the former so you can introduce people to the latter.
This book you’re reading is a perfect example. A lot of people follow me on Quora, Medium, Twitter, and Instagram because of the writing advice I share. Data tells me this is one of my high performing “content buckets.” But within this book, I just told you about a poetry book I wrote called Slow Down, Wake Up. If you enjoy me as a writer, maybe you’ll check it out. I’m not pretending my poetry doesn’t exist. I’m giving you both—while also understanding which topic area is the priority for most of my readers.
Goal #3: Pay close attention to writers at the top of the hierarchy of the social platform—and constantly measure yourself against their performance.
If you want to surpass even the most popular, highest-performing writers within an existing category, all you have to do is everything they’re doing, more consistently. If they publish new material 7 days per week, you need to publish new material 7 days per week. If they write 3,000+ word stories, you should write 3,000+ word stories. If they interview industry titans and summarize their takeaways, you should interview industry titans and summarize their takeaways. If they encourage readers to Tweet them with questions and ideas, you should encourage readers to Tweet you with…
Your job is to study the competition and understand exactly why they are succeeding in the first place. If they title their articles in all caps, why are they doing that? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that? Have their likes, comments, views, etc., increased since then? If they make each sentence of their post its own paragraph, why are they doing that? What’s the effect it has on you, the reader? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that? If they post a high-quality photo at the top of every article, why are they doing that? What do you think they’re trying to achieve? Was there a point in time when they weren’t doing that? What happened to their engagement once they started doing that? Question everything. Nothing a creator does repeatedly is…
For example, if you wanted to “beat me” at the game of online writing, and acquire all the achievements I’ve acquired, all you would need to do is: Publish something new every single day (because I publish something new every single day). Write fast-paced articles that use short paragraphs, declarative language, and subheads for every main point. Combine actionable advice for the reader with personal stories from your own life that illustrate how you gained the insight you’re sharing in the first place. Collaborate with professional photographers, build your personal brand, and attach pictures of yourself as a writer with the articles you write. Publish more than 3,000 articles online over the next five years. Contribute dozens of articles to Inc Magazine, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Business Insider, The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, TIME, and more, to build your Perceived Credibility. Land a few speaking gigs, and capture pictures of you speaking to illustrate more Perceived Credibility. Speak on 100+ different podcasts, illustrating even more Perceived Credibility. Etc. What a lot of people don’t realize is that each one of these “achievements” is nothing more than a step along the journey. Just one single step. When I first started playing “the game,” these were the steps I realized other writers (the writers I wanted to be like and surpass) had taken themselves. My first week on Quora, I quickly saw that all the top writers were publishing…
However, if you’re unable to be consistent for six months, if you’re incapable (no matter how hard you try) to write on a regular basis, I have some bad news for you: You’re not a writer. I’m intentionally being blunt here because if you struggle with self-doubt, then I really want this point to sink in. Being a writer is not a destination. There isn’t a point on the road at which you are, officially, someone worth following on the internet. Attention has to be earned, engagement has to be nurtured, and most of all, relevancy has to be maintained. Which means, if you truly want writing to be part of your life or career, then “being a writer” isn’t actually your goal. Your goal is to write (ACTION)—and it’s through writing that you will become “a writer.” So, if you can’t be consistent for six months, either realize you love the idea of being seen as a writer more than you love sitting down and writing and move on to something else, OR, try again.
Consistent output is the secret to every growth metric on the internet: views, comments, Likes, shares, etc.
Once you have a sound foundation as a consistent writer on the internet, now you can begin adding in all the fun growth strategies that start to separate amateur writers from professional writers. Here are some of my favorite, all of which remain true no matter which platform(s) you choose:
Audience Hacking
Basically you both creating or sharing content of any kind together, and sharing it with your respective audiences
Audience Hacking is extremely common in every industry. When a New York Times best-selling book has a testimonial on the cover from another NYT best-selling author, that’s Audience Hacking. When one podcaster interviews another well-known podcaster, that’s Audience Hacking. When a popular fashion YouTuber makes a video with a popular cosmetics YouTuber, that’s Audience Hacking. When Justin Bieber makes a song with Ariana Grande, that’s Audience Hacking.
Trend Jacking Trend Jacking is probably the easiest, most common growth hack on the internet.
This was a very common tactic nearly every top contributing writer used at Inc Magazine. We would all set Google Alerts for companies and public figures that aligned with our respective columns, and we’d wait for them to be mentioned in the news. For example, in 2017, Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview that he was changing Facebook’s mission. The company’s previous mission, “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected,” was under fire after playing a controversial role in the 2016 presidential election. In this particular interview, Zuckerberg said Facebook was planning to double down on Facebook Groups, and its mission had evolved to, “Giving people the power to build community and bring the world closer together…
Engagement Hacking is where you engage with the audiences of other writers, introducing them (and anyone else who reads…
The first step here is to make a list of other writers within your chosen category. If you write about life lessons, go look for other popular writers who also write about life lessons. If you write mystery stories, go find other writers who write mystery stories. Once you have a list of ten or fifteen writers (ideally with audiences similar and slightly larger than your own), go to each of their profiles and start commenting on recent content they’ve published—or, even better, respond to someone else’s comment on their content. For example, if one writer’s most recent post was on life lessons you should learn before you turn 30…
The whole idea here is to get your name in front of the same people who are actively looking for the type of content you write. When that audience member sees that you responded to their comment, they’re going to read it. When they read it, and if it’s something more thoughtful than just, “Nice one!” they’re going to go to your profile. And when they go to your profile and see that you actively write about similar material as the writer they already love and follow, there’s a…
The biggest mistake people make when using hashtags is treating them as words and phrases within their actual message. For example, they might post on Facebook: “I just wrote this piece. I hope you enjoy it! #myfirstposteveromg #2020 The hashtag #2020 works, because that’s a hashtag a lot of other people use to organize their content. But the hashtag #myfirstposteveromg isn’t a folder people are using—and if it is, it’s not specific enough to warrant someone using it to search…
For example, #writing is typically a very large folder because it’s so broad. A lot of different types of content could be tagged #writing—which means even though you’ll be tapping into a wider net of people, you’ll also be reaching a more generalized audience. But #businesswriting or #fictionwriting are more specific. They’re smaller, in the sense that they’re niches and not broad, all-encompassing categories, which means the audiences you’ll be tapping into are slightly smaller but potentially more relevant. The reason I like tagging posts with both broad and niche hashtags is because it gives each post a chance to be exposed to the masses, and to be found by highly targeted readers. We’ll talk more about this in the next section, but the entire secret to getting exposure on your writing online is to find as many ways as possible to make your writing resonate both on a broad level and with a specific audience at the same time. This is one of those ways.
Publishing Hacking
There are three different components to Publishing Hacking. But in order to understand the best way of doing this, let me clarify the difference between “publishing” and “sharing.”
Publishing is the first time you are putting a specific piece of content on one specific platform. Most websites put this in their terms of service, and will eventually flag you for publishing the same content over and over again.
This is what so many companies don’t seem to understand about social media marketing, and the incredible return on investment (ROI) that comes with writing online. The bigger you build your library of content, especially when your content is more timeless than timely, the more you can continue to engage your audience well into the future. There’s nothing wrong with sharing an article you wrote three years ago—especially if it’s a great article.
The three ways you can then leverage your library of content and “hack” the publishing landscape are:
1. Delete your original post, change a variable or two, and publish it again.
Maybe you published it during an unlucky time of day. Maybe your original title didn’t have the right hook. Maybe you realized after the fact that your post could have been flushed out further. Whatever the reason, there are no rules against deleting your original post and republishing it with a different set of variables. On Quora, this might mean publishing your answer to a different question. On Medium, this might mean changing the headline and adding it to a different publication. On Twitter, this might mean using different hashtags.
My personal advice is to avoid publishing and deleting content as often as possible. Instead, I’m a big believer in just re-writing a new and improved version and publishing a second piece instead. This way, your library continues to expand (opposed to you constantly playing this game of create/delete/create/delete). If you are going to delete a piece, do it within the first 24-48 hours to minimize the number of people who may be sharing it or linking to it.
2. Build syndication relationships with websites and major publications, and get around the “duplicate content” rule.
For example, I wrote an article in 2016 for Inc Magazine titled, 7 Crucial Lessons People Often Learn Too Late In Life. The article did well on Inc and accumulated around 70,000 views. But it wasn’t until Business Insider that it really caught fire. The first time that article got syndicated, it accumulated more than 3,000,000 views. Six months later, Business Insider deleted it (see: above tactic) and republished it again, this time accumulating more than 5,000,000 views. They chose to delete and republish it in order to make this clearly proven content seem as though it was a brand-new article on their site. This is what I mean when I say that luck plays a major role in how well your content performs. On Inc, the article went mini-viral, but because it didn’t scratch 100,000 views, I thought it wasn’t a winner. Then it got syndicated by Business Insider and it went crazy. Which is why it’s to your advantage to have your content appear in as many places as possible on the internet. You never know which environment is going to be the one that makes it “go.” However, the “con” of this strategy is what’s known as “duplicate content.” And since this is the most heavily debated topic in all of content marketing and digital publishing, it’s important to understand why I fundamentally disagree with the duplicate content argument—and why I believe syndication is one of the greatest publishing hacks on the internet. “Duplicate content” is the terminology Google uses to explain their…
In short: writers who fear “duplicate content” think they’re doing the right thing, not realizing they aren’t even “in the game” in the first place. Knowing I was never trying to write the #1 ranking blog post for any given keyword or keyphrase, I threw my “duplicate content” fears out the window and went all-in on optimizing for reach. I wanted as many different platforms, with as many different types of audiences, sharing and consuming my content. Whether they read my article on…
The beginner version of this strategy is to post every single article you write on every single social platform you can. Every time I write an answer on Quora, for example, I will copy/paste that answer, give it a headline, and also publish it on Medium. Then I’ll take that Medium article, copy/paste it, and publish it on LinkedIn. And I’ll keep doing this with as many social platforms as I can, where publishing articles of that quality is acceptable. (You can also take this a step further, group articles together, and publish them as eBooks on Wattpad and Amazon, so long as you can prove the content is yours.) Yes, the headlines can be the exact same. No, you don’t need to do anything special, or change any of the content for…
The advanced version of this strategy is to reach out to websites and publications and let them know you are writing content that aligns with their target audience, and that you’d be willing to let them syndicate your content for free. The reason so many writers don’t do this is because, for one, they don’t know they can, and two…
The most effective way to do this is find someone on LinkedIn or Twitter who works for the website or publication, and ideally has “partnerships” somewhere in their job description. Send them a message and say something like: Hey there, My name is Nicolas Cole, and I actively write about personal development habits on Quora and Medium. Since your publication specializes in personal development content, I would love to find a way to collaborate. I’m very passionate about sharing new ideas with people looking to better themselves, and I was wondering if you would be interested in syndicating my content for free. Here are a few of my most popular articles I believe would resonate with your audience: Link Link Link Let me know if you’d like to republish any of these! And if this sounds interesting, but these aren’t the right fit, just let me know and I’m happy to send you other articles as well. Now, since most standard websites and conventional blogs probably aren’t going to want to syndicate your content—again, because they fear “duplicate content” penalties from Google. But major publications actively syndicate content from social sites such as Quora, Medium, LinkedIn, even Facebook and Twitter, and sometimes have entire departments dedicated to syndicating content onto their sites. They are going to be the most receptive to your outreach—especially if you are writing content that speaks directly to their audience, and you…
The expert version of this strategy is the advanced version at the…
Basically, instead of being seen as “a writer” asking publications to syndicate your content, you can build your own website, brand it as a publication, and then forge syndication partnerships with other…
Once you’ve created a separate website and publication (which is literally nothing more than a professional-looking Squarespace or Wordpress theme and a bunch of well-written articles from a handful of different authors), you can start plugging your own content into the mix. You can write an answer on Quora. You can copy/paste that answer and publish it as an article on Medium. You can copy/paste that article and publish it again on LinkedIn, and then you can copy/paste that article on LinkedIn onto your brand-new publication, before passing the link along to your point of contact at a major publication, eager to syndicate your content. The best part about this strategy is that you can create as many syndication partnerships as you want. So, in theory, five major publications can all syndicate with your website, and all five can syndicate the exact same article—which can also appear on your social platforms as well. This is how you quadruple dip in the world of online publishing.
Chapter 6 How To Always Write Something People Will Want To Read: 5 Forms Of Proven Writing
There are five types of writing on the internet. Form #1: Actionable Guide Form #2: Opinion Form #3: Curated List Form #4: Story Form #5: Credibility
Every time you come across an article, a social media post, a free email course, an eBook, etc., I want you to pause and ask the question, “What type of writing is this?” Once you start to see all the different variations these five forms can take on, you will have a greater sense of clarity…
The way you “win” the game of online writing is by creating the single best possible version of whatever form of writing you’…
For example, let’s say you want to write a How To guide on how to become a freelance photographer. The very first question you should ask is, “What type of writing is this?” The answer should be obvious: you’re trying to write an “actionable guide.” (Tip: “how to” is a dead giveaway you should be using the Actionable Guide form.) The second question you should ask is, “How can I make this the ULTIMATE guide to writing online?” Your goal should be to create a guide so specific, so comprehensive, so informative, that the moment a reader starts reading what you’ve written, they will immediately 1) bookmark it, 2) share it with someone else, and 3) feel as though they don’t need to go read any other guides, articles, or eBooks on the same topic. Nothing could possibly be “better” than what you’ve written. This requires research. It’s nearly impossible to know whether or not you’ve successfully “beaten” the competition if you have no idea who your competition is in the first place. So, poke around the internet. Google the topic you want to write about, along with a handful of related topics. Read a few other people’s “ultimate guides,” and see if you can pinpoint where they went wrong, or where you (as the reader) wished they had gone more in depth. Once you’ve done your due diligence and have a good sense of what you think you need to do to make your piece of writing the single best resource on the entire internet for that particular topic, the third question you need to ask…
Actionable Guide
Again, the goal of writing an Actionable Guide of any kind is to get someone to bookmark it. The reason I like to set this as a “mental goal” is because if you can write something someone is willing to bookmark, that means you’ve written a resource the reader doesn’t want to just read once—but wants to come back to again and again (and not just to that individual piece, but to you as a writer).
There are a handful of ways you can make your Actionable Guide “better” than the competition:
“Better” Quality: If everyone else writes short guides that don’t go into very much detail, you can be the one to write long, insightful, walkthrough-style guides. Conversely, if everyone else writes long, boring, walkthrough-style guides, you can be the one to condense them into shorter, more digestible bites.
“Better” Voice: If everyone else’s How To guides are dense and overwhelming, you can show up to the party and be fast, full of personality, and overly casual. Conversely, if everyone else’s How To guides are so casual you feel as though you aren’t being given professional insight, you can be the one to write in a more formal way.
“Better” Organization: If everyone else writes really great material, but it’s organized poorly and full of huge paragraphs and no subheads or page breaks for the reader, you can win simply by organizing your writing more visually and “appearing” easier to read and understand.
“Better” Positioned: If everyone else is writing about the same problem, you can flip the problem on its head to be seen as something radically different. For example, if there are a million guides all titled “How To Get Your First Client As A Freelance Photographer,” you can position yourself differently by reframing the problem: “Freelance Photographers, Here’s Why You Don’t Want To Charge Your First Client Any Money At All.”
“Better” For The Audience: If everyone else is writing about their industry from a broad perspective, you can stand out by choosing not to use universal language and using extremely specific terminology and vernacular only that specific audience would understand—and vice versa, if everyone else writes exclusively for the niche, you can stand out by writing for a broader, more universal audience.
“Better” Experience: If everyone else writes as if they are trying to hard-sell readers into buying a product or course, only giving them 10% of the information they actually need and hoping they’ll pay for the other 90%, you can stand out by giving away that same information (and then some) for free.
The techniques listed above for Actionable Guides work well for Opinions, Curated Lists, Stories, and Credibility pieces, so I won’t repeat them. Below are additional techniques that work well for Opinion writing.
“Better” Data: If everyone else’s opinions are shot from the hip and aren’t backed by anything substantial, this is your opportunity to show up to the party with a satchel full of facts. Conversely, if the most popular opinions on a particular topic are overloaded with facts and statistics making them difficult to read, you can be the one to write an entire piece around one single fact and make the topic more digestible.
“Better” Quotes: If everyone else is only writing their own opinions, you can be the one to amplify your opinions by curating credible, insightful quotes from other relevant voices.
“Better” Insight: If everyone else is keeping the conversation within the commonly accepted rules of the industry, you can present insight from outside the industry and expand the conversation to bigger and broader audiences. (And vice versa: if everyone is sharing big, broad opinions, you can be the one to bring the topic back to one key insight.)
“Better” Stories: If everyone else is sharing opinions citing facts or personal beliefs, you can reframe the conversation by telling a unique story that underscores the point you’re trying to make. (Writers like Ryan Holiday do this often, where they will tell the reader a story about someone famous or noteworthy from history, and then after telling the story they will expand upon the story with their own personal opinions and insights.)
The answers with the most engagement almost always begin at the absolute height of the story: “The first time I became a millionaire, I was living in my parents’ basement.” Boom. You’re in the story before you’ve even decided whether or not you wanted to be there in the first place.
“Better” Openers: If everyone else is taking their sweet time getting to the point, blow right past them and start writing at the moment of conflict or achievement. (Every single sentence you write online, you are fighting for the reader’s attention. If your story “gets better” four paragraphs later, delete your first four paragraphs. You don’t need them.)
Your goal as a writer is to always be looking for the topics, subject matters, and categories you are most qualified to write within. “Write what you know,” as the adage goes.
“Better” Association: If everyone else is writing only about their own personal experiences, write about your personal experiences being surrounded by or spending time with Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Brad Pitt, Halle Berry, or whoever else is seen as credible in your chosen category. (Name-dropping is one of the fastest ways to tell a reader, “I know what I’m talking about.”) “Better” Context:
For example, it’s one thing for me to say, “There are 5 things you need to know about ghostwriting for executives.” But, it’s much more powerful if I say, “I learned a lot building a multi-million-dollar ghostwriting company, and let me tell you, there are 5 things you need to know about ghostwriting for executives.” That one small addition of credibility completely changes the context of everything that follows.
“Better” Arguments: If everyone else is just stating the facts, or shooting opinions from the hip, you can be the one to challenge conventional wisdom. Instead of writing about what to do, write about what not to do. Instead of talking about things people should learn, talk about what things most people never learn—and fail as a result. Reframing a topic is a powerful way of communicating to readers that you know something most other people in your chosen category do not.
What makes a great headline is getting someone to do three things at the exact same time: Easily understand what this piece of writing is about Easily understand who this piece of writing is for And easily understand the PROMISE: the problem that will be solved, and/or the solution being offered This is what’s known as The Curiosity Gap.
For example, a headline like “The Big Idea” is ineffective because it doesn’t tell the reader 1) what it’s about, 2) who it’s for, or 3) what it’s promising in exchange. Here’s how we fix it: “The Big Idea That Needs To Get Through Politicians’ Heads To Fix Racial Inequality In America” is clearer. As a reader, you now know exactly what this piece is about. “3 Big Ideas From Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, And Jeff Bezos That Changed The World Forever” is more specific. If you’re interested in creativity and business, you know this article was written for you. “This 1 Big Idea Will Change The Way You Think About College” is a big PROMISE. This headline tells the reader, “The way you think about college will no longer be the same after you read this article.” And you better deliver on that PROMISE—otherwise readers are going to call your writing “clickbait.” (People think “clickbait” refers to the headline style that uses numbers: 7 Things, 6 Ways, 3 Mistakes, etc. It’s not. These headline styles are extremely effective as long as you keep your PROMISE to the reader. It’s when you don’t keep your PROMISE that the reader feels tricked—which leaves them disappointed, angry, and “click-baited.”)
Something about the headline spoke to them (and the more you write, and the more data you accumulate, you will begin to know which types of headlines speak to your target readers most effectively).
The reason these titles work is because the reader actually gets all three of their questions answered clearly: What is this about? Is this for me? What PROMISE are you making—and how confident am I in your ability to deliver on that PROMISE?
The first question I encourage you to ask yourself is, “Who is this piece of writing for?”
The size of your audience is a direct reflection of the size of the question you’re answering. For example, very few people wake up in the morning and say to themselves, “Wow, I wonder what’s new in the world of biotechnology.” Biotechnology is a niche. Which means, if you’re writing about what’s happening within the world of biotechnology, your Audience will only be as big as the number of people actively asking themselves about biotechnology. However, a lot more people wake up in the morning and ask themselves, “How can I be happier in life? How do I know if I’m in a healthy relationship? How can I make more money?” These broader, more universal questions have much larger Audiences—which means, by choosing Happiness, Relationships, or Money as your Subject Matter, you will inherently reach a wider Audience.
Are you writing for the masses? Do you want to try to reach as many people as possible? Then you need to answer a universal question—something that will resonate with anyone, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Are you writing for a specific niche? Are you less concerned with reaching “everyone,” and more concerned with reaching a specific type of person? Then you need to answer a question highly relevant to that niche—something that will resonate meaningfully with your exact target reader (for example: someone deep in the field of biotechnology).
Now, there is a way for you to get the best of both worlds, and that’s by using niche topics to answer universal questions. For example, an article titled, “How To Be A Better Writer” answers two of our three questions. You know who this article is going to be for, and you know what it’s going to be about. Unfortunately, the PROMISE is a little weak. What does being a “better writer” really mean? What benefits do you receive by becoming a better writer? Why should someone want to become a “better writer” in the first place? Here is where you have a decision to make. You can either make your PROMISE answer a niche question or a broad question—and depending on which you pick will dramatically change the size of your potential Audience. (It will also change the content of the piece.)
This technique of tying niche topics to universal questions is a powerful way of tapping into new audiences and expanding your reach outside of your particular industry or category. Here are a few more examples: “The Future Of The Biotechnology Industry” is niche (and vague), and can be expanded by changing it to “How The Future Of Biotechnology Is Going To Make All Of Us Happier, Healthier, And Live Longer.” “The Girl Who Ran Away” is good, but it can be clarified and expanded by changing it to, “The Girl Who Ran Away: Family, Loss, And The Power Of Forgiving Those Who Hurt You Most.” “7 Tips For Becoming Smarter” is clear, but a bigger PROMISE can help it reach more people. “7 Tips For Becoming Smarter, Achieving Chess-Master Memory, And Becoming The Most Interesting Person In The Room”
The first two or three words of a headline are arguably the most important words of the sentence. When people are scrolling through titles, they really only look at the beginning and the end. They want to know what this “thing” is (the beginning), and what will happen (the end/the PROMISE) if they read it—all in a matter of milliseconds.
The two things you need to balance here are: WHO—based on age, ethnicity, location, interest, etc. WHO within that WHO—all of them? Some of them? 1% of them?
And finally, the ending—also known as THE PROMISE. This is what readers look for most. They want to know what happens in the story before they even read it. The key to writing a great PROMISE is to use language that elicits an emotional response. “Trouble” is a great word because nobody likes getting into trouble, yet everyone loves hearing about other people who get in trouble. The best way to come up with a compelling PROMISE is to think deeply about 1) outcomes your readers want to receive, or 2) outcomes your readers want to avoid.
For example: “…Become Rich” is a good outcome, but “…Become So Rich You Never Have To Think About Money Again” is a far more emotional and exciting outcome. “…Not Lose Your Job” is a general outcome most people want to avoid, but “…Not Get Fired On Your First Day” is a more specific, more easily imaginable outcome a lot of people actively worry about. “…Get Married” is a standard outcome, but “…Get Married And Stay Together For More Than 20 Years” is an outcome the reader can measure. The more emotional you can make your PROMISE, the more likely a reader is to want to read, comment, and share your writing.
Here are some of the most proven headline formats in online writing: Big Numbers: For example, “3,000 People Just Filed For Unemployment In This Small Town In Arkansas. Here’s Why.” This is a great headline because “3,000 People” is concrete, definitive, easy to imagine, and yet an unexpectedly large number—and what’s unexpected is exciting. Dollar Signs: Money is about as universal as a topic can get. “$400 Million Is How Much You Need To Make In Order To Afford This Insane Mansion In Malibu” is eye-catching because very few people have $400 million. Dollar signs make the Curiosity Gap wider and more interesting for readers. Credible Names: Celebrities, CEOs, pop culture icons, anyone the world can easily recognize by name is a great way to hook readers’ attention. “Will Smith’s Advice On How To Live A Fulfilling Life Will Change The Way You See The World Forever” is a headline built on credibility. Yes, there’s a great PROMISE here, but the real “hook” comes from the fact that it’s advice via Will Smith. “Amazon, Apple, Tesla, And 4 Other Stocks That Have Made Early Investors Mega-Millionaires” is another example of how to leverage name credibility. “This Just Happened”: Timeliness is a terrific mechanism for getting readers’ attention right now. Words like “Just, Recently, Today, Now,” etc., are what tell a reader that of all the things on the internet to read, “this thing” is high priority. For example, “Michael Jordan Just Gave A Press Conference And NBA Executives Are…
POWER Phrases Lastly, you always want to be thinking about what “POWER phrases” you can add to your headlines to clarify the urgency and importance of whatever it is you’re writing about. For example, instead of saying “7 Ways…” you could say, “7 Little-Known Ways” or “7 Small But Powerful Ways.” These tiny tweaks are what tell readers that what they’re about to read is different from all the other articles on the same topic—and can also hint at a more meaningful or impactful PROMISE.
A few examples: 3 Crucial Lessons About Business You’ll Learn Working For A High-Growth Startup Founder These Unforgettable Tips From Silicon Valley’s 10 Most Successful VC Firms Will Change The Way You Think About Business Forever 9 Memorable Truths About Life They Don’t Teach You In School This 1 Eye-Opening Takeaway From The 2019 TED Conference Will Inspire You To Be The Next Success Story In Your Industry 11 Painful Mistakes Most Founders Make Right After Raising Their First Round Of Fundraising 4 Emerging Biotech Trends You Should Know Are Quietly Changing The World
