Meaningful and newsworthy content has always been the way to go if you want an increase in your number of readers that are also engaged and active. Your website, regardless of the topic it focuses on, will benefit greatly from long-form content that is relevant, true, and thoroughly researched. In this article, we will be talking about some of the best ways in which you can create newsworthy content for your site. Also, we will be diving deeper into what this type of content should bring to the audience.
Data Research and Surveys are the Best Starting Point
Probably the best starting point when it comes to creating high-quality content is data research. Given the fact that most websites do not have reporters on the field or entire newsrooms to extract data from, a thorough round of research on the subject that you wish to cover is the best approach. Digging deep and investigating the most recent events can be done in a multitude of ways.
Public and Internal Data
The first step in this direction would be to see whether or not you actually have some valuable internal data that you can get out there into the world. Search through your company’s internal data and see if you have relevant e-mail lists or news pieces that you can use for your content. Also, make sure that you have permission to do that.
Public data is the next step for creating newsworthy content. Start by researching datasets from various legitimate sources. You can also combine the information that you’re finding in such a way that your audience will become interested in your content. Make sure to only extract public data from credible sources, like trustworthy and famous publications, websites, or even the government.
You Can Also Collect Data
In case you find no possible way to obtain the data that you need, whether because it doesn’t exist or you don’t have access to it, surveys are a good option. If you can ask yourself a certain question that you would be eager to provide an answer to, why wouldn’t your audience have the same reaction? You can create surveys on all social media platforms and this could give you a more in-depth look at what people think. This is a very valuable type of data that is definitely real, organic, and useful for your newsworthy content.
Work with People’s Feelings
Another extremely important part of any newsworthy piece of content is how it affects the readers emotionally. What does it trigger in them? Working with people’s feelings when creating meaningful content is what makes it qualitative. In this case, how you write the headlines matters a lot because it’s the first thing that people read. This has the greatest impact and makes people scratch their heads.
One of the best tips when it comes to creating good headlines is to avoid generalizations. Go straight to the point and make people ask themselves questions. A title like: “Did you know that AI might take over 40% of human jobs soon?” will make people not only interested but quite a bit concerned too. This is the emotion that you’ve been looking for!
It’s also interesting to mention that a lot of high-quality content pieces focus on the surprise factor because it is the easiest way to evoke a feeling. Like the aforementioned headline, stumbling upon an article that tells you something you had no idea about before makes you feel curious. This is what newsworthy content means. Moreover, this surprise factor also allows the writer to focus on the most important parts of the article. This happens because they now know precisely which ideas spark feelings and can develop them further for even more emotion.
Make Your Content Impactful
Newsworthy content should always have an impact on your audience. Bland and empty pieces have no place here and simply do nothing to increase your status and the quality of your overall content. So, bearing this in mind, a thoroughly researched written piece should have an impact on the reader. Regardless of whether that impact is positive or negative, it should make the cogs in people’s brains rotate faster than usual.
The headline example above could have a really strong impact on how some people deal with the job they have. It might make some readers consider changing their job before AI takes over that particular industry. It could also spark debates among people who have different views on the topic of AI and there you have it. That is impact!
The media industry absolutely loves impactful content because it triggers discussions and gets the word going. However, this should not mean writing fake or exaggerated pieces just for the sake of them being shocking. Always keep your content relevant to your target audience, true, easy to comprehend, accessible, and always do your research beforehand.
Make Sure that Your Content Helps the Audience
Any qualitative piece of content should be helpful for the readers in one way or another. Any content should be useful and it should bring valuable information to the table. So, let’s say blog posts that are written just for the sake of it are not serviceable at all. The key to this type of content is to take something practical and turn it into written pieces that can actually help the people. A topic that interests large masses of people can be turned into serviceable content by providing useful information, questions, answers, and researched data about the said topic.
Keep in mind that by doing all of the above, including triggering emotions inside the readers, any written content becomes newsworthy and relevant.
People are More Interested in Localized Content
This is probably one of the most important tips if you want your content to appeal more to people and to get them emotionally involved in a certain topic. Doing your research and surveys locally is the best chance of making an impact. People tend to be more invested in stories and news that are happening close to their location. Communities become more united when something that affects them directly is happening. This is the reason why, as a company, you want to create localized newsworthy content.
You can make people become more engaged in a story like the one that was mentioned above concerning Ai replacing human jobs in the future if you do your research within a community. Ask local professionals about what they think. Do local surveys and find out what the people have to say about this topic. Once this part of the research is done, your job becomes a lot easier. Your audience will react a lot more vigorously to localized newsworthy content because it affects them directly. Also, these people will always prove more interested in a subject that is taking place nearby or directly affects their community.
Take Advantage of the Current Context
Last but not least, taking advantage of the current context of the world is one of the best things that you can do for newsworthy content. Considering that only news reporters and outlets can actually break news, what remains is for companies to create content based on that news.
So, a very good idea would be to research the hottest topics that are of wide interest and write according to that. Do consistent research and look at a certain event from multiple points of view. In these cases, it’s important to get the general vibe of what is happening and build around that. In a way, it’s like finding a niche for a general topic of interest and expanding on that so that it can reach more people. This approach also represents a good way of always finding new topics to talk about, even if they are connected to the same context. It keeps your content fresh, interesting, and definitely newsworthy.
Conclusion
All in all, the aforementioned tips on how to create newsworthy and meaningful content represent the core structure of good writing. These steps should always be taken when creating content that you want to be appealing, high-quality, and trustworthy. From thorough research and emotional impact to high-value writing, localization, and contextualization, it’s important to take this type of content seriously and to use it to inform and help the audience. Regardless of the topic it talks about, staying truthful and providing valuable information is the golden rule of good content creation.
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