Author: Carol Barash / Source: Entrepreneur I dart around the Internet, mindlessly searching. I attach to things that are familiar, almos
I dart around the Internet, mindlessly searching. I attach to things that are familiar, almost on autopilot. And then… a shiny, new idea or object catches my attention for a brief second. As a business owner, that’s the moment you need to generate and repeat, again and again, to connect with customers and win their trust and loyalty.
Great writers and business leaders create this environment of attraction through storytelling, the human brain’s most primitive and powerful form of communication. How do they do it? And how can you tap into their secrets to make your online content and social media continuously sticky and memorable?
1. Draw the reader in quickly with action and surprise.
Focus on the headline and first 10 words. Make it a game; make some new thing happen in six words or less. Use quirky verbs, surprising examples, uncanny twists. Seth Godin is the master of this. “Short order cooks rarely make things happen,” one recent headline proclaimed, with the subhead “How far does your agenda extend?” Or take Mr. Money Mustache, who almost always begins with a story: “It was a beautiful evening, and I was enjoying one of my giant homebrews on a deckchair I’d placed in the middle of the street…” You keep reading to make sure he doesn’t get run over!
There is a shift toward long-form content on sites like Medium and LinkedIn. Content marketers have coined the phrase “10x content” for social content that delivers radically new ways of thinking and solving problems. But even the best content is…
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