You have a great topic. Your starting point is covered, but now what? What does it take to turn a curated idea in an excellent blog post or web article?
The step you need to take from curating interesting ideas to transforming those in high quality website content is a major one.
Good blog posts start with data – reliable, well-researched, intriguing data. These give online content substance and credibility. Starting with content curation is the best way to get inspired, to see what the audience is interested in and which topics seem to generate the highest level of response.
8 Ways to Transform Data Into Awesome Blogs or Content
Once you’ve gathered the data, it’s time to start writing. Here’s how to transform facts in engaging blog posts or articles.
- Data Gold Hidden in Blog Comments. Pay close attention to the audience comments, particularly for hot topics. Very often, your readers will provide some interesting input that’s worth investigating.
For a start, you’ll learn about the topics that generate the most interest. It’s easy to come up with new content for such hot topics. What’s even more important, every once in a while, a reader will leave a comment that can easily be turned in a follow-up piece or a brand new blog post.
Always do your research and make sure that the information contained in the blog comment is credible enough. Think about sources of information. If necessary, you may even want to interview and industry rep to gain insight into the topic.
- Use Creativity to Make Metrics Interesting. Through content curation, you may come across interesting data and ideas. The big problem, however, focuses on how to turn this sterile information in an engaging blog post.
To make your postings engaging, you have to be genuinely interested in the topic. The audience senses authenticity or the lack of such. Look for data that makes you excited and gets those creative juices going.
If you’re interested in the particular niche, you’ll find it easy to turn data in a blog post. Real interest towards the topic will create the emotional impact that will make your audience respond. This is one of the most important rules of successful idea curation – look for your passion rather than just another set of data to write about.
- Multimedia will Liven Up the Story
To make a piece of content interactive, you should consider the addition of visuals. An infographic or an interactive map accompanying the piece you just wrote will boost audience engagement immediately.
Illustrating the topic is also great for doing brainstorming and coming up with ways to structure the content. As a writer, you will find it easier to structure the data and come up with an outline for the story while creating an infographic. When the two pieces of content are linked to each other, you’re giving the audience a complete product. Needless to say, multimedia will rule the world of web content in 2015, which is yet another reason to start making use of it right now.
- Social Media Discussions can Easily Become Articles. Social media simplify content curation by giving you access to lively discussions. You can explore the different sides of a particular story and write a piece that covers the issue from all angles.
LinkedIn groups are particularly suitable for professional topic curation. LinkedIn groups enable individuals interested in a particular professional theme to share ideas and participate in lively discussions. Such discussions can give you extensive amounts of information, enabling the creation of more than one blog topic about the particular idea.
These discussions are also great because they enable you to reach out and ask additional questions. If a group member appears to be the authority on a particular topic, you can schedule an interview and base your content writing efforts on that individual’s experience and understanding of a topic.
- Contextualize Boring Data. The problem with most data, no matter how relevant, is that it’s boring.
To turn data into something engaging, you need to provide context. Contextualizing information tells the audience just how the particular numbers and findings are relevant and representative of their life.
The best writers know how to present information in the right context, how to link this data to the needs and preferences of the audience. If you convince people that the particular topic has something to do with their lives/careers, you will easily gain their undivided attention.
- Use Data You Already have Access to. Your business certainly has a lot of data about your consumers, their preferences and behavior. This kind of data can easily be turned into content. This is the niche you specialize in and the one that you deal with on a daily basis. Inside data is the one that will often result in the most relevant and intriguing website posts.
Here’s a great example of a company using insider data to write an interesting post. Jawbone is the manufacturer of fitness trackers. The company has written a piece about the amount of sleep people get in different cities, based on data collected from Jawbone equipment.
This piece is relevant, intriguing and based on authentic data that the company collected through its sales. Needless to say, such pieces score very high on the authenticity and originality scale.
- When in Doubt, Add a Chart. Sometimes, it will be difficult to turn data in an entire blog post. In such instances, you may want to use the data as an option for illustrating a bigger issue.
Choose a general topic that is connected to the curated idea you’ve come across. The data you discovered can be presented in the form of a chart or a graph. The approach will boost interactivity, plus it will present facts and figures in a concise and readily digestible form.
- Crowdsourced Data Post. Crowdsourced posts are an excellent source of information and anyone who’s ever done research has come across at least one of those. Here’s an excellent example of a crowdsourced post.
The term refers to getting little pieces of information on the same topic from different authoritative sources. Naturally, you have to provide a link or a reference to the original piece. Such little snippets of information that are curated and brought together give the readers extensive information about the topic without additional creative thrills.
Crowdsources posts are an excellent possibility for diversifying your content and taking a break from the creative approach every now and then. Just make sure that you’ve chosen the best sources of information and that you’re giving the audience a bit of added value.
Easy, Not So Easy: Use This As A Guide
Turning data into content may seem easy but putting together a lengthy, balanced and engaging blog post will require hard work and effort. The number one rule is to look for data that you’re interested in. Your passion for the topic will give you the creative “fuel” needed to make a statement and get that audience engaged.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Transforming Facts Into Engaging Content – 8 Secrets of Content Creation
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