A university professor asked his students to learn something about fish and write about their findings. Although somewhat sceptical about the subject, the students left the hall and spent the weekend writing. On Monday they handed in their work and the professor began to grade it in front of their eyes. To their horror, he looked at each piece no longer than 5 seconds and threw them in the bin, one after the other. After all pieces of paper were scrapped he screamed:
“If you want to learn something about fish, then sit yourself down in front of fish, observe the fish, and write what you see. The answer cannot be found in the library, on the internet or in the papers. It lies with you”
If your aim is to get to the front page of Digg then READ what’s on there and UNDERSTAND for yourself how this network work. Observe what type of content makes it and what doesn’t. Are these articles long or short? Funny or serious? Controversial or factual? Dedicate a whole weekend to observation.
At the end of the day, you are trying to sell something to these people (you are asking them to read your blog) and you need to therefore cater to THEIR needs. In short: understand your audience and know why they should be reading your stuff.
Photo credit: lute1**
This short article was provided as a guest post and was written by Matthew Glen. You can view his humor-blog, “what you always wanted to say, but didn’t” at www.justmeglenny.com where you will find humorous takes on everyday things and breaking news.