There are 8 million stories: why yours?
An old TV show used to close with the line, “There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.”
Today, the Internet is the naked city–and there are way more than eight million stories out there. When you write a blog, post a post, tweet a tweet, that’s just one of them.
How can you be sure anybody reads what you write?
The only way is to make yourself useful to your readers.
The Question You Need to Answer
The reader you’re trying to reach will look at your post for three seconds before deciding to delete it or read it. In three seconds, they will ask the WIIFM question: “What’s In It For Me?” You need to give them the answer. Are you:
- Telling them something new that they would hate to miss?
- Answering a burning question that’s already on their minds?
- Giving them an online tool that will help them solve a problem?
- Making them feel smart?
- Entertaining them better than a cute cat video?
These are ways to make yourself useful to your readers. They are also the ways to get read.
It’s Not About You
Please understand: no one, not even your best friend, has to read what you write. It’s their choice–and they have many other choices. So, what you want them to read doesn’t matter. What you think they ought to want to read doesn’t matter.
All that matters is making yourself useful to your readers. Or else you won’t have any.
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