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Why Brains and Blogs Love Lists

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Ten Blank business diagram bullet liet illustration“There’s little that our brains crave more than effortlessly acquired data,” Maria Konnikova remarks ruefully in the New Yorker magazine, by way of explaining the reasons people love lists. Lists spatially organize information, helping create an easy reading experience, Konnikova explains, “in which the mental heavy lifting of conceptualization, categorization, and analysis is completed well in advance of actual consumption.” The point of using numbered lists, I explain to blog content writers, is to demonstrate ways in which your product or service is different, and to provide valuable information that engages readers, helping them see you as a go-to guy or gal to solve their problem or fill their need. There’s apparently psychological science behind the fact that the numbered list technique has been a staple for s magazine covers for as long as I can remember. I always sensed lists and bullet points in general would make a good fit for blogs, and by most accounts, search engines “like” them as well. Jay Sondemers of Forbes defines high quality content as being:

  • easy to read
  • suitable for scanning and skimming

As far back as 1968, neuroscientist Walter Kintsch pointed out that lists facilitate both immediate understanding and later recall. Then in 2011, psychologists Messner and Wanke concluded that we feel better when the amount of conscious work we have to do in order to process information is reduced. “Within the context of a Web page or Facebook stream,” Konnikova says, a list is the easy pick, in part because it promises a definite ending. Back in 2013, I devoted a Say It For You blog post to the topic of numbered lists, noting seven different men’s magazine covers sporting list-based titles, including “50 Great Escapes” and “6 Longest New Drivers”. Just the other day, a single news stand at my local CVS pharmacy carried four magazines with numbers-based headline teasers: (Indianapolis Diner)       13 Gourmet meals (Mountain Escapes)       62 Glorious Getaway Ideas (Entertainment )             50 Song Movies, & TV Shows Guaranteed to Bring You Joy (Time)                           240 Reasons to Celebrate America “In the current media environment, a list is perfectly designed for our brains,” concludes Konnikova.  “We are drawn to it intuitively, we process it more efficiently, and we retain it with little effort.” And that’s just fine, she concludes, with the caveat that such a fast-food information diet is necessarily limited in content and nuance. Limitations notwithstanding – brains and blogs love lists!

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What Do Blog Readers Need Out of Our Blog Content

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Carla Hill

What do we need at work?

That’s the question Carla Hill, responsible for leading Business Furniture’s New Business Development teams, knows marketers must be able to answer.  Hill’s years as a learning and development consultant have helped her put together the following list of what each employee needs in the workplace:

  • people who help me
  • tools
  • information
  • exchange of ideas

The list of what blog readers need is nothing if not parallel to the Business Furniture list:

People who help me –
Never forget this one truth: People want to do business with people, and readers relate to stories about people, not to facts and statistics.  Let tales of people helping people tell the story of your company, your products, and of the services you provide.

Tools –
Readers want to know that you and your organization can teach them something.  “Briefly,” says Jim Connolly of  Jim’s Marketing Blog, “here’s how content marketing works: You build and market a website and stock it with free information that has real value to your prospective clients.”

Information –
Use business blogs to offer readers free information that has value to your targeted
readers. You can do that “whilst offering them the opportunity to purchase goods and services which are closely linked to the information you give away,” advises Jim
Connally in Jim’s Marketing Blog.

Exchange of ideas –
Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, , you must first take a stand on the issue yourself, using various tactics to bolster that stance in the eyes of readers. Then, through including guest posts, citing material expressing the opposing viewpoint, and inviting readers comments, blog marketers have a chance to facilitate productive exchanges of ideas.

You might be composing blog content for your own business or professional practice or doing blog marketing for clients.  In either case, before posting your latest creation, ask yourself:

Am I giving the readers what they need out of this blog?

 

 

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Bacteria Help Put Blog Content in Perspective

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bacteria Biomass is what scientists use when there’s no way to do an exact count, Bill Chapell explained in an NPR radio broadcast five years ago, referring to the “fact” that The Day We Hit 7 Billion (October 31, 2011), was actually impossible to prove; it is impossible to count all the world’s people alive at any particular moment.  So, he says, the experts estimate by calculating biomass. Biomass is determined, Chapel patiently explains, by multiplying an estimated population by its members’ average weight.

Fascinating stuff, but what does biomass have to do with blog content writing? Wait…wait…wait for it – it’s all a matter of perspective. Get a load of these comparative biomass numbers:

  • Whales – 20 million tons
  • Chickens – 40 million tons
  • Sheep – 65 million tons
  • PEOPLE – 350 million tons
  • Termites – 445 million tons
  • Cattle – 520 million tons
  • Fish – 800 million tons
  • Ants – 3,000 million tons
  • BACTERIA – 1,000,000 million tons (yes, you read it here!)

When Chapell was interviewing researchers at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C. about biomass, one researcher had this to say: “Of course, within each human there are animals.  So, our own parasites outnumber us!”

We business bloggers are, in a very real way, interpreters. Effective blog posts, I teach, must go from information-dispensing to offering perspective.  Before a reader even has time to ask “So what?” we need to be ready with an answer that makes sense in terms with which readers are familiar. I call it blogging new knowledge on things readers already know.

The typical website explains what products and services the company offers, who the “players” are and in what geographical area they operate. The better websites give at least a taste of the corporate culture and some of the owners’ core beliefs.  It’s left to the continuously renewed business blog writing, though, to give readers a deeper perspective with which to process the information. The facts, those raw ingredients of corporate blogging for business, need to be “translated” into relational, emotional terms that compel reaction – and action – in readers.
Remember the bacteria, and put your blog content in perspective for readers!

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Blogging in the Goldilocks Zone

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Woman and Porridge BowlsRemember the story of Goldilocks and how the little girl tried sitting in each of the Three Bears’ chairs? After rejecting the first two chairs because they were the wrong size, she tries the third: “Ahhh, this chair is just right,” she sighs. That’s exactly the sensation you want your reader to have about your blog post! But, as was the case with Goldilocks, it’s going to take some testing to achieve that result.

Each section of text has a particular feel, writes fiction editor Beth Hill. The “feel” of a story or scene, she explains, is primarily achieved through three elements:

  1. tone – in non-fiction, this is the writer’s attitude towards the subject matter
  2. mood – what the reader feels based on the atmosphere or vive of the material
  3. style – the way the writer uses words, including word choices and syntax

“Recognize that, even if you don’t purposely create tone and mood, they are still there in your text, Hill cautions. Once you’re ready to rewrite and edit, she advises, check each paragraph for mood and tone, so that you’re not sending mixed signals to your readers.

Beth Hill’s list of styles should give pause to any blog content writer. (Ask yourself: is this the way I’d want to come across to my – or my client’s – business blog readers??):

  • approachable
  • business-like
  • condescending
  • conversational
  • deceptive
  • forthright
  • long-winded
  • overly familiar
  • preachy
  • rambling
  • sarcastic
  • scholarly
  • uncaring

“Do you obsess about the tone of your writing as you revise?” asks Adair Lara of Writer’s Digest. “You should,” Lara says. “Tone is one of the most overlooked elements of writing.  It can create interest, or kill it.”

A writer doesn’t have a soundtrack or strobe light to build effect, Lara explains.  Instead, she has imagery, details, word choice, and word arrangement. In the first draft, Lara advises, you write what people expect you to write.  During the revision, go deeper and say what you wouldn’t be expected to say.

We all want to blog in the Goldilocks zone, but it’s going to take some testing to achieve that “Ahh, just right” result.

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To Blog, Slash Back the Range of Topics

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TEDTalks“To provide an effective talk, you must slash back the range of topics you will cover to a single, connected thread,” cautions Chris Anderson, head of TED Talks. Done right, he says, carefully crafted short talks can be the key to unlocking empathy and sharing knowledge.

Much of the wisdom Anderson shares can serve as a guide for effective blog content writing, I found. Here are a few of the gems I found in this wonderful book:
“The goal is for you to give the talk that only you can give.”
Whether it’s business-to-business blog writing or business to consumer blog writing, the blog content itself needs to be unique to you, showing clearly what differentiates your business, your professional practice, or your organization from its peers. The goal to “birth” the content that expresses your personal brand.

“You will cover only as much ground as you can dive into in sufficient depth to be compelling.”
Blog posts have a distinct advantage over the more static website copy.  Each post can have a razor-sharp focus on just one story, one idea, one aspect of your business or practice. Other important things to discuss? Save those for later posts!

“Different talks can have very different structures. One might introduce the problem the speaker is tackling. Another might be simply sharing pieces of work that have a connected theme.”
While our first instinct in writing a blog post might be to follow a linear structure, that’s not the most effective way to present ideas in every situation. Different blog posts can compare and contrast, show cause and effect, compare advantages and disadvantages of a product or a particular approach,  use testimonials, and develop story lines.

“People aren’t computers.  They’re social creatures who have developed weapons to keep their worldview protected from dangerous knowledge…To make an impact, there has to be a human connection.”
One interesting perspective on the work we do as professional bloggers is that we translate clients’ corporate message into human, people-to-people terms.  People tend to buy when they see themselves in the picture and relate emotionally to the person bringing them the message.

To blog impactfully, slash back the range of topics!

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