Inserting the "Hook"
Replies
Tara Smiley
Brent - It would help (maybe) (especially for someone like me) to see an example if what not to do. I'll volunteer one of my own to be "red-penned" and given a tutorial of how to do it better. Maybe show a before and after.
14 years ago
Brent Williams
Thanks Mike - I really appreciate that!
Tara - Instead of marking up a post, let me instead take it from a different angle. As you finish your first paragraph, think a moment from your readers' point of view and ask these questions to yourself:
Why am I reading this?
What am I going to learn from this blog?
Why should I keep reading?
It's somewhat of a negative point of view, but in my opinion, you have to assume that the reader has a million different things they could be doing. So you have to give them reasons to keep with your blog. I think the second one is by far the most important. Not only does it give them a reason to keep reading, but it also helps make more sense out of the post.
The blogs that I see that have the most difficult hooks to establish are the story blogs. For example, this is what happened to me, this is how I grew up, this is what I saw today, etc. But the real lesson as it pertains to the multifamily industry is hidden at the end. By then, many readers have... Show more 14 years ago
Tara - Instead of marking up a post, let me instead take it from a different angle. As you finish your first paragraph, think a moment from your readers' point of view and ask these questions to yourself:
Why am I reading this?
What am I going to learn from this blog?
Why should I keep reading?
It's somewhat of a negative point of view, but in my opinion, you have to assume that the reader has a million different things they could be doing. So you have to give them reasons to keep with your blog. I think the second one is by far the most important. Not only does it give them a reason to keep reading, but it also helps make more sense out of the post.
The blogs that I see that have the most difficult hooks to establish are the story blogs. For example, this is what happened to me, this is how I grew up, this is what I saw today, etc. But the real lesson as it pertains to the multifamily industry is hidden at the end. By then, many readers have... Show more 14 years ago
Hopefully everybody knows about the "hook" in writing. In general, we want to get the readers attention and make sure they keep on reading! There have been some absolutely outstanding blogs that tend to meander to a climax instead of really hooking the reader right from the start. This means that the readers who actually made it through got a great blog, but you've lost a ton of readers along the way!
This is especially important with the blogs when it comes to the newsletter. We have so little real estate to work with, that the hook becomes key to "clickability". But the reason I'm writing today is that I have to say that Dike ended up giving me a great hook for the newsletter and I wanted to share. This is what I was able to pull for the newsletter:
Here are three of the most common "Dirty Tricks" Commercial Property Sellers can try to pull on you during the purchase process. And - here's the fun part - I will also tell you exactly how you can catch them in the act and turn the tables to your advantage.
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Dirty Trick #1 "Stack It with Felons"
What a great hook, right? Just wanted to share that to illustrate the importance of the first paragraph to the entire blog post.
(P.S. We had nearly 100 blogs this past month! WOW!)