Is your content newsworthy?

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Feb 11, 2022 / by
Is your content newsworthy?

Relevance is a double-edged sword when it comes to content, particularly if you’re thinking about SEO. On one hand, content that’s relevant and newsworthy might produce incredible results for a few days but once that relevance has waned the content which was once pure gold can start to feel a little more like coal.

The obvious foil for newsworthy content is evergreen content – the kind of content that will always be relevant regardless of changing trends. But evergreen content is not always going to bring in the big clicks. With that in mind, here are the considerations you’ll want to be making when creating genuinely newsworthy content for your brand.

Data

The modern world is run on data. It is everything. Utilising data is perhaps the most obvious way to ensure that your content is relevant. This can mean scanning internal data that might be relevant (something many companies overlook). For example, perhaps you have an email list of followers that you can survey to get unique information?

Public data is also very important and can be used to ascertain what’s trending by using different datasets from different sources. Of course, note that not all public data is going to be fair use. If in doubt, social media is always a solid source of content that’s generally open source. Social media surveys are always a good way to gauge what people are talking about and it’s usually free.

Emotion

People are emotional creatures and will respond to content that grips them and makes them feel something. By creating content that focuses on the consumer, you can draw them in. Your headline is crucial here. For example, if you were creating content based on designing a portfolio then the headline “Why your portfolio might not be working for you” will be innately more newsworthy than “5 ways to spruce up your portfolio.”

Of course, there are so many different emotions to tug at. Surprise, joy, anger and fear are all powerful emotions that can be manipulated but should be done so carefully. Because people don’t like it when they know their emotions are being manipulated. Focus on the new, the unexpected and the exciting first and only reach into the more negative emotions if you have to.

Impact

Whenever a writer sits down to write just about anything, the first thought that runs through their mind is “how will this impact my readers?” Before starting any fresh piece of content, run it through your mind and figure out how exactly it will affect those that it’s being targeted towards.

Impact establishes the importance of the content and who should care about it. When it comes to the news stories, this is particularly important. Human interest storytelling is one reliable way to make an impact on your audience. It makes you feel authentic and builds a connection. Because people are always going to be interested in other people.

Value

Ask yourself why the content you’re creating matters to the target audience. If it doesn’t matter to them then why should it even exist in the first place? Journalists are trained to find a compelling reason to make people take time out of their day to invest in a story.

For content creators, journalistic tropes might not always work (especially if they are working from an SEO angle) but the broad strokes remain the same: Offer your audience something they actually want and will actually use. Solve that problem and you’ll always have access to newsworthy content.