3 Ways to Get More Personal With Your Readers
Written by Derek Pankaew
  photo credit: GabrielaP93 |
Blogging success doesn’t just depend on providing great content.
More often than not, people follow blogs because they like the writer, like the writer’s values and can relate with them – In addition to learning from the content itself.
So how can you build more of a personal connection with your readers? How can you let your personality shine through more?
How can you build that all important sense of writer-reader bond?
Method #1: Ramble
Instead of writing in a careful, deliberate or even professional fashion, try just rambling.
Pick a topic and let loose. Fire off your thoughts on the subject and don’t hold back.
Go on tangents as you think of them. Try to just let your writing flow rather than carefully controlling what you write.
This style of writing will sound a lot more like how you sound in person talking to a friend than when you’re writing something for an internet audience.
Your personality will come across a lot more. While it’s possible to go too far, in the beginning err on the side of sharing too much rather than too little. You can always scale back later.
Write in freeflow, then set it aside. If, a day or two after writing it, you feel that you went too far off course, then come back and edit it. More likely than not however, you’ll probably find that your writing actually sounded more personable while still maintaining professionalism.
Method #2: Tell a Story
Stories can be used to both teach and connect. There’s something inherently very attractive about stories.
Whenever you begin to tell a story, people instinctively go into a slightly different state of mind. People are trained to listen to stories almost like how they watch a movie: In a receptive, ready to be entertained mode.
A story should follow the formula of Setup > Tension / Problem > Resolution. Start by explaining the scene, setting up the scenario or hinting at a lesson. Then there should be some sort of dynamic where there’s a challenge presented. Finally the challenge is overcome (or failed to overcome, in some cases.)
End the story by sharing the moral or the lesson. Integrating lessons into stories are not only more entertaining and more personable, but also helps land the moral of that story more solidly.
Method #3: Explain How You Arrived at a Controversial Stance
One of the most compelling ways you can put your personality across is to share your beliefs and why you believe them.
Every belief that we hold has its formative roots in a powerful life experience or a powerful idea that germinated inside our heads.
In either of these cases, the stories of how these beliefs were formed are usually very interesting and very entertaining to other people.
You don’t need to convince other people of your beliefs and you most certainly don’t want to make someone wrong for believing what they believe. However, sharing the reasons why you believe something in and of itself can be a great way to connect with your audience.
The Mindset of Getting Personal
More than any specific technique or method, getting personal with your readers is a mindset.
Instead of trying to write objectively, or instead of trying to write according to an “article formula,” the key is to try and get your personality to come across.
That means making the same witty remarks that you might in person. Or making little side comments about a topic. Or it might mean telling a quick 20 second story in the middle of an otherwise serious article.
Writing that is infused with personality has a different quality, a different texture, a different feel to it. People read it and instinctively get that it’s written by a real human being.
Pick one of these techniques and try it out in your next article or blog post. It’s possible to go too far on the personal end of the spectrum, but more often than not most people err too far on the impersonal end.
- Derek
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