14 – Everyone’s Favorite Radio Station – Are You Tuned In?
Have you listened to everyone’s favorite radio station?
It’s WII-FM.
WII-FM stands for What’s In It For Me?
When people read your blog and social updates, they don’t care about you (a sad-but-true fact of life).
They want to know, “What’s in it for me?”
Your job is to tap in to what interests your readers and deliver WII-FM content.
Far too many bloggers, podcasters, tweeters, and Facebookers get it backwards. They assume that all they have to do is announce they’ve trimmed their shaggy hair all by themselves, or wiped their kid’s snotty nose, or successfully baked a cheesecake in their Instant Pot, and that fans will want to hang out with them.
That kind of post will momentarily interest some people, but most of us are far more interested in ourselves than we’ll ever be in you.
While it’s fine to share personal stories on your blog, podcast, and on social networks, you’ll discover that your marketing efforts will be much more successful over the long haul if you shift the focus of those stories to meeting your readers’ needs.
Top-ranked blogs focus on:
- Tech toys
- Auto news
- Internet marketing tips
- Travel tips
- Movie news & reviews
- Going green
- Copywriting tips
- Gaming tips, news, and gossip
- How to make money blogging
- Science news
- Stock market news
- Food news
- Political news & commentary
- Celeb gossip
- Guest columnist or interview
- Home design innovations
Notice the terms tips, news, commentary, toys, gossip, reviews, innovations, scandals, and corruption.
The top-ranked blogs are built around a single, tightly-focused topic. The “going green” blog does not address financial scandals and the foodie blog ignores stock market news.
Each blog highlights one specific topic. As a result of doing one thing extremely well, these topical blogs have become the go-to source of information about their subject area.
The top blogs are reader-focused. They imply visitors will learn something specific about the topic that will make them happier, healthier, or wealthier.
Even the blogs that focus on gossip, scandals, and corruption offer juicy water cooler fodder with the intent of entertaining visitors. In geek-speak, this is called meeting a felt need or providing take-away value.
Double-Shot, Massive-Action Step
Create one piece of WII-FM content this week.
3 questions to help you create WII-FM content:
- What challenge is my reader facing right now that I can help them overcome?
- What worries keeps my reader up at night that I can help assuage?
- What does my reader need to know about my topic or niche that I can teach them?
Get out there and give ’em WII-FM.
How to Keep Up With the Show
Click here to join my my email list and I’ll notify you about every episode. (When you subscribe, you’ll also get my free guide, Essential Resources for Running a Writing Business.)
Join The Professional Writer Podcast Community (private Facebook group), where we discuss what we’re learning, meet our guests, and encourage one another on our writing journeys.
If you know a writer who would be interested in The Professional Writer Podcast, please share this link with them:
https://bloggingbistro.com/podcast
Thank you!
Laura