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Piece of Mind
When you write your blog entries give people a piece of your mind not all of it! To talk about blog structure let's just pop back to basics.
What is a blog?
[Insert your favourite socially relevant connective media channel blah here]
In terms of copywriting structure let's consider a blog as a serial - sequential parts published in chronological order without a predetermined conclusion. A blog is like a newspaper column, being most effective when dealing with current issues. An important aim of your blog is to encourage interaction with your readers to get a response and start a conversation.
3D Blogs
Before you rush off to buy the latest VR gear – the 3rd dimension I'm talking about is time. It's an important factor when structuring a blog:
- You want a long-term relationship with your readers
- Timely entries are best
- It takes time to:
- write an effective blog entry
- read a blog entry
- respond effectively to comments
- write an effective blog entry
- Conversations demand their own time
A successful blog requires much time from you and your readers' to generate and sustain a conversation. If you're not talking with people you're only talking at them. Conversations have a life-span so don't cut them short or peddle stale ones well past their shelf-life.
How long should an entry be?
[Stop reading now]
If you subscribe to the conventional wisdom that a blog entry should be 250 words then don't read the rest of this article (check the word count up to the closing ']')!
Does it make sense that there is a prescribed optimum length for a blog entry, no matter the subject, the timing, the audience or what's happening on your blog?
OK, so you might say that the number of words can be flexible, centred around 250 words. But is that even the right way of measuring a blog entries length?
Wouldn't time be a more appropriate measure?
Geek time!
Consider each entry as part of a single continuum. Your blog's continuum isn't the number of words or even the blog itself – it's conversation. Each entry should be perfectly timed to maintain conversation. It's a space-time thing. The length of an entry occupies a space that's defined by time.
Perhaps you'd consider minutes and hours more relevant measures than words and paragraphs? Measuring by time allows you to really harness rhythm, tempo, flow from your words, through an entry and into the whole blog and beyond.
An ear for blogging
Just as in 'An Ear for Copy', you can use rhythm in your blog structure:
- A short, punchy entry at the right time to pique interest, keep a conversation going or turn it in a new direction.
- A long, flowing entry to build a story, to knit strands together, to build-up or wind-down a conversation.
- An 'average' entry to keep momentum going – long enough to be of value and achieve it's aim, short enough to be digestible – just right.
As for the precise structure of each entry? Can you see how many variables there are when you consider your blog as a whole? A blog entry should follow the general advice given in 'Pofint' but there is no miracle formula – it's what sounds right at the time.
So where do we go from here?
Don't be disheartened by me not giving you the ideal structure that fits all blog entries. Could you give me the perfect design template for any occasion? What we're going to do next, considering how far we've travelled along Copy Corner's continuum is to pause, reflect and take stock as I let you into 'The secrets I'm not telling you' in part 11.
