So, you want to create quality content. However, if you’re like 90% of steemit users, you probably don’t have a clue. That’s why you start every post with “Hello steemians . . .”
Here’s a free tip, the first few words that you write on your posts become the ‘blurb’. It’s what appears in the feed. That’s why it must be interesting enough to entice readers to click and read more. Please don’t waste it with “Hello steemians”.
Anyways, today’s lesson is about coming up with content ideas. Now that steem is climbing up consistently the past few days, it’s the best time to write high quality posts that your readers can’t get enough of.
We’ll talk about what makes for interesting posts.
Clue: your mom’s birthday is perhaps very interesting to you but NOT to me. Unless, of course, your mom is Angelina Jolie. Which she isn’t.
If you’re just having fun and trying to earn a few cents here and there, then please continue with posting the way you’re used to. Stop right here. This post is not for you.
But if you want to up you game and make your posts actually worth reading, read on.
We’re going to borrow ideas from journalism. We'll find out what makes news newsworthy. Understanding this alone will improve your posts a hundred-fold guaranteed.
Ready to improve your writing? Let’s go.
FRESHNESS
The news is called ‘news’ because it’s fresh. We want to learn about things as they unfold. That’s why people love to watch live. News quickly becomes stale and must be served super fresh. Otherwise it’ll be called history.
To apply this on your next post, try to tie it up with a significant event that happened recently. Did you notice how I sneaked in the state of Steem price? Timeliness baby.
This is especially important in the steemit platform too as you will only earn rewards on your posts for seven days.
PROXIMITY
You are interested in things that are happening around you more than you are interested in things happening on the other side of the world. This is why events that you attended are more important to you than similar events that you’re not in.
If your target audience are steemians in the #Philippines, make sure you use #Philippines as a tag in your posts. You’ll be attracting the right audience by simply adding that tag.
SIGNIFICANCE
Getting back to the birthday example, I don’t care if your mom’s birthday is happening near me. It’s not significant. It doesn’t affect me. How many people are going to be affected by the event that you’re reporting?
Steem doubling in price in a month is going to be significant to holders of the currency.
Your posts must answer the question: “What’s in it for me?” Why should I bother reading it? You’re probably reading this because you’re trying to come up with new ideas for next steemit post. My topic is significant to you.
Think of ways your post could help your readers.
NOVELTY
Ever seen a real, live, five-headed snake? I haven’t. But if I found out that there’s one that really exists, I would surely want to know more about it.
You can use novelty in your own posts. What’s ordinary for you may be rare or novel for other people living in a different country.
I once wrote a post that received around a hundred thousand views within 24 hours. I posted about fruits commonly found here in the Philippines. The title of my post was “The 20 Most Exotic Fruits in the World”.
Novelty activates your curiosity itch. And what’s common for you may be rare for other people.
CONFLICT
Conflict is interesting. We all want to know who wins in the end. We root for the underdog.
Conflict isn’t always about people against other people. It can also be:
• Man versus God.
• Man versus nature.
• Man versus himself.
It can be a personal story about how you triumphed over adversity. Maybe you can write about how a community got back to its feet after being hit by a natural disaster.
Movies, short stories, novels are all interesting because of conflict.
FAMOUS PEOPLE
This is why when the Kardashians fart, it makes the news. I’ve seen posts here about people meeting some whale and it’s interesting for their readers. Maybe their readers are following those famous steemians.
You can even use famous names as click-bait in your headline.
HUMAN INTEREST
This one kinda goes against the grain. It seems like the opposite of newsworthy. But amazingly enough, people are interested in individual accounts. It’s called slice of life. It’s popular because we are all nosy and we want to know what other people really are doing/thinking when no one’s watching.
Any one of these is not enough to make your post interesting enough. Your post must contain at least two or three. The more the better.
TOO LAZY?
Okay. If you really read what I wrote above, you should have a fairly good idea of what makes an interesting post. You should be swimming with ideas right now. There must so many of them, you don’t know what to do with them.
Now, if you still can’t come up with any ideas at all, here’s a tool that might help.
https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker
You simply type in a word or phrase and it comes up with post titles for you. You’ll have to fix them a little but they often come up with interesting results.
WHAT COMES NEXT?
The next step after finding an appropriately interesting topic is to write the post.
I write the headline first. It guides me as to how to craft the meat of the article. It establishes your position and how to frame your message. More importantly, done right, headlines can attract the attention of potential readers.
I wrote a guide on how to write headlines but nobody noticed because I wasn’t using upvote bots back then. But if you’re interested, here’s the link:
This is so helpful article for most of us. I for one sometimes runs out of ideas on what to write and share with my fellow steemians. Headlines is very important in the article coz most of us reads ony the headline and if it is interesting enough then they will go to the detail on what subject you convey to them.
You have received a @GrumpyCat flag because you or someone else send money to buy votes on your post from an irresponsible non-GrumpyCompliant service.
Some bots like @sneaky-ninja (by @michaeldavid) are acting irresponsibly by selling votes on posts very close to final payout. These votes are sneaky, not promotion and are most of the time placed on low value content.
Sending money to these bots is also financially supporting for-profit only posters (spammers).
To know what voting bot to use, refer to https://steembottracker.com/ and use those that have 3.5 day or less in the "Max Age" column.
Important warning, since @sneaky-ninja has made no effort to improve in more than 4 months, it's vote will still be countered even should they improve his Max Age setting.
Learn more, learn even more...
Please leave me out of your stupid, childish fight.
Good ideas :)
Quality is the most important element in Steemit!
How did the little robot in the picture have the power to plug himself in before he plugged himself in?
And the most relevant comment award goes to . . . LOL.
I just watch anime and then after few hours, idea kicks in. That's what works for me I guess.
You got a 100.00% upvote from @t50 courtesy of @taskmanager!
95% of all liquid income goes to the people who delegate to the bot.
5% goes to @madstacks for his curation efforts with #upfundme.
To use this service send a minimum of 0.005 SBD or STEEM to @t50 with the post you want upvoted as the memo.
As a published author, and one who is still relatively new on Steemit, I can say that your points here are all excellent. I started my career writing articles for magazines (back in the day when we MAILED our manuscripts -- like with an envelope and stamps). All of these basics are ones I cut my writing-teeth on! Other Steemians would do well to study this post closely! Thanks @digitaldreamer.
I'm following you now Norma Jean
Thanks for the tips. It is very interesting and helpful . I am going to try to alter my style although I have fun posting as I do.
That was very informative. I especially like the part about other people. Not sure what it all means. If I use the name @grumpycat in my post will it gain me followers?
Using that handle in your title will surely attract attention. Just make sure the content is relevant. If readers like your post, they will follow you.
Thank you
Very informative looking Forward for more!
Thank you
Those are great ideas. using a tag for localization is brilliant!
Thank you!
I nevert thought about not starting my post with 'hello steemians' - I am one of the 90% of people who start my posts this way. WIll be interesting to see how changing my starting affects how many people read my content - I think your right you need to grab peoples attention right at the start!
I think I fail by not having engaging enough titles and people dont have the reason to open up and start reading
I love the attitude. Admitting there's something that needs to be fixed is the first step to fixing it.
Yeah well its better than doing nothing.
As the old saying goes 'if you always do what youve always done youll always get what youve always got'
Hello steemians lol just kidding good to see some help to improvise but when its come to the creative and critical thinking involve some tense to avoid such process... some just love a straight forward reading articles...Thanks I like the contents
AnswerThePublic.com is one of my fave tools for this.
Cool website.
https://answerthepublic.com/reports/bea7730f-aede-49f4-b92e-49ffbf0933ae
I think your better than a so so writer.
NICE! This is it! Many of the great themes of literature that crosses all cultures! Keep up the great posts!
My problem is not coming up with content...my problem is getting people to upvote haha. Why no upvotes??
Upvotes are oftentimes the result of good content. :)
Not that I've seen from my experience :/ ... I may get 5-10-20 upvotes on some posts... but they don't add up to anything. I still usually still have $0.00 on the post (or a few cents sometimes). But I see other people's posts where they also may have like 5 upvotes but their posts get like $50+... Why is that?? Is that because of their steem status level? Or just they got lucky with some good upvotes from higher status steem users?
It's like my posts don't get seen much either. Maybe that's because I only have like 240 followers?
I'm also not sure which posts I should be upvoting on myself and others. Because a person only has so much upvote power right?
I'm talking some good posts I put hours into creating and even reposting on other people's posts where appropriate. They just don't seem to get seen...or ignored
Another example would be: I see these photo contests. I'm a photographer. I post photos on these things and I see other people getting their photos upvoted quite a bit. And my photos are on par or better in some cases, and they just get ignored for some reason. Idk if something I'm not doing right or mistagging or what
Anyway just need to keep it up I guess...
Through the clouds come the SunShine
Thanks for the upvote btw...I like this post as well. Followed
Maybe you should speak in your native language. Do not try to speak in French, Spanish, German, Dutch, english. Speak only in your native language. I will say it again. Speak in your native language. You will gain more followers. Please stop trying to attract followers that do not understand you. I'm not being harsh. I'm just trying to help you succeed. You can either or choose not to. You have two paths. One is to success. That one was the honest approach. The other is to complete failure. That one is led by deception
Hmm I'm not sure I follow... Are you basically saying "be myself"? That's pretty much what I do/am. Check my posts, if you have any constructive criticisms...I'm open!
I wasn't referring to you. I'm new to steemit. I must have posted in the wrong place. I was referring to the author. He edited it after that though. The entire comment has become irrelevant
Thanks for the tips. It is very interesting and helpful. It's really nice! This is it! Many of the great themes of literature that crosses all cultures! Keep up the great posts!
Hi @digitaldreamer, I follow you and upvote too. I notice you from my previous post. I can see that you are doing very well with vote buying from Minnowbooster. I was checking minnowbooster but was unable to get a good vote buying opportunity. The opportunity is better if one is whitelisted. Please could you help me get whitelisted. Here's a sample of my latest post. https://steemit.com/steemit/@simply-me/two-important-parameters-to-observe-before-sending-your-bid-the-current-roi-and-the-max-suggested-bid.
And I like your above post. I read it all. Thanks
Thanks for the follow and the upvote. I checked your blog. You might need to come up with more meaty posts. You know I can send you an invite but you'll need 5 more votes from others and an approval from an admin. They look at not just one post but at your overall posting habits. Write a few more longer posts and then I'll send you an invite. That is to improve your chances of getting accepted. Cheers!
Thanks for replying. Will follow your advice & will be in touch.. Thanks
People who get a high score of course those who have good post. Thank you very much, I hope the information you provide is useful.
thanks for your useful tips :-)
Lots of good tips and tricks here. Thanks!
Yes dude I try my best
Great post for newbies, I will take advantadge of it. Thanks for your ideas.
thank you! this'll help me and the others alot!
Gracias, <Gracias de verda por estas publicaciones me sirven mucho para renovar mis publicaciones.
interesting but i have nothing to write about. writing is not for everyone.
this post is beautiful though i love everything. lol the example you used the picture. PERFECT.
You take notice, that information about birthday is not intresting for me it is true. You are reading in my thoughts, seriously yoor post have good tips for new users, thanks.
This is one of the best post ever. Not only was it on point it also help a lot of steemains like me to find our creativity and was also funny and pictures was on point also. The link will help me a lot for sure and now i can move on to creating good and resent content. and i'm a new follower looking for many more good post like this in the future.
nice post.. by the way talking about how to creat good news, i have and idea showing in by using arithmatic.. It is called it Arithmatic News.. in my last post..
Thanks for sharing this! I'm still a newbie and this helps a lot.
thanks for the guide!
your recommend is so helpful for me
You got a 37.31% upvote from @luckyvotes courtesy of @digitaldreamer!
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You got a 27.91% upvote from @minnowvotes courtesy of @digitaldreamer!
You have been defended with a 82.64% upvote!
I was summoned by @digitaldreamer.
Great post! You've earned a 52.63% upvote from @dolphinbot
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You got a 30.30% upvote from @nado.bot courtesy of @digitaldreamer!
Send at least 0.1 SBD to participate in bid and get upvote of 0%-100% with full voting power.
This post has received a 28.99% upvote from @aksdwi thanks to: @digitaldreamer.
I was summoned by @digitaldreamer. I have done their bidding and now I will vanish...
A portion of the proceeds from your bid was used in support of youarehope and tarc.
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That's pretty much how content farms work.
I have no idea what you were talking about. Can you please speak English? I have a blog post about this. Please read it