Thursday, July 23, 2015

11 Disney-Themed Ways to Create Blogs People Want to Read

 

Photo Credit: Adikos via flickr (CC BY 2.0)
 
If you could make your blog as popular as a Disney (or Pixar) movie, wouldn’t you want to? Even if you are one of the rare few who doesn’t like animated kids movies, you have to admit…that company knows what they are doing.

While I cannot promise you that using the following Disney tips will get you Disney-level success, I will say that if you use Disney lessons to fuel your blog, it will end up being a whole lot more popular.

11 Ways ‘Disney-Fing’ Your Blog Can Help

Disney can teach you a lot about creating a great blog. Here are 11 different lessons to get you started. And, yes—they are in chronological order.

1. Be Snow White (Make Yourself the Best).
When Snow White’s evil stepmother found out Snow was the fairest of them all, she didn’t try to fix herself, she tried to get rid of her rival. Spoiler alert: it did not work so well for her.
If you are falling behind your competition in the blogging arena, don’t try to point out what is wrong with the others. Instead, make yourself better.

All you can do is improve yourself. So while you should keep an eye on others in your industry, ultimately, work on making yours the best it can be.

2. Don’t Play Pinocchio (Be Trustworthy).
Whenever Pinocchio lied, people knew. Plus, he looked rather silly with that really long nose.
When you are factually inaccurate, make claims you cannot stand by, or don’t back up your writing with proof, you look just as silly. You aren’t going to fool your audience just by saying the things you want them to believe. So don’t try.

Be a trustworthy source of content. If you become a thought leader that people rely on to get the information they need, they are going to start going to you (and telling others to go to you) for that information.

3. 1 Cinderella Beats 2 Evil Stepsisters (Quality Beats Quantity).
Cinderella was outnumbered in the race for Prince Charming’s heart. She had two evil stepsisters fighting for her man yet somehow she still beat them all out. How? By being the person the most worth loving.

When it comes to your blog, you want to have a lot of content. However, if that content isn’t quality content, then nobody is going to love it. Make your blog the Cinderella of blogs: quality trumps quantity every single time.

4. Create Alice in Wonderlands (Make Them Want More).
Why did Alice follow that rabbit? Why did she eat and drink things just because they had signs on them? Why did she have tea with the Mad Hatter? Because everything about that world made her “curiouser and curiouser.”

If you want readers to keep trekking through your wonderland, then you have to make them curious about what you have to say.
  • Write intriguing headlines and subheadings.
  • Choose interesting topics.
  • Talk about things that can actually add value to their life.

If you intrigue them, they will read what you write.

5. Peter Pan It (Have a Hook).
No good Disney movie is complete without an exciting villain. For Peter Pan, that bad guy was Captain Hook. Imagine the movie (because we are talking about Disney – not books) without him. There would be a lot less in the way of plot and excitement.

In your posts, you also need to have a hook. Instead of a one-handed pirate captain, though, all you have to do is create some unique angle that makes people think about your topic in a way that they never have before.

The Daily Post discusses the various ways to create a unique angle for a story. Figure out who you are and how that relates to your story.

For example, if you are writing about ways to enhance your blog, you can compare it to Disney movies although I think that has been done before.

6. Stay Away from Sleeping Beauties (Don’t Put Them to Sleep).
One prick of a needle, and Sleeping Beauty, plus the whole kingdom, fell asleep until some other guy came along and woke them all back up with a kiss and won Sleeping Beauty’s heart.

Boring writing and topics are just basically giant magical needles. As soon as people read it, they are going to be put to sleep. Not only that, but it could be your competitor that eventually wakes them back up with their interesting take on the same subject and wins readers’ hearts.

Don’t let that happen to you. If you want a successful blog, make sure the things you are writing about are interesting.

7. Learn from the Jungle Book (Be Yourself).
Sometimes, being in someone else’s world is a lot of fun. Ask Mogli. He wanted to stay in the jungle for the rest of his life and pretend he wasn’t human. However, he eventually found a human girl and realized being a human had its perks.

You may find that other topics are more fascinating than your intended topic. And if every once in a while you want to go hang out in the jungle and make a purely entertainment based post, then good for you! However, do not forget who you are.

A good blog does not abandon its nature. It finds ways to get its point out in an appealing way. Your blog can still be on point to its purpose – a financial company’s blog doesn’t have to report on the latest celebrity gossip – and still be interesting.

Entrepreneur gives a list of 21 ways a trade blog can still keep the trade while being interesting, including talking in the first person. But here is a good starting point: all you have to do is think about your audience.
  • What do they need to know?
  • How would they like to learn it?

Now, give it to them.

8. Follow Aladdin’s Genie (Give Them What They Want).
Why did Jafar want Genie so badly? Because genies grant wishes, of course.

If you want people to want you, then you have to become the place that gives them what they want.
This does not mean pander to them. Don’t just write something to write it. However, do answer needs.

Let’s say you are writing an IT blog. Now, let’s say nobody cares anything about historical IT. Everybody, though, wants to learn about what is going to happen in the world of IT 10 years down the road.

What would make a better post – the history of IT or 10 emerging IT trends?

9. Be the Lion King (Don’t Avoid Your Duties).
Simba thought he had killed his dad, aka the king, and so he had to live out the rest of his life in exile. However, eventually he realized he was letting down everybody by not doing his job.

Maybe you had a bad blogging experience. It just was not working for you. So you decided the best choice was just to give up. However, if you do this, you could be hurting yourself and your whole company.

Content is an extremely important part of your marketing efforts. If you ignore it, it won’t go away. It’s just going to be done by your rivals (or a whole bunch of Scars as the case may be.)

When you struggle with your blogging, you have to revaluate, adjust, and keep going. Step up to the plate and become the Blogging King you are destined to be.

10. Embrace Your Toy Story (Get Help).
Woody had always ruled the roost on his own. So when Buzz came in, Woody was jealous. He did everything he could to get rid of the interloper and go back to the way things were. However, over the course of the movie, he realized two things.

  1. Buzz was a great person to have on his side.
  2. Woody needed Buzz to help him make everything alright.

In the world of blogging, you should not be acting on your own. Everybody needs help. And there are many ways to get it, depending on your needs.
  • To avoid errors: You need someone to edit what you write.
  • To come up with topics: You need people to help churn out great ideas.
  • To gain exposure: you can use guest bloggers with bigger followings than you currently have.
  • When you just don’t have time: you can hire someone to do the blog for you.

11. Look Inside Out (Use Emotions).
I’ll avoid saying too much about this one since it is so new and you may not have seen it yet (but go see it). Let’s just say that emotions are important.

In your blog, this is still true. In order to create a successful blog, you need to make your readers feel something. Different emotions are needed under different circumstances. Use a wide variety.
Sometimes you can make them laugh. Sometimes they might cry. At other times, you might want to rile them up so much they have to act (or just to get all the Inside Out emotions on the list, you might also want to scare or disgust them into action).

At the end of the post, you should have made them feel enough about what you said that they want to learn more.

Moves Like Disney (Be a Storyteller)
Walt Disney knew how to get attention with his storytelling ability. He didn’t even have to create stories. Sometimes he just showcased someone else’s work like Hamlet (The Lion King) or any of the Brothers Grimm tales (aka, he was a good content curator).

When creating your blog, use Disney as your example. Figure out ways to tell your story in a style that is going to please and capture your audience.

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