Writing content that captures the trust and influences the mind your ideal client is essential to online success.  This is a magical process that I call creating “social brand authority.”  It leads to referrals, recommendations and sales.

During my journey of creating social brand authority for others, I’ve learned many secrets that have made all the difference in my work.

I’m writing this note to share these secrets with you. Let’s go!

Secret #1: Capture your ideal client’s attention.
You capture your ideal client’s attention when you have a compelling title (aka “headline”). This is the most important part of your content. Why? Because it determines if your blog post or article will get read or not. It also determines whether the link in your social media updates that leads to a blog post will get clicked or ignored.

The key to writing great copy for your articles, blog posts and social media updates is to write the title first.

If you need help getting started, go to a bookstore or library and grab a few issues of magazines that your ideal client loves to read. Invest time writing down the titles of all the cover stories. Revise several of these titles to reflect your areas of expertise.  Once you have a solid list possible titles for your content, use them to inspire your writing.

Secret #2: Connect first; Inform second.
When creating content that you want to influence the actions of your ideal client, remember this … “While content may tell; it’s your stories that will sell.”

Far too many of the lawyers, consultants and coaches who first come to work with UpwardAction create what I call “emotionless content.” By this, I mean content that is filled with great information but does not connect with the reader in a way that makes {him} believe the content they are reading was written with {him} in mind.

If you want your content to be compelling, you’ve got to connect with your ideal client in a way that show that you “get” {her}. This has to happen before you can expect your ideal client to believe your words and trust your advice.

An old adage goes …”people don’t care how much you know until they know how much care.” This is absolutely true.

A great way to show how much you care about your reader (who just may be your ideal client) before showing how much you know, is to use stories, quotes, affirmations and other inspirational messages before launching into substantive information. Think of this as saying “hello” at the start of a conversation.

Secret #3: Use magical words and simple sentence structures.
Your content will be engaging and influential in a way that leads to business, when your ideal clients clearly understand what you are saying and feel compelled to act.

Your ideal client will be blown away by your brilliance when {he} not only understands the points that you make in your writing, but is also able implement your recommendations with success.

While people in your target audience may certainly be impressed by your use of big words and complex sentence structures, this type of writing is unlikely to lead to action. And, only action leads to business.

When writing, keep this in mind … a confused mind never buys.

Magical words are words created by you (or others) that express something about what you represent or the impact of what you do.  And, most importantly, they are words that are fun!

• We can thank Dr. Seuss for the word “nerd.”

• We can thank Beyonce for the word “bootylicious.” (I couldn’t resist, I'm a fan!)

• We can thank unknown magicians for fun words like ginormous and chillax.

• And, thanks to the Simpsons we have the word “cromulent.”

There you have 3 secrets for creating magic when writing articles, blog posts and social media updates.  Here's a bonus secrets to help you maximize Secrets 1, 2 and 3.

BONUS SECRET

Use an editorial calendar to plan your content for at least the quarter and preferably the year.

Creating an editorial calendar works because it establishes a structure for creating and publishing content will allow you to be much more creative, compelling and consistent (for which the combination creates magic) than if you had no structure at all.

Your editorial calendar should be structured enough to keep you focused, yet flexible enough to accommodate changes when you are inspired to do something different. This balance is where your magic lives.

Investing the time necessary to develop an editorial calendar has made all the difference in our business and the businesses of our clients.   I know it will do the same for you.

Now that you know what to do, it’s time for you to build your own social brand authority by getting into action.

Connect with me on Twitter and let me know how it goes!

Love & Light

TC Cooper

This image is courtesy of Darrall Taylor and Flicker.