Jackie Evancho is after Susan Boyle’s mantle. The 10-year-old singer has appeared in America’s Got Talent and has wowed the audience with her operatic aria. It is a reminder of the fact that when you produce an outstanding solo performance, you get an ovation and many, many admirers. So, how outstanding is your blog? How much of an aria is it singing? Or is it just one of the chorus singers, the backing band, the also-rans of the blogging world?
Your blog needs to stand out – just like little Jackie. Do your readers get goose-bumps, like the judges of America’s Got Talent? Do your readers emotionally connect with you so much they feel close to tears of joy? The performance of any operatic aria can do that, if done well. But most blogs are here today, gone tomorrow things. If you want huge blogging success, you need to do more than just produce the ordinary.
And the word “aria” can actually help you achieve this. For any successful blog you need to do four things:
- Appeal
- Retain
- Involve
- Advocate
Your blog must appeal to people – it needs to attract them, captivate them and make them want to read it. Just providing the same as anyone else will not do that. You MUST be different.
Once you have appealed to readers, you need to retain them, make them want more, get them shouting “bravo”. Make your blog so engaging that your readers cannot wait for the next instalment.
Then, you need to involve them. You need to establish that mental connection between you and your readers which makes them feel they know you, that they are really connected with you, thereby enticing them to comment, take action (including buying things) and to click on all the links you want them to.
After they have become involved, people will want to recommend your work to others, they will want to be an advocate for you. And that’s where you start the process all over again with a new reader.
The ARIA approach to blogging makes you consider everything you do as you produce your blogs. Will a post you write appeal? Will it help retain people? Can it lead to involvement? Will readers recommend it and advocate your work? Ask yourself these questions for each post you write and you will find your blog increasingly successful.
And if the only involvement you have with this blog post is to recommend that your friends and colleagues watch the video, then I’ve done my bit as an advocate for Jackie Evancho, the new opera star in the making. But as you do it, ask yourself this – are you a blogging star in the making?
