In this episode Gareth Alvarez, Head of Content at Social INK, shares a quick trick to improve your content. This applies to any business that shares blogs, articles, emails, and even video content.
Listen on to hear about how asking questions will improve your content and what questions to ask. It’s all about putting on the mindset of a journalist and making sure you hook people in with the most important information, as soon as possible.
In today’s marketing landscape, every business is a publisher. You’re not only competing with businesses in your own industry, you’re also competing for attention with every other business out there. The most valuable resource you can gain is ATTENTION. Asking the right questions will make sure you keep it.
Hope you enjoy the episode. Please rate and review, and find us @AllAboutDigMar on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to share your thoughts.
Show Notes
- Where the question approach comes from [01:21]
- Why questions are key to improving content [01:59]
- What are the key questions? [03:09]
- How to use the questions in combination [04:43]
Stuff We Mentioned
Transcript
13 – Questions as Writing Prompts.mp3
Introduction [00:00:02] Welcome to the All About Digital Marketing podcast. The show all about digital marketing. Brought to you by Social INK, the digital marketing agency specialising in social media and content marketing for brave brands and forward thinking SMEs. I’m your host, Chris Bruno, and as always we’re here to bring you the most actionable tips, tricks, tools, and insights to help you achieve MORE when it comes to your digital marketing. You can find all the show notes and all the episodes on www.AllAboutDigitalMarketing.co.uk. If you enjoy the show, feel free to subscribe. And of course, share with a friend who you think might find this useful.
Chris Bruno [00:00:54] Hey everybody. Chris here. Today Gareth Alvarez, Head of content at Social INK is sharing why we should use questions as a useful way to help us with our writing. Whether you’re about to start a blog, whether you already have a blog, whether you update it regularly, whether you don’t update it as much as you should or even if you just feel like your writing is missing a little something extra. You’ll want to check out this episode. Enjoy.
Gareth Alvarez [00:01:21] Hey everyone. I’m Gareth, Head of Content, at Social INK. And welcome to another episode of the all about digital marketing podcast. The podcast dedicated to insight, news, hints and tips to help you improve your all around digital marketing game. Today I’ll be talking about questions and how you can use questions as a writing prompt to help you get started on your next blog or article. This is a technique I use regularly for both Social INK and client content. It’s derived from the journalistic approach to writing news stories. That’s using the five W’s and H.
Gareth Alvarez [00:01:59] Questions are a great way to engage your reader from the very beginning. It’s a good way of signposting what’s to come later on in the article and an easy way to present all the most salient points, the useful information, straight to the start. So that if they’re not interested in reading the whole article at least once they’ve left your blog they’ll have taken something of value away with them. So you kind of give them the highlights, the immediate answers, something that they can take away. If they’re not interested in reading the article. They’ve taken something of value. However you may find that by asking questions at the beginning and giving a slight indication of what the answers might be. They find an interest in reading the rest of the article and continue to read what what you’ve written and therefore develop their response to those questions. So questions are a great way of either drawing people in to read your entire blog or article or at least giving them something quick that they can take away if they need to move on somewhere else. So what are the five W’s and H.
Gareth Alvarez [00:03:09] These are the who. The what, the where, the when, the why, and the how.
Gareth Alvarez [00:03:19] Now these five W’s in each these six writing prompts are a great way to act as a catalyst for writing, to stimulate your writing, but also to track your writing as you’re going through your articles or blogs. So let boil these down and simplify them for you.
Gareth Alvarez [00:03:39] Who. If you start with who you’re looking at who is the article about? Who is involved? Who is this piece for? Address this early on so that they know whether that piece that you’ve written is relevant.
Gareth Alvarez [00:03:55] Next move on to the what. What is the topic? What are you talking about? What are you trying to explain in your blog? Again signpost this early on so that people can either continue to read or if needs be, move on.
Gareth Alvarez [00:04:12] Where. Where can they find more information? Or if you’re writing about an event where will it happen or where has it happened or did it happen? Okay so this is another prompt that you can use early on. Again to signpost details that they can find out, further down in the article.
Gareth Alvarez [00:04:32] Again related to where is when. When is it happening? If it’s related to an event if it’s related to something that’s happening or has happened. When. When did it occur.
Gareth Alvarez [00:04:43] And the final W is the why. Why is it of use? Why should they read? What are the pain points that this article, this blog is addressing. And why is it important to your reader. So those are your five W’s. They kind of give you the immediate insight that you need for for any reader to either establish whether they have taken enough from this opening paragraph. This opening section. Or whether they’re interested in finding out more from the rest of your article.
Gareth Alvarez [00:05:15] What follows then is the how. How can they take action. How can they learn more. How can they do something with the insight you’ve shared. So by using the five W’s and an H early on and throughout your piece you are signposting and guiding your reader through your content and addressing their questions, their needs, and giving them something of value.
[00:05:39] Hope you found this nugget of information useful to you. Hope it helps you with your writing in future. Be sure to let us know how it’s going. Email podcast@christopherb270.sg-host.com and let us know how you’re getting on with our hints and tips. Make sure that you rate and review the show. It helps us keep providing more of the content that you want and enjoy. And don’t forget to follow us on social media for the latest updates and snippets from the show. Just look for @AllAboutDigMar on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It’s that easy. You can also subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive extras. Just head over to the show’s website AllAboutDigitalMarketing.co.uk and let us know your name and email address. The newsletter will be full of extra tips tricks links and insights to help drive your digital marketing success. That’s all for this episode of the All About Digital Marketing podcast. Hope you enjoyed the show. Thanks again for listening. Catch you next time.
Chris Bruno [00:06:42] Thanks for listening. We hope you’re enjoying the All About Digital Marketing podcast brought to you by Social INK, the distributed digital marketing agency specialising in social media marketing and content marketing for brave brands and forward thinking SMEs.
Chris Bruno [00:06:57] When it comes to your social media marketing we understand that not all businesses are ready to work with an agency. The resources and the budgets required don’t always fit into an SME’s plan. If this is the case for you we have some great news. We’ve recently developed a social media coaching platform that gives you access to an agency team at a fraction of the cost. Tired of not getting results from your social media efforts? Now’s the time to do something about it. Find out more on our website. www.PostLikeShare.com.
Chris Bruno [00:07:30] We look forward to seeing you there.
Music by Hani Koi from Fugue
