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Does Blog Post Length Matter to Readers? Think Duration Neglect

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Opinions have always differed on the optimal size for a blog post. Having composed blog posts (as both a Say It For You ghost writer and under my own name) numbering well into the tens of thousands, I’m still finding it difficult to fix on any rule other than “It depends!”. I think maybe Albert Einstein said it best: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

A chapter in Chip and Dan Heath’s book The Power of Moments gave me a different perspective on that old long-short question. Research has found, the authors note, that “when people assess an experience, they tend to forget or ignore its length.” This phenomenon is called ‘duration neglect”. People tend to rate an experience based on two key factors:

  • the best or worst moment (“the peak”)
  • the ending

In business blog writing, Dave Taylor explains (and as we content writers in Indianapolis know), there are no editors, layout people, or government regulators to dictate the length of any marketing blog post. As a corporate blogging trainer, I felt my own approach to the subject was vindicated when Taylor cited a common piece of editorial advice about how long a book or article should be: “Write just enough to cover the material at the appropriate level of detail, then stop.” That dovetails nicely with the advice I offer when offering business blogging assistance.

The Heaths’ concept of the “peak”-and-ending, I realized, suggests a whole new way to come at the long-short question. A business blog post should be designed to elicit an “Aha!” response, that “peak” moment when readers find the advice or the offer of a product or service which seems to be the exact right thing for them. (Of course, in blogging, that realization had better happen sooner rather than later, or searchers will click away from the page!)

A big part of successful blog content writing involves getting the ”pow opening line” right. To sustain the “pow!” effect, present a question, a problem, a startling statistic, or a gutsy challenging statement. “Pow” endings, then, tie back to the openers, bringing the post full-circle.

Readers who’ve made their way to the end of a business blog post are going to remember only two things: the best moment and the ending. If they’ve had a positive experience, how long or short the post has been will have lost importance – all due to the duration neglect effect.

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Blog Content Parhelions

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parhelions in blogs
Earlier this week, we devoted a Say It For You blog post to a term from the field of psychology (Just Noticeable Difference); today’s post explores a term from meteorology…

You might say a “sun dog”, or parhelion, as it is known in meteorology, is an atmospheric optical illusion. The phenomenon consists of bright spots, or halos, that appear at one or both sides of the sun, when ice crystals in the atmosphere refract sunlight.

While as blog content writers, we’re hardly aiming for illusion, optical or otherwise, the work we do presents a number of important parallels with the parhelion effect:

  1. If you ask the question, most business owners and professional practitioners will tell you they have more than one target audience for their products and services. What can be done with a blog is to offer different kinds of information and advice in different blog posts. Just as the parhelions showcase, rather than obliterate the sun, blogging allows coming at the same topic in different ways, still highlighting the central message.

  2. Just as parhelions showcase, rather than distract from the central figure of the sun, doing so through a visual phenomenon, engaging blog posts need visual elements to enhance and showcase the the information, advice, and “slant” of the written content.
  3. Different consumers are going to process our content in different ways. In order to make clear that this business or professional practice has chosen to carry on in a certain way, but that there were other options, the “parhelion effect” can highlight the business owner’s or professional’s “slant” through contrasting that approach with other views.

  4. The parhelion effect can be achieved in groups of blog posts, not only within one article. Readers are different, with different “rules” and needs. We blog content writers need to keep on telling the story in its infinite variations, knowing that, to a certain extent, the blog content readers who end up as clients and customers action have self-selected.
  5. Sentence length can create a parhelion effect. Writers can weave in short sentences with longer ones. Surrounding one “naked” (extremely short) sentence between two longer ones creates, to create a parhelion-like contrast.

By varying the format, the images, the opinions, the sentence length, images and sentence length, writers can create blog content parhelions!

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Blogging to Help Increase Positive Behaviors

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blogging to encourage positive reactions

 

There’s a lot we blog content writers can take away from a very unusual experiment called “The Sentimental Savings Study”. This study, reviewed in the Journal of Financial Planning , is about using psychology to help increase positive behaviors (in that specific case, personal savings). And, isn’t that precisely what marketing blogs are designed to do – motivate readers to take positive action? Can psychology help readers envision the positive outcomes that our products and services can mean for them, in terms of improved health, wealth, status, comfort, knowledge, and skills?

At best, financial education efforts had achieved marginal success in improving savings behaviors of Americans, the researchers found. Based on the theory that invoking sentimentality would exert influence on behavior, they employed “emotion activism”, creating art therapy and linking memories of past experience with money to their present attitudes. Participants were each asked to bring in a sentimental item or a photograph of such an item. In the sessions, they were guided to recall in detail how and where they had received that item, and what values they associated with it. Overall, the results of the study appeared to be a strong endorsement of the way in which sentiment and emotional associations drive decision-making.

“Blogs are bricks in decision-making architecture,” I wrote five years ago in a Say It For You blog post. How can blogs, which are short, personal, and conversational, help potential clients and customers make complex decisions? I suggested three approaches:

  1. Suggest questions readers can ask themselves while choosing among options.
  2. “Map” consequences, showing what feeling the prospect might gain through the decision – relief, trust, pride, etc.
  3. Offer easy ways to make choices.

After reading the Sentimental Savings Study, I now think a fourth tactic might be to help readers “reminisce” about how proud or satisfied they felt after having made a decision on a purchase. An anecdote might be the best way to accomplish this type of introspection.

Incorporating emotion might be just the way to increase positive behaviors, converting browsers to buyers.

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Words That Command Attention in Blog Post Titles

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Are there certain words, words that are quite common, yet which command a reader’s attention? Leafing through the July issue of TIME magazine, I found the answer to that question is a definite “yes”. Mind you, none of these attention-commanding, curiosity-stimulating words (or set of words) offers the slightest hint of the topic of the article to follow. Instead, these attention-commanding words hint of the tone of the content to come.

  • Finding….
  • How…
  • Could…
  • A new….
  • Singing….
  • Things just….
  • The best…
  • The impossible…
  • The hidden…
  • Is it O.K if….
  • Don’t…
  • Who is….

What these attention-commanders do so subtly and skillfully is to set expectations. The title words “finding”, “the hidden”, the “impossible” might engender the expectation of discovery or of gaining a new insight. “Things just”, “could”, and “the impossible” hint at an opinion piece, even a rant. “The best, “how”, and “don’t” imply that valuable advice and cautions will follow. “How” hints that information about the way a certain process works is to follow, while “Is it O.K if” suggests readers might be asked to weigh in on an ethical dilemma of some sort.

Between Shakespeare’s Juliet asking “What’s in a name?” and father-of-advertising David Ogilby’s emphasis on headlines, there’s simply no contest when it comes to blogging for business – titles matter! There are two basic reasons titles matter so much in blogs, we emphasize at Say It For You. First, key words and phrases, especially when used in blog post titles, help search engines make the match between online searchers’ needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.

But after you’ve been “found”, you’ve still gotta “get read”, and that’s where these attention-commanding words can be so useful. TIME editors obviously understood this point when it comes to magazine readers. Blog content writers should follow suit, creating titles that are relevant, but which also set the tone and arouse curiosity.

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Blog Boasting of the Right Kind

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boasting

“High levels of confidence, even if unwarranted, can make people appear more attractive to potential collaborators,” A.M. Hammond writes in Psychology Today, explaining the importance of the way confidence is expressed. One tip about confidence offered by the American Marketing Association in Business Writing Tips for Professionals is relevant here: “Phrases like ‘We’re #1’, ‘We’re the leader in our field’, or ‘We provide the best service’ aren’t going to get you anywhere.”

Ironically, a concern many new clients of Say It For You express to me is that they don’t want to come across as boastful in their blog.  At the same time, they know they need to convey the reasons prospects ought to choose them over their competition.

Let the facts do the boasting, I explain. The whole idea behind blogging is that, rather than running traditional ads for your brand of hats, or vitamins, or travel, you provide lots of information on the history of hats, on why vitamins are good for you, and about exciting places to go on safari.  Consumers interested in your subject, but who never even knew your name, will come to see you as a resource.

When trying to make a compelling argument, besides putting thought into your choice of words, you may employ paralanguage, A.M. Hammond suggests, meaning modulations of volume, pitch, or speed in your speaking, which have been shown to add persuasiveness to an argument without eroding sincerity.

How can blog content writers add persuasiveness when they are communicating without sound??? Equivalents to “paralanguage” in written pieces include bolding, italics, and repetition of key phrases. Images also go a long way to help reinforce core concepts in each blog post.

Bullet points are mini-headlines, explains copyblogger.com, and they help focus attention in the same way a speaker’s change in pitch and speed might. Italics in a written piece serve to draw attention to a word or an entire line, similar to a speaker’s slowing down and enunciating each word to stress a particular idea. “Your imagery should act as a further explainer of your main point,”advises Neil Patel.

With the right kind of “boasting”, business owners and practitioners can project the kind of confidence that inspires trust.

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