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The Freakonomics Guide to Making Boring Content Sexy

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It’s easy to write about certain topics, like celebrities, or technology, or even social media. Everybody wants a piece of it. But what if your passion is botany, supply chain logistics, or cognitive psychology? How do you get noticed with a compelling story when your subject is … well … boring? In the summer of 2006, an economics book was on the New York Time Bestseller list. The title was provocative and promised to be anything but a boring read. Even my hero Malcolm Gladwell said, “Prepare to be dazzled.” Since I really can’t stand economics (hated it ever since college), I skeptically handed over my $25 and took Freakonomics home. From the very first page, I was treated to a wild ride through the most bizarre stories I’d ever encountered. I learned about cheating schoolteachers and self-sacrificing sumo wrestlers. Why drug dealers still live with their moms and how the KKK is like a real estate agent. Every story taught a boring economic principle in a way that made me want more. I realized that Freakonomics was an instruction manual for transforming boring blog posts into sexy must-read masterpieces. Check it out: People love “dot connectors” Our world is getting more complicated by the second. Every day your readers are trying to get a handle on what happened yesterday, what’s happening now, and what will happen tomorrow. If you connect the dots for them, you can get popular in a hurry. Freakonomics is built around connecting dots in an interesting way. For example, it’s long been an economic principle that almost every choice we make is connected to incentives. Pretty boring stuff — until author Steven Levitt used a story about daycare centers to show how some incentives backfire. Since parents were showing up late frequently, the daycare center started a policy of a $3 fine to incentivize parents to show up on time. Unfortunately, the fine wound up incentivizing parents to pay $3 for an hour of babysitting and not feel guilty for showing up late! Giving your reader’s these “aha” moments is a great way to keep them reading a so-called boring topic and have them asking for more. Headlines still matter Even with all of our shiny social media tools, good ol’ standby skills like writing a great headline still matter. You can be a masterful storyteller and write killer posts, but you still lose if no one reads them. Titles are the closest thing us writers have to a “silver bullet.” Don’t waste ‘em. Do you think that Freakonomics would have been a New York Times Bestseller with the title Aberrational Behavior and the Causal Effect of Incentives ? The quickest way to give your boring blog a facelift is to put some eye-hijacking power into your headlines. In fact, write your headline first , before you even start the rest of the post. It’s that important. Numbers are a blogger’s best friend One common complaint of blogs is that they can’t be taken seriously. We are accused of playing fast and loose with the facts and being weak on proof. It’s easy to avoid hard numbers and focus on writing the soft stuff, but Freakonomics shows that this is a mistake. Many bloggers are afraid that statistics, equations, and hard facts will scare away our readers, but that’s not giving our readers enough credit. The problem isn’t the numbers — it’s that we stick numbers out there without a story. Freakonomics uses numbers to reveal a hidden story. Levitt looked up the numbers on standardized tests for Chicago students. On the face of it, this was pretty boring data. This district got such-and-such a score, this district got such-and-such a score. Yawn. Until those numbers revealed that teachers were cheating. In some districts, teachers received salary boosts when their students performed better on standardized tests — motivating them to fill in a few additional correct answers for their students. The story makes the numbers interesting. The numbers make the story credible. Give it a try. Everyone loves a mystery Why would a successful sumo wrestler throw a match? The obvious answer would be that he’s getting paid to do so, but Levitt quickly discovered there was a much more mysterious motivation that drove who won and who lost in Japan’s sumo contests. The answer is buried in psychology, probability, and incentives, but the only thing that I care about is that there’s a mystery. Any mystery begs for gumshoe detective work. We can’t leave well enough alone and we want to know why — especially if someone else is going to do the legwork of figuring out the answer for us. That’s why the CSI series has spun off more offspring than a jackrabbit. You can use this quirk of human nature to make your topic enticing. Look closely at your topic and uncover some old-fashioned mysteries. Now write a post that presents the mystery and leads your reader through the investigation to its incredibly satisfying conclusion. Provide a better way to solve common problems Freakonomics uses a powerful set of tools to explain the way the world works. By the end of the book, you can’t help but think that every problem imaginable can be solved with the right incentive, data analysis, or storytelling. When you’re finished you feel that there is a better way to tackle your problems. This is what “added value” means. Simply restating a problem is boring. Offering new tools and perspectives to solve problems helps your reader get closer to their goals — and that makes you someone whose content they’ll want to read every time you come out with something new. Freakonomics: The Movie is coming out soon, and I’ll be first in line — because reading the book was so valuable to me I can’t wait to see what else the authors have to offer. To get devoted fans who’ll anticipate your every output with the same enthusiasm, give them some solutions. Time to get freaky Have you ever used any of these techniques to make your content sexier? Can you see how to apply some of them to your own blog? And if you read Freakonomics yourself, tell us in the comments about any other blog-enhancing tips you picked up! Stanford obsesses about how to get passionate people’s blogs noticed and promoted at Pushing Social , except when he’s fishing with his boys. Follow him to get the latest about his new ebook “Get Noticed.”

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The Assassination

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Feature Product Review:In the affiliate marketing industry, you can find literally hundreds of membership sites that are created to provide assistance and relevant content to help webmasters accomplish their goals. The Assassination is a unique membership program created by Greg Jacobs to provide quality material to newbies and upcoming online marketers, so that they can

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The Assassination

The Cure for Analysis Paralysis

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You try to kick someone under the table and your leg stays as inert as the table’s leg. Your toes are unwiggleable. Your eyebrow won’t arch wryly in disdain. You want to make something happen, but that desire isn’t translating into movement. Your muscles don’t obey the signals from your brain. That’s paralysis. Analysis is pretty much the same thing. You analyze your business all the time. You decide that it would be smart to start an email campaign, or change the direction for your blog posts. You decide whether to run a promotion for your consulting business or launch an information product. You’re thinking about something happening. But you’re not making it happen. When analysis paralysis is beneficial It turns out that sometimes it’s good to be paralyzed. Every night, when you go to sleep and drop deep into that REM state that lets you wake up all refreshed in the morning, you are, medically speaking, paralyzed. This is a good thing. When you get tired, your ability to act is impaired. You’re more likely to get lost, to drive poorly, to call the ex you swore you’d never speak to again. Get paralyzed by sleep for a couple of hours, and suddenly everything improves. When your spouse throws the car keys at you a little too hard because they haven’t forgiven you for calling your ex last night, you catch them effortlessly with catlike reflexes. Analysis can be like this. Sometimes we have too much going on in our businesses. It can help to take a moment to stop everything and hold completely still, moving nothing but our brains, just thinking about the problem. We don’t have to take action yet. We don’t have to move a muscle. We just have to think about what we’ll do when we’re ready to move. Analysis can be a refreshing pause for our brains. It can also be a serious problem. When analysis paralysis Is detrimental The kind of paralysis you experience in REM state every night is good for you. You probably didn’t even know you were paralyzed. (If you weren’t freaking out about it before, don’t start now. Whatever you do, don’t think about the xkcd comic that points out that dreaming means going comatose, hallucinating vividly, and then suffering amnesia. Adding paralysis to that list doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?) It’s okay for your legs (and the rest of you) to be paralyzed for a couple hours a night. If it goes on for more than a day, though, you’re going to start to be pretty concerned about some of the logistics. Analysis can be like this, too. When you’ve taken the time to hold still and analyze your business for a couple of hours — even a full working day — before you take action, that’s perfectly healthy. It has probably improved your ability to move forward confidently and with good judgment. If you find yourself analyzing for weeks or months at a time without moving, it’s time to be concerned. How to cure analysis paralysis To cure real paralysis, you generally need the sort of miracle doctor featured prominently in many a popular medical drama, but not so prominently in real-life hospitals. To cure analysis paralysis, though, you just need to check out the recent Third Tribe seminar featuring Sonia Simone and Chris Garrett , where they talk about how to take action on that product launch you’ve been meaning to do, thinking about, analyzing, and never doing. You’ll learn: The product development technique that kills paralysis, moves you to a fast launch, and creates great value for your customers Why “thinking big” can stop you dead in your tracks, and how to get moving again How to use your own “weaknesses” as strengths that move you forward What to do if you don’t have thick skin (and how it can work to your benefit) How to create products that move your customers farther and faster toward their goals. While you’re listening, you’ll find yourself analyzing how to use these techniques in your business. You may also find yourself lulled into a soporific state of bliss, because Sonia’s voice is extremely soothing. And that’s okay. To make sure you don’t get stuck there, though, there’s a Next Action worksheet to help you move forward. Use it. Make your business stronger through movement. Otherwise, I’d have to explain what “atrophy” means. And no one wants that. About the Author: Taylor Lindstrom is a freelance copywriter and the new Assistant Editor for Copyblogger . This is her first Copyblogger post. P.S. To snag Chris and Sonia’s interview, and instant access to 15 more cutting-edge seminars that will move your business forward (with new seminars added every month), join the Third Tribe today .

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The 7 Essential Steps to Creating Your Content Masterpiece

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In the UK, we have a derogatory term for newspapers: chip wrappers. No matter how good, today’s front page wraps tomorrow’s fish and chips. Bloggers can relate. You slave for hours to write a stellar article that bursts into the limelight for only a few days, or even hours, before it’s forgotten. Readers who find you this week won’t know what you wrote last week, much less last year. It’s tough to feel like even your best work is destined to become nothing but a chip wrapper. You may find yourself longing for the good old days when artists had plenty of time to produce their masterpieces, and audiences took their time to appreciate them. Write a good symphony, novel, or sonnet sequence and you could dine out on it for years to come. If only the modern world weren’t in such a perpetual hurry, chasing after the next quick fix. Tell that to Johann Sebastian Bach. To us, Bach is one of the giants of classical music, having produced a body of stellar work that his fans never tire of listening to. His music has been performed and recorded countless times. So it’s easy to imagine him taking his time to compose, treating his art with the leisurely respect it deserved. And when he was done, he must have had plenty of opportunities to bask in the admiration of his fans, as they implored “Play it again Johann!” The reality was a little different. The present day interest of audiences in “old” music is a comparatively new phenomenon. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, audiences were interested only in new music and kept composers busy producing new pieces for their next performance. ~ Robert Weisberg, Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius Bach spent his career as an employee, composing music to order on a punishing schedule. One such appointment was as Cantor of St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig, a prestigious but demanding role, where he produced a cantata (a musical setting for sacred texts) every week of the year and extra ones for holidays — a total of 60 every year. He held that position for five years. Bach spent several decades writing an average of 20 pages of finished music a day. Tyler Cowen points out that it would be hard for an experienced copyist to match this rate of production. In other words, it would be difficult to just copy out that much sheet music accurately, never mind composing it. Yet far from being a hindrance to the great composer, this kind of productivity was actually an advantage. In Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius , Robert Weisberg discusses statistical research into the proportion of masterpieces to minor works among great and not-so-great composers. The researchers concluded that the rate of hits to misses was pretty constant between major and minor composers. The truly great composers produce more masterpieces than the others, mainly because they produced more work overall . What distinguished them was not effortless genius or leisurely perfectionism , but relentless productivity. Bach wrote more than 1,000 musical works in his lifetime. We don’t accord them all the same reverence, but we should be grateful for every single one he wrote — because if he had cranked out fewer journeyman pieces, we’d have fewer masterpieces to enjoy. We also wouldn’t have a handy role model from whom to garner some essential tips for producing masterpieces. Here are seven lessons you can learn from Bach, to keep your content marketing from being tossed aside like used chip wrappers. 1. Aim high Bach was a hired musician, but he approached his work as an artist. He knew that the best job security — and chance of immortality — came from having the highest standards. Don’t think of yourself as a “blogger.” Think of yourself as a writer. And an artist. Write articles, not blog posts. Never think “Well, I’ve been serving up good stuff for a couple of years now, surely my audience will cut me some slack this week.” Write the very best you can, every time. 2. Get into productive habits 20 pages of music a day didn’t write itself. Bach didn’t have the benefit of systems like Getting Things Done and fancy tools like 37 Signals or Remember the Milk. But he obviously had a powerhouse approach to productivity. Writing consistently well requires quality writing time. Make sure you’re spending the most productive time of your day on your writing. That means getting into a daily and weekly routine that supports this. It also means having productivity systems in place that take care of all the day-to-day tasks, so that it’s easy to forget them during your writing time, and focus 100% on your work. 3. Create content strategically Bach wasn’t an entrepreneur or a business owner, but he was very focused on achieving his career goals, financial as well as artistic. He wrote with his patrons and his reputation in mind, just as much as the listeners in the church pews. He knew where he was headed — and what he needed to do to get there. When every article you write fits into the big picture of what your blog is about, and takes you one step nearer your long-term goals, then it’s easier to accept that that particular article won’t be in the limelight for long. This means taking time out to (re-)evaluate the strategic direction of your business, and making sure everything you write for your blog is aligned with that. 4. Write material that’s strong enough to endure The St Matthew Passion and Brandenburg Concertos are the ultimate cornerstone content . Bach wrote to a weekly schedule — but with his eye on immortality. There’s a (brief) time and a place for newsy, topical pieces, but if that’s all you’re writing, you’re producing nothing but digital chip wrappers. Write articles that will be valuable, searchable and relevant five or even ten years from now. That way your blog will continually grow in value over time. It also makes your job as a writer easier, since you can keep linking back to earlier pieces and reintroducing them to your readers. 5. Rework your themes Musicologist Norman Carrell has conducted a painstaking analysis of Bach’s compositions, and concluded that more than 200 of his non-vocal works contain borrowings from his own earlier works; and 65% of his cantatas contain similar borrowings from his earlier choral works. Clearly, he didn’t mind repeating himself — with variation . Make a virtue of the fact that not everyone in your audience has read everything you’ve ever written. After you’ve been blogging for a while, look back at your archives and ask yourself what themes are right for revisiting. Chances are your thinking will have changed a little since you wrote those early pieces. You won’t be regurgitating, but revising and extending your ideas. You can also link to those posts, which will both boost your traffic and give your new readers a chance to enjoy your previous work. 6. Riff on other people’s themes Carrell’s analysis found borrowings from other composers in 80 of Bach’s nonvocal works, and melodies from Lutheran hymns in more than 200 of his cantatas. This would certainly not have been considered plagiarism, since it was accepted practice for composers to compose variations on themes from past and present composers. Blogging thrives on cross-linking and cross-fertilization of ideas. It’s one big conversation, right? Other bloggers love it if you pick up one of their themes and riff on it, offering complementary thoughts that extend them in a new direction. You’ll also get the side benefit of seeing other people link to your own best blog posts . Make your feed reader your Muse from time to time. Just don’t forget to link! 7. Repurpose your blog content When he sat down with his quill and paper, Bach could never have dreamed of lavish CD box sets stacked up in music stores, or of people downloading his sonatas from iTunes and listening to them on their morning commute. A great way to repurpose your content within your blog is to create cornerstone pages . But don’t stop there — blog articles can become the basis of e-books, books, videos, podcasts, live seminars and e-learning programs. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have paid me good money to tell them things in person that are available for free on my blog. Each time you change the format of your ideas, you make them fresh and relevant for a new audience. Remember why you’re doing this The historical record shows that Bach was very focused on earning money and building his reputation. But I defy anyone to listen to his work and tell me that he didn’t love music for its own sake, or that once he sat down to write and got into the flow, he wasn’t transported into another dimension. Goals are important, but set them aside for a moment. Forget about “why you’re blogging” in terms of outcomes, and focus on why you chose blogging writing as a means to achieve your goals. Surely it was because you love to write , and the idea of writing for a living is a dream come true? Well if that’s the case, remember how lucky you are to have this opportunity to do what you love, today. Make the most of it. About the Author: Mark McGuinness helps artists, entrepreneurs and other creative people achieve remarkable things at Lateral Action and Wishful Thinking . For bite-sized inspiration, follow Mark on @markmcguinness Twitter.

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The 7 Essential Steps to Creating Your Content Masterpiece

When to Stop Drinking from the Information Fire Hydrant

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I’ve been working with people and helping them figure out their personality styles for years, but I’m brand-new to blogging. So I did the logical thing and started researching. How to write an interesting post , how to target my audience , how to find my writing voice . If you’ve ever thought about trying a brand-new endeavor — like starting a business or a blog — you’ve probably done something similar. Problem is, there’s so much information out there, you can start to feel like you’re drowning. I wasn’t trying to slowly sip from a thin trickle of information about blogging and marketing. I was trying to drink from a fire hydrant. And I was getting sopping wet. I wasn’t really swallowing a single drop of information. Instead it was just piling up all around me, making me feel frustrated, uncertain, foolish, and pretty damp. That’s when I brought my knowledge of personality types to bear on this problem. How could I figure out how to drink from the fire hydrant in a way that actually quenched my thirst for knowledge? And when did I need to just step away from the flow and dry out? How we take in and use information There are literally thousands of personality profiling tools and methods, but I’m going to take just a slice of one of them to show two common ways people take in and use information. Then we’ll go through some techniques each of those personality types can use to figure out when to keep drinking from the fire hydrant, and when it’s time to take a break . Data gatherers Data gatherers have an insatiable desire for new information and a seemingly unlimited capacity to take more on board. For them, the more data there is to take in, the better. The internet is nirvana for data gatherers — a limitless expanse of information on any possible topic to be explored. They’re in their personal utopia. Data gatherers definitely intend to take action on their information, but they don’t rush into it. They’d rather gather up all the data on any topic to make sure they haven’t missed anything before they start, and they’re always hoping to sop up some more. The potential pitfall for data gatherers is disorganization. They have so much information stockpiled that it isn’t organized in any logical way, so they have a hard time figuring out how to take action when they’re ready. While they don’t feel overwhelmed, they certainly don’t feel ready to put that information to use. If this sounds like you, watch out for these problems: Not knowing when to take action. While the allure of new information is compelling, seeking out that latest article can be just one more form of procrastination that keeps you from accomplishing your real goal. Every now and then, stop and assess the information you already have. Do you have enough to move forward right now? If you do, go for it. If you don’t, only research the areas that you don’t have enough data for yet. Not sorting your current information. You have huge piles of data, bookmarks for informative pages online, and lots of reference books — but you can’t find anything. Take the time to organize your data based on the actual goal you have in mind. Start from the beginning and find the information that helps you accomplish your first task, and keep a file for it. Then move on to the next step, and the next. That way you can actually use your information, instead of just collecting it. Data assessors Where data gatherers collect information for its own sake, data assessors only collect information that can be used in some way. Data assessors want to drink from the fire hydrant, but only if they’re thirsty. They like to sort and organize data as it comes in, so they know exactly what pieces they already have in place and where there are still gaps in their knowledge. Data assessors are quick to make decisions and use the data they’ve collected for a purpose, and they usually don’t bother to keep stockpiling information once they have what they need. Sure, they might miss out on a juicy piece of information, but the one they already have serves their purposes, so why sweat it? Data assessors never suffer from confusion about how to put their information to use, but they do often feel overwhelmed with information overload . For them, the internet feels like a massive abyss. When they get too much data in at once, they don’t have the time to figure out where each piece goes. They get immobilized, because new information keeps coming before they’re ready for it. If you’re a data assessor, you need to know: When to stop taking in information. If you’re getting soaked by the torrent of information online, it’s time to get out and dry off. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed, take a break and assess what you already know. When you discover specific missing pieces of information you know you need, you can hop back into the water knowing just which drops you need to accomplish your goals. When to keep taking in information. Data assessors often feel overwhelmed by all the information out there, so it’s tempted to say “Stop! Too much!” Sometimes, though, you really don’t have enough — you just don’t want to face the gushing river again. Be honest with yourself about whether you’ve really mastered a topic. If you need to know more, hold your breath and dive in again. You can hop out as soon as you’ve gotten what you need. It’s hard to strike the balance of knowing when you need more and when you need to turn off the hydrant to catch your breath. But it’s worth it to start putting that data to use in smarter ways. How about you — are you a gatherer or an assessor? Do ever you have a hard time figuring out when to stop drinking from the information hydrant? Let us know how you’ve dealt with it in the comments. About the Author: Jill Chivers still has the learner plates on her blog I’m Listening , but she’s moving along as fast as she can between rest stops . Looking for a resource that will give you the most important information on marketing your online business, without glutting you with a torrent you don’t need? Subscribe to Copyblogger’s Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter. It’s free, and we’ll give you what you need without overwhelming you.

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When to Stop Drinking from the Information Fire Hydrant