When I was a young child I was diagnosed with ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder.  The doctors and specialists wanted to put me on Ritalin, but my mother stood firm, no child of hers would be taking drugs.  She would manage my disorder and make me a overcome the problem.  She allowed me to be enrolled in a special class of others with the same problem and by the end of the school year I think we had clearly trained our second grade teacher in the ways of ADD.  She could not hold her attention to her classroom duties long enough between recess sessions.  I guess I should someday apologize to that poor woman.  My point is not to discuss the issues of ADD or to discuss how to overcome the disorder.  I know after 30+ years I still….oh look something shiny…where was I?  Oh yes, keeping your reader’s attention.

When I recently attended the Blog Business Summit, John Furrier of Podtech mentioned a quip about the length of podcasts:

"You should do ‘Stair Master podcasts’ as a rule"

What I hope he meant rather than exercise while listening to podcasts, is to keep it short and to the point.  You only have so much time to get your message across then your audience begins to drift and they begin to want to move on to the next shiny thing.  The same goes for posting an article or item on your blogs.  If I want to read War and Peace, I will make sure to run to the nearest bookstore, but then again the last time I did that I had to stop and look at the swimsuit calendars…see what happens?  When you are blogging and posting items stay within these simple rules:

Keep it simple: Nobody likes to have to work, that’s why they don’t call it play.

Keep it short:  If you go on too long, you may lose that reader and a lost reader might be a reader never to return.

Make it informative:  People don’t want to have wasted their time reading something only to get to the end to find out you have not allowed them to learn something or to get informed.

Make it fun:  We all receive those funny emails we forward. Perhaps your post will be forwarded if you make your reader smile.

Make it controversial:  I don’t often go this route because I hate to get into flame wars with people because it takes to much time.  When people get into a heated discussion their attention is captured.

Send them away with your blog in mind:  Link them to another post they might enjoy as they feed their attention, or merely create something shiny or distracting that…

Did you guys know that Reese Witherspoon and Britney Spears are about to be on the singles list?

Tags: ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, Blog Business Summit, BBS06, John Furrier, Podtech, Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears

Powered by Qumana